Pacific Beach

And so the sun sets on our last night in San Diego....

We had a delicious dinner in the hotel last night. The staff are all so friendly and chatty, many are from Europe and have now settled here so it was interesting talking to them. We have a favourite waitress at breakfast who every morning comes to talk to us, even is she is not serving our area, to check what we have been doing and to give us recommendations of places to visit. Generally the people we meet are so friendly, although we have come across a few who were clearly off their heads on something, today we had a young woman pushing an empty pram, who started screaming at us as we got out the car and just carried on having a tirade - not sure what she was saying but I felt slightly threatened by her. 

It’s really easy to drive here on the wide roads, clearly marked and in a very good condition. We have enjoyed the HOV lane on the freeway - only for high occupancy vehicles - so when the five of us were filling the car you can go in that lane and there is less traffic. It’s also convenient being allowed to do U turns on the roads, and being allowed to turn right at a red light stop after checking for oncoming traffic. Traffic laws in the UK are different but then our roads are much narrower.

This morning before breakfast I went for a run which was very enjoyable as it was pleasantly warm weather. After breakfast we dropped Tommy at Adam’s home and the two of them did a long run in the heat to Bird Rock (about 13km) while we drove there. We had coffee at Bird Rock Coffee Roasters which is a well known quality coffee place, it started here in Bird Rock but now has branches all over San Diego. Bird Rock is a very appealing, salubrious suburb, we saw many attractive homes, all differing in architectural style but all equally impressive. From there we went to Mt Soledad which is the highest point in San Diego and the site of the Soledad cross and the Korean War memorial.

Then it was time to return to the hotel to get Tommy's suitcases and for him to depart for the airport. He flies back to Munich and then on to London where he will be working next week. We had some down time at the hotel while Adam went home to catch up on some work, but we picked him up again at 4.30pm and drove south to visit Coronado Island. Once again this was a very attractive area of San Diego with many beautiful houses. It has a long white beach which attracts surfers and swimmers, and today there was a wedding taking place on the beach. From there you get a good view of the San Diego skyline, see extra.

We then headed off to Pacific Beach where we had an early supper at Oscar's Mexican Seafood, it is a casual place where you order a take away which you can eat in. Once again we could not resist the tacos, we had a selection of three, grilled fish, shrimp and octopus tacos and they were all delicious. After that we had a walk on the beach where we watched the sun set. The beach was still busy with people enjoying sitting or walking on the beach, the nearby bars were full of people enjoying themselves, and the surfers were still out in the waves. It is such a fun lifestyle here. 

Our wonderful stay in San Diego has come to an end, as we fly home tomorrow. We have really enjoyed getting to know something of this impressive city, and it has been wonderful to spend time with the boys and especially Adam and see his new home. We can see why he is enjoying living here, it is a beautiful clean city and it's easy to see why people choose to live here.