The bus ride to San Diego went smoothly, but oh so tired I was when I arrived. I couldn't check in earlier, so I had a couple of hours to kill, therefore I went to the movies on the other side of the road and watched The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. So awesome! By the time the movie was finished it was check-in time already. I met a nice Danish girl at the hostel and we decided to go and check out Balboa Park together. We got a bit lost on the way, but found our way there. It was so big and so beautiful. This city really reminds me of Spain in many ways, makes me want to go back to Barcelona.
On Friday me and Natasja (the Danish girl) decided to continue exploring the city together so we went down to the harbor. There we found statues, memorials and great views. Also there's a naval aviation museum, USS Midway, there that we checked out, before taking off on a whale watching tour. We started out the tour and got great views of San Diego Bay and Point Loma. We stalked one whale and saw a bunch of dolphins too. I don't have any pictures of them on my phone since they were way too fast. It was a nice weather being out at the sea for a couple of hours, even though it got pretty chilly towards the evening. After this we got a ride by some nice fellow whale watchers to the Old Town of San Diego, where we just walked around a bit and ate some delish Mexican food. After this we shared a cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory on the floor of our hostel room. So good, but way too much chocolate for me (if that's even possible!). It was my first visit to the factory and I do like it, but won't let it become a habit, hehe.
Today (Saturday) we headed out to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (instead of the traditional zoo). There we were wandering around and saw plenty of different animals. We even saw a couple of two week old lion cubs through a glass and they were adorable. I don't know if I actually would recommend the safari park. It was a bit of a disappointment comparing to the money spent. I don't know if it was because it was off-season and there were a lot of construction work going on or because you really don't see the animals that up close. We had walked around the place and had a tram tour around the African savannah in just a couple of hours. Since we still had three hours left until our tour van would come and pick us up, I got the idea that we would hitchhike back to San Diego. And so we did. And no we did not stand on the side of the road with our thumbs out, but just nicely asked about five people if they were heading back to the city or not, until a couple of Asian women agreed on taking us with them. We got dropped off at a good spot and could continue our trip back to our hostel in the Gaslamp Quarter. That area by the way has so many bars and restaurants and more happy hours going on that I can even count. A great place to stay at since it's easy to get practically anywhere from there.
Since we had saved time we figured out how to get to Mission Beach and about 45 mins later we were standing on the beach by the Pacific Ocean just when the sun was setting. I will definitely come back here some day and see that I have enough days to really appreciate the surroundings and take in the atmosphere. San Diego really is awesome and there is so much more to see and explore than the things I had time with.
Tomorrow I will be in San Francisco and meet some of the other exchange students up and spend Christmas with them. Stay tuned!
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