Are We In Mexico

Sunday 28 October 2018

On our 3 week itinerary today was headed CHILL DAY.  We have learned from experience that after travelling for about 2 weeks straight we need to factor in one day where we don’t have to be anywhere or do anything in particular.  Last year we did 3 weeks around UK and Scotland without a rest day and Jenny spent the entire time with the ‘flu having no time to properly fight it.  This time, our down day coincided nicely with Larry’s cold not getting any better so this morning Jenny made use of our host’s washing machine/dryer whilst Larry Ubered to a nearby medical centre.  

It turns out he has the beginning of a chest infection so just as well to get on the antibiotics now.  Larry said the whole experience was so different from an Australian GP with them whisking him into a mask the moment he walked in the door, the nurse taking him off to a back room and giving him the third degree and asking 100 questions and was annoyed when he didn’t know his weight in pounds!  Eventually he was ushered in to His Highest Honour the Doctor who was a  grumpy bastard and eventually gave him a prescription.   We have travel insurance which should cover the bill.  Larry then Ubered on and  back to the zoo to swap the T shirts he bought yesterday for a larger size.  We had stupidly though that a medium would be a large and large would be super large given the large size of the majority of the population but a medium proved to be too small for Larry and beautifully accentuated his travel curves.

Larry eventually got back to the BnB in time to help fold the washing.  Jenny had enjoyed having a quiet morning (literally quiet as no constant coughing!) and had finished her book as well as tending the laundry but was ready for an outing and some lunch.  We walked back into Downtown and found a pharmacy to fill Larry’s script but of course it wasn’t just a pharmacy but a whole supermarket so we bought some supplies to make our own dinner again tonight and walked on into the Gaslamp district.  Here we found a Thai restaurant which beckoned to us as offering fare other than burgers and chips and we had a very nice lunch of pad thai and also Hawaiian fried rice which was something a bit different (although not very Thai!) with chicken, shrimp, cashew nuts, raisins and roasted pineapple in the rice.  Very tasty.

Continued walking through the town and ended up at the Santa Fe train depot and bought our tickets to Los Angeles for tomorrow.  We decided to spend the extra $19 to go business class as we get food and drinks included and $19 is about what we would normally spend on lunch in any case.  So now we know exactly when and where we need to be tomorrow and won’t have to stress (well Jenny won’t have to!)

We then walked back down to the harbour and, although a couple very kindly offered us one free ticket on a two hour cruise, we politely declined and decided just to catch the much cheaper ferry over to Coronado Island instead.  It is a bit more cloudy and cooler today but it was still very pleasant out on the harbour.  We were interested to see a big cruise ship had come in to harbour since we were down here on Friday and Larry tried to work out when and where it was off to but the San Diego Harbour website was not very user friendly other than to tell us there were currently 300 ships berthed in the harbour!

Jenny had had a vague plan about walking over the famous Coronado Hotel for an afternoon drink but we soon discarded  that idea when we realised it was actually 3 miles away!  Instead we checked out the shops/cafes around the Coronado Ferry landing and, as there was a live jazz band playing under the trees, we opted to sit on the grass with ‘hand scooped’ ice creams to listen and to watch all the different boats on the harbour.  In one square kilometre there was every type of vessel from people on kayaks, dinghys, boats, yachts, a police launch, ferries, ships etc etc.  Lovely just to have a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon watching the world go by.

Eventually we decided to head home and an Uber was there in less than 2 minutes to whisk us up and over the Coronado bridge and back to our little home away from home.  We made Kate’s favourite dinner of packet alfredo but added broccoli and grape tomatoes so we got some veg.  Another cruisy evening watching telly.  Tonight we even found another channel in English!  San Diego sure is heavily influenced by its proximity to Mexico.  At times today we felt like we were already south of the border.  Pretty sure we were about the only people on the Coronado ferry not speaking Spanish!