In San Diego we decided to take the hop on, hop off trolley around town. We both find this endlessly amusing b/c the very same type of trolleys are the ones that drive by our house all day, every day in Philly.
Our first stop was Coronado Island.
You can see the 'gold' in the sand in this picture.
Another beautiful place. DH convinced me to go stand in the ocean (my first time in the pacific) so he could take a picture. It was absolutely FREEZING and my pants got soaked, but it was a sunny day and they dried fast.
We had lunch (including these lovely margaritas) there in this really cool inside/outside mexican restaurant. I love that about California, everything is inside/outside. Can you imagine that in the Northeast??
We are both thoroughly confused by the pedestrian crossing lights. Being used to city traffic, we feel like we should have a relatively easy time figuring out how to use these things and follow the directionals, but they are so delayed that we are ending up jaywalking constantly b/c we can't figure out when it is EVER going to be our turn - and why can't we just go anyway? I'm sure the locals mutter 'tourists' under their breath when they see us do it...
Anyway, Coronado was beautiful. We spent some time wandering around the residential streets smelling the roses (literally) and being awed by the gorgeousness of the flowers and the fact that geraniums can be 5 feet tall EVER.
We also went to Old Town. I'm honestly not sure if there is actually anything old there or if it's just a conglomeration of tourist trap type shops all put together in one place. You know, the kind of place that the city tells the tourists is a good place to go and then they go and buy things and support the local economy and it turns into a destination and so on. If there was any history there we didn't manage to find it amidst the chaos, which is rather sad.
We enjoyed the hop on, hop off trolley, it's a good way to see a city and get a general idea of the history and interesting places - its one major flaw is that it's filled with tourists! I know, I know, we're tourists here - but when you live in a place that is constantly filled with tourists, you start to harbor a dislike for their loud, often rude, confused, often inconsiderate, picture taking, souvenir buying ways. To be clear, I have no issue with polite, considerate tourists - I welcome them always...but those don't seem to be the ones I tend to run into on a daily basis at home.
And now we are off for another day of touristy adventures in San Diego!
