Rose's conference is over and we spent the afternoon at a local Spanish restaurant enjoying their tapas menu - all our favourites and more. Dessert was Queso con Membrillo or quince on cheese with cream. It was different and proved to be a lovely combination of flavours.
The B&B we're staying in is at the back of a small home in an ordinary working class suburb. I think the apartment was built on top of the old garage but is entirely adequate. Everything works and it is clean. Tonight will be our last night and we intend to head down to the beach just now with a packed lunch (yes, lunch from the conference) for sundowners. We are a bit worried about being allowed to take a bottle of wine along so might decide to stay on our own veranda. You know how being arrested in the US can work out going very badly wrong!
While Rose has been conferencing I have been doing some sight seeing. I used the busses with one slip up but found them to be mostly reliable and good value. At $1.10 per trip quite a bargain as a pensioner instead of $2.25. The demographic on the busses is mostly Hispanic, some African Americans and then homeless Americans. I think I was the only tourist.
My first day was spent at the Old Town which is the USA equivalent of Gold Reef City. The overall feel is old cowboy saloons, stage coaches, blacksmiths and of course plenty of curios. Mostly Mexican type goods although lots of the items were labeled as "Made in China". All the restaurants sell Mexican food so I didn't go down that road.
Yesterday was when I had the bus incident. I asked someone which bus to take to go to the city and ended up at the University of California, San Diego which was OK, but not where I wanted to be. It is a lovely setting for a university all along the coast. Once I had got better directions from a bus driver I ended up in the city about an hour later than I had intended. I went to Balboa Park where a lot of the museums and art galleries are situated. I must admit I was a bit disappointed that 99% of the exhibits were priced way above my comfort zone. I decided to check reviews on Trip Advisor and found that many visitors found the exhibits mediocre. I did enjoy the Timken Family art gallery and the buildings and gardens were lovely. On my walk back to town through a park I was struck by the number of homeless people camping out all over the place. You'd think the richest nation in the world would have a better safety net prepared.
This morning I visited the USS Midway Museum which is an old aircraft carrier docked in San Diego harbour that is open to visitors. I just did the outside tour which told me all I needed to know - it's big, gray and old with lots of jets parked on deck. I found a memorial plaque nearby commemorating soldiers who died in action and found a Burnett listed - we always were quite heroic, luckily not all dead though.
