Mission Beach Pier - San Diego

After a few days exploring San Francisco - we jumped on a plane to San Diego!   We again navigated the public transit to get to our  VERY reasonably priced hotel and settle in.  This one came with a microwave and mini-fridge, cha-ching!  We quickly ran over to Target next door to stock up on microwave dinners and sandwich supplies to save a few bucks while on our day trips!  Nothing like a cheap picnic!

Paul on the Boardwalk - Mission Beach

That evening we took the bus down to Mission Beach to walk along the boardwalk.  Beaches are so deceiving, before we knew it, we were 2 miles away  from our starting point and out on a pier somewhere!  It was a nice relaxing walk and beautiful sunset.  There are town homes and condos lining the boardwalk with a mix of families and spring breakers - I can't imagine how fun it would be to spend a week in a condo right on the beach like that... hmm, future vacation??

Thursday, we decided to take a long public transit adventure to the Torrey Pines State Park.  We were both surprised that this was accessible by bus - so we capitalized on our $5 ticket and went out for the day.  It was a beautiful day, not to hot, not too cold, but still sunny!  We did some hiking and took a lot of scenic pictures!  What a beautiful place!  Curious Paul also went up to the sand stone to give it a feel and was scolded by the park volunteer - which earned him the nickname of Mr. Sandstone after that...

Paul and I at Razor Point in Torrey Pines State Park!

Torrey Pines

After a long morning of hiking and a quick lunch by the roadside, we took a bus to Little Italy to see the area and grab a bite to eat.  The food was amazing, and it felt nice to get off our feet for a little bit!

Paul and I enjoying our Little Italy Dinner!

Friday was the famous Match Day for fourth year medical students!  I cannot believe it's been a year already!  Paul downloaded some program so he could watch the MS4's at Madison go up to receive their envelopes - it's too bad the audio wasn't working that well, but it was fun to take a trip down memory lane!  Only 6 more years (if I'm lucky) until I match, whew!

One of the many beautiful elephants at the zoo!

Weird animal peeing...

The famous San Diego Zoo Pandas!

After the match ceremonies finished, we took the bus to the San Diego Zoo!  We were so impressed by the size and design of the zoo!  What a fun place!  We took the long walk around the exhibits and also too the chair lift from one side of the zoo to the other to get a bird's eye view.  It was a really fun afternoon, and afterwards we smelt like camel poop.

We took a quick detour across the road to Balboa Park where there are really neat plants and gardens, but by this point we were exhausted so we started making our way back to the hotel to relax for the evening with a book and March Madness basketball for Paul.

 Saturday was our last day in San Diego and we decided to go to the USS Midway, a large air craft carrier that was recently made into a tourist attraction.  Unfortunately it was raining like CRAZY and we were almost blown off the top deck of the carrier!  After getting soaked from head to toe, we continued the tour inside the boat.  It was such an impressive place and a really interesting tour, they did an excellent job restoring the boat.

Soaked and defeated, we picked up our luggage at the hotel and went to the airport to change into dry close and wait for our red eye flight back to Pittsburgh.  We had a wonderful vacation and were sad to hear that while we were away it was 75 and sunny every day back home in the Midwest!  Apparently California had something else in mind for us...  The warmest weather we had was walking back to our car in the Pittsburgh Airport Parking Lot, classic.

In a helicopter on top of the USS Midway!

We had a blast on Spring break, and sadly next year about this time I will be cramming for boards, so I'm glad we were able to fully enjoy this year's vacation!