Weekend Getaways..

wan·der·lust/: Noun: A strong desire to travel: "a man consumed by wanderlust".

Quirk. Fun. Travel. Experience. Laughter. Redwoods. Friends. Wilderness. Culture. Wildlife. Passion. Insanity. Health. Stress. Life. Wonder. Once-In-A-Lifetime.

Stay Classy San Diego...

Well hello there! It's now about halfway through November, and all too soon my lil' American adventure will be at an end. But I'm going to end it in true style!

On November 9, I caught a 10am Greyhound bus from Arcata to San Francisco (After a weekend, and a fair few weeknights, full of insane, insane - but really nice - freshmen visitors. House full of 18 year old boys, alcohol flowing like water and the drugs were out and kicking. Lets just say any inkling I may have every had in a dark a disturbed part of my subconscious to try drugs got viciously killed.) So! Back to the story! The seven and a half hour bus ride down to San Fran was not too shabby - not the horror story I had been expecting. There was a bloke who chugged his way through a six-pack of  beer and started smoking on the bus, and there were some hippies playing guitar and singing some bluesy music, but hey, it added character to the trip right?

I got into San Fran at about 6pm, and because daylight savings has ended over here, it was bloody dark! So I then attempted to navigate my way from the Greyhound station to the airport, but Google Maps being Google Maps, sent me in a complete roundabout way. Good ol' Google Maps. Thankfully, Claire being amazing as she is, managed to direct me via text to the Bart train, which would take me to the airport. On another note, public transport in San Fran, is so not tourist friendly! But, I eventually got to the airport, checked in and found a spot to have some dinner and then skype mum and dad. My flight was delayed - surprise surprise - so I had to wait about four hours in the airport, but I eventually got onto my plant at about 11:30pm (plus side here...my ticket had gotten upgraded, woo for more leg room!). The flight was fine, and I arrived in San Diego at about 1:10am. Found a taxi, and he promptly took me to my hostel with no fuss. These guys know their city! Checked in and promptly fell asleep.

Now, the whole reason I went down to San Diego was to attend the American Cetacean Society Conference for my Marine Mammals class. I had bought a ticket for the Saturday sessions, so up I got at 6:45am that morning to get to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where the conference was being held (talk about swanky!). The speakers were absolutely fantastic and I could talk on and on and on about them all, but I wont put you all through that. Safe to say, it was inspiring to hear these amazing people. And the food they fed us was to die for!

View from the Conference 

Conference Poster

After the conference finished, I had the night to myself. The hostel I was staying at had organised a bar crawl for the night, and they were all really excited for me to come...until I told them I was 19. Le sigh. They gave me hugs to make up for my lack of access to alcohol. So I had to make my own, non-drinking involved plans. I went wandering around San Diego; Little Italy, where everything smelled like pasta and pizza; the Gaslamp Quarter, which was so beyond cool, I actually wanted to stab myself, funky bars and clubs everywhere with live music...and I couldn't go in. Stupid drinking age. After that I pretty much managed to walk the entire city. I found the Maritime Museum, which is all these really cool boats tied up at the dock....and a couple of submarines too!   San Diego is a really beautiful city, and not once while I was walking around, by myself, in the middle of the night, did I get harassed.

Maritime Museum

Maritime Museum

Local Church

The next day, I was up early again, ate some waffles (the hostel cooked breakfast and dinner for us...it was amazing!) then off I trotted to the San Diego Zoo! This place is absolutely amazing! And all of you who know me well, know that I'm not a massive fan of animals in captivity, but this place is world-class! I wandered around for half the day, seeing jaguars, mountain lions, elephants, polar bears, pandas and a whole crap load of others. They even had a SkyTram, the place is THAT big...and uphill! Safe to say I loved it! After I was done there, I took a bus and tram and another bus (public transport here is AMAZING, and so pretty...catch up Melbourne!) over to SeaWorld. Now, I have never liked marine parks, but I decided I should actually see something before I judged it. So I went. On the whole, SeaWorld is actually pretty cool; the rides are fun, the place is well laid out most of the enclosures are pretty good. But, I went to the dolphin shows, where they had Bottlenose and Spinner dolphins doing all their trick, even Pilot Whales were included. I also went to the One Ocean show at the end of the day. This show is the Killer Whales. After seeing it all, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth; safe to say, I stand by my judgement, these animals are not meant for captivity. The dolphins were in tanks that I would have said were only at best, 7m deep. The killers were in about the same. These tanks are way too small. There were Beluga whales on display as well, and these whales are like the canaries of the ocean; they do not shut up! But the ones at SeaWorld were silent, it was unnerving. It is not a place I would visit again. But all in all, I had an amazing, if crazy busy day. I went back to the hostel, ate some dinner then watched a movie and went to bed.

San Diego Zoo

San Diego Zoo - Two Headed Snake!

SeaWorld - Blue Horizons Show

One Ocean Show.

The next day, I was leaving, back up to Arcata, and the cold and rain. Sadface. I almost missed my flight, as the bus to the San Diego airport was late, so I got on the plane, 20mins before the plane was scheduled to leave....Oops. Got back into San Fran, and got a text from Claire asking if I wanted a lift back to Arcata, even though I did have a ticket back on the Greyhound. Claire's finally bought a car, wooooooooo! So we drove back together, after getting the car fixed up in San Rafael, losing Claire's phone (which we, a week later got returned), reversed into a pole at Maccas in Willits and obnoxiously sang songs all the way home. It was a good trip, and it was nice to sleep in my own bed!

All in all, I had an absolutely fantastic time in San Diego, I love the city and the weather, and the people; I would definitely go back! And back to the International Traveller's House (the hostel I stayed at); they were all so nice and the place itself was really funky!

But that was my weekend in San Diego!