25th Aug - 30th Aug - San Diego

We have high hopes for San Diego and not just cos LA was so grim. We took the Surfliner Train down to San Diego cos the train line goes down the coast and we hadn´t been on a train in the US so far. The trains are those double decker affairs. It was beautiful, miles and miles of sandy beach and the Pacific Ocean as far as the eye could see glistening in the sun. Another beautiful day with only a few people dotted around sun bathing and surfing. I´m sure more people are on the beach in Saltcoats than here - odd.

Our hotel is right in the downtown area near to everything and everything is near anyway. You don´t have to go five miles just to get to the next shop. Our first day is spent experimenting with luggage. I´ve decided the bag I brought is just not up to the job and eventually find something which just might do.

We have dinner in Little Italy in a very nice restaurant and I don´t just mean cos the waiter was drop dead gorgeous. Mairi and I drooled a lot and giggled everytime he came over to our table which wasn´t enough times for our liking.

For dinner on the second day we were meeting up with Mairis sister (Floridh), boyfriend (Decker), parents (keep up), who live in and are from San Diego. Mairi was nervous as she wanted to give a good impression and I´m on my best behaviour on pain of death!

Diane and John turn out to be lovely and take us to a great Mexican which sells very large Margaritas (much to my liking) - hopefully Mexico will be this good.

Next day Diane picks us up as we arranged to go to the St Peter and the Vatican exhibition on in San Diego in Balboa Park. Balboa Park is a massive area set aside for San Diegans to relax and chill out. There are a couple of meseums, art Galleries, places for concerts and the famous San Diego Zoo.

As I´ve been to the Vatican the extreme wealth on display doesn´t shock me unlike Mairi and Diane who cannot believe this exhibit was only a tiny fraction of whats on display at the Vatican and thats only a fraction of what they have.

Diane took us for lunch to Pacific Beach which is so beautiful - you could really fall in love with this place. Then back up to the house - which was great as for the first time we felt part of a family and not just hanging around hotels.

We went all went to see Farenhight 911 the Michael Moore film about George W Bushs rise to President, we had wanted to see it for ages and so had Diane and John. It was great seeing it in America with the election so close - I thought I knew how corrupt they all were until I saw the film. It´s totally shocking that people like them are running the most powerful nation on the planet and they will probaly re-elect him even after this film. Crazy country.

One thing which was disappointing was the complete lack of reference to Britains involvement in the war. At one point the film has a list of all the countries who sent troups and the list was long even if the number of troups was vry low, but there was no mention of Britain who played a massive part in the war. I wondered if the American peoples love of Tony Blair would give Bush some credibility which the film certainly doesn{t want to do. Lets just hope Kerry can get rid.

On Saturday we went to the Zoo. With my past Animal Rights activities I{ve never been much of a fan of Zoo, although I do recognise that some like San Diego have done amazing jobs in conservation of a lot of different species. So I went with extemeely high hopes. I think I would only really be happy with animals frolicing in the wild and while some of the cages seemed a little small they did make a massive effort with the Pandas. They have a baby panda that would melt anybodies heart (yes even mine!). It was sleeping high up in the branch of a tree and must have been disturbed (no I didn´t throw something) cos if made it´s was down to it´s mother. I would like to say it made it´s was gracefully down to it´s mother but the truth is it slipped and slidded and very ungainly plonked it´s self on it´s mothers head. It was quite funny and I managed to get the whole thing on film.

The place is massive ands it takes us hours to get round all the furry firends and the not so furry ones. There are lots of snakes, iguanas (one I made particular fiends with - sure he looked like an ex-boyfriend), turtles and even gian Galapagos turtles. They are massive and quite scary - ít´ll be amazing seeing them in the wild.

On our last day in San Diego Diane picked us up and took us down to an old steam boat where John was playing the bagpipes at a Scottish Do. It´s really strange all the Scottish stuff that goes on in the world. Then we had a family dinner at Diane and John´s with Diane´s mother, father, sister Gale and her husband Rick. It was a really great way to end our stay in the US in a real friendly family and I even include Rick in that.

Diane and John have been expectiaonally nice to us and I only hope they get as much freindly treatment when they come over to Scotland.