You Stay Classy San Diego

Trip Start Sep 05, 2009
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14
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Trip End Jul 29, 2010


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Flag of United States  , California,
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

As usual I'm playing catch up, its now Friday 6th Nov and I'm in Hawaii but i will recall some of the past couple of weeks. So the long awaited Contiki tour of the West Coast of California had arrived! We had to meet at the Best Western Hotel in Anaheim at 7am where we loaded onto the coach and set off for San Diego. Lauren (the tour manager) was up on the mike for the first couple of hours explaining what we could expect from the forthcoming couple of weeks and how it was all going to pan out. First impressions of the group were good, the vast majority of the group coming from Australia which was quite strange. There were 50 of us and of that 35 were Aussie, 10 Brits, a Kiwi, a couple of Germans a Swiss girl and a partridge in a pear tree. The first chap i was sat next to was Jeff from Melbourne who is an Olympic 1500M runner and holds the 2nd fastest time ever for Australia! He competed at Beijing and will be at London 2012 (providing he stays fit, hope the snowboarding went ok mate). We arrived in San Diego around 10am i believe and did a harbor cruise which was fun and informative, although people were getting to know each other more than listening to the tour guide who was alittle dull The port of San Diego
The port of San Diego
 . Lots of military vessels are docked in San Diego as well as aircrafts and helicopters etc. Its also where Top Gun was filmed and i have a pic of the tower they buzz on the flyby (Goose its time to buzz the tower) and the ship they landed on whilst at sea! As you sail out of the harbour you get a rather fishy smell from all the seals that are sunbathing on every available patch of dry land, but do get great views of the city.
Once the harbour tour had finished we jumped back on the bus and headed to the Gaslamp Quarter which is the nightlife capital of San Diego.We got dropped off there for a couple of hours, were we had lunch and explored before heading to the hotel to get a couple of hours free time before we hit the town. On tour some meals are included, i think around 8 dinners and 8 breakfasts over the 2 weeks, tonight was an included meal in town so Berto (the coach driver) picked us all up at 6:30pm and took us back to the Gaslamp Quarter. It was quite interesting seeing everyone after they had got ready to go out, as you could tell who was traveling (only about 10 people including me) and who was just on holiday for the tour as the travelers had creased clothes and looked fairly casual and the rest were dolled up to the nines with brand new clothes smelling sweet! We arrived at a restaurant that was pretty lively where they would throw napkins at you and make you wear stupid hats, mine read 'so stupid i robbed a sperm bank', before heading to a bar with a bucking bronco and the a club called whiskey girl. A good night was had by all, nothing like a skin full to act as an ice breaker.
The next day was some free time in the morning which was much needed before Berto picked us up to head for Mission Beach where we chilled and went swimming in the sunshine. The waves were big and strong which was exciting, could have done with some body boards though. We got back to the hotel around 5pm, and an hour or so before Berto took us back into town for another night out. San Diego was a good opener for the tour.
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