The sound of silence...

Hi all!

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. We've been pretty busy but I'll get right on to it now!

We left LA via Union Station and caught the train to San Diego. For the most part the 2 1/2 hour train journey was pretty uninteresting. However once we got back to the coast it was very pretty and easy to see why southern California is so well known for it's beaches.

We pulled into San Diego's Santa Fa train station on a beautiful spring day, though it was still a lot cooler than either of us expected. We made our way to our (thankfully) central hostel in San Diego's Gaslamp district. This is a really pretty part of a pretty city and if any one is wanting a cheap place to stay the HI Downtown hostel is worth looking up (though our mattress was pretty awful!)

After dumping our bags we started wandering around the shopping areas looking for good deals and clothes suitable for our time in the desert. That ate up our afternoon rather well so we headed back to the hostel for a little rest before heading up to Hillcrest for dinner. This well planned little bus ride turned into an hour long mission when we jumped on the wrong bus first, then another wrong bus which took us onto the freeway and to a rather dark transit center. Luckily it was still quite busy and another bus took us back to where we wanted to be, but it was a little more pre-dinner stress than I was after. (I will always pay more attention to buses that say they will make "limited stops" from now on!)

We finally made it to Baja Betty's where Amanda and I partook in two very large margaritas (we needed them by this point!). I decided to take some advice I'd been given and tried a fish taco, and by the end of the evening was glad that I had. (We didn't risk the bus back you'll be glad to hear.) We were also gifted a rather cute cartoon portrait of the two of us.

The next day we headed of to do a little more shopping, (anyone noticing a theme?) before heading out to Old Town. I had been expecting an older part of San Diego, but just another part of the city. However what we found was an almost theme park styled village harking back to the days when San Diego was a mission and the birth place of California as we now know it. We wandered around here for a few hours looking at the old streets and soaking in some much needed warmth before heading out to SeaWorld.

Unfortunately we got out there an hour before it closed, but after a helpful tip from a security guard found out that if we went to the customer service desk and asked for a "shopper's pass" we could look around the park for an hour and then get a full refund. So we grabbed a map and had a whirl wind trip around the park. We managed to catch the last half of the dolphin show and also got to see the largest otter ever! See the photos for more highlights.

We returned to the Gaslamp and had a leisurely evening, having a not overly good Japanese meal and a really nice chill out at a Boarders book store.

The next morning it was up, packing and then heading off to get our car for our drive into the desert!!

EDIT: Thanks to those who pointed out my misuse of the possessive apostrophe!! Sophie