San Diego, Day 7

This was it, the last day of my vacation! It started off with the handmade breakfast again. This time I decided to be creative and made a star pancake, and a happy face :)

Today we decided to go to San Diego's Coronado Island. It is a bridge away from Downtown San Diego and apparently has one of the 'world's best beaches'. We walked back to the harbour and took a ferry there. Along the way, we saw more sea lions but sadly no dolphins :( The ferry ride is about 15 minutes or so and it wasn't as cold as the day before so I got to stand outside and feel a nice breeze! The ferry docked on some pier on the beach but there were only a few people there relaxing since it was too cold for suntanning and swimming. My mom and I just walked around a bit and we discovered that there were bicycles to rent so we decided to get one of those carts for two people to ride :D It costs $18 for an hour I think and looked something like this:

The island had a really long pathway (that probably went around the entire thing) but I think we only got through 1/4 of it before we decided to turn back. We had already made a bunch of wrong turns so that took out a bit of the hour :P Oh and I got to steer! It was a pretty cool experience but yeah takes too much concentration for me...After that we decided to eat at this Lil' Piggy's Bar-B-Q which seems like the type to have at rib fests. My mom had a pulled pork sandwich with corn and coleslaw while I had some sort of turkey sandwich with coleslaw. It was pretty good and was served with their 'famous BBQ sauce' :) We did more walking around to burn off the calories and looked at a bunch of the souvenir shops. I ended up getting this little glass bottle with some sand and shells that said 'Coronado Island' and this cool shot glass made in Mexico that had grooves for your fingers, but I ended up losing it after so :'( It was about $7 total, but still I wish I had them...Anyway on the other side of the island, there was this famous old hotel called The Hotel del Coronado. Upon looking at the map it appeared to be really far to walk since we were around 1st street and it was past 10th street, but one of the guys at the visitor's booth told us it was only 15-20 minutes walk so we decided to try it. After we got to 3rd street, we decided to stop because my mom thought it was taking too long/was too old and tired hahaha. We turned back and managed to catch the hourly ferry a few minutes before it left, so yay for that working out!

On the way back to the hostel, we stopped by the Horton Plaza which was guess what...all outdoors! The only weird thing about it is that it was about 5 levels, with half levels in between. And some of the half levels would reconnect to either the next level up or down, so it was a bit confusing to walk this :S There were a few chain stores like Sanrio, Gap, American Eagle, etc. but and a couple stores that were similar to what Forever 21 sold. Our luggage was already bursting by this time but I finally bought some clothes! We found this store called 'Q' which sold a lot of basics for really cheap...even cheaper than Forever 21. The thing that I remember most is that tank tops were only $2!! Too bad I had already stocked up on $4 ones. My mom ended up trying a bunch of things so while I waited, I noticed some stuff that I actually liked. One was this mint green top ($5.99) and the other was a thin black cardigan ($6.99). My mom got two tops and the total cost of all these things including tax was only $25! I love cheap basics :) After a few more stores, we decided to head back to the hostel to pickup luggage and head to the airport.

The airport in San Diego is actually pretty small! It's one of the ones that are small enough that the entrance is also where you collect your luggage. Reminded me of my beloved Winnipeg's airport...So unlike the flight to L.A., this one was much smoother lol, but still pretty long since this one had 3 planes. We first took a flight to Phoenix, with again no snacks :( damn U.S. Airlines. From there it was a flight to Cleavland and on the plane I actually talked to the person next to me! He told me he was heading back home from an interview and that he got the job in Phoenix so congrats to him lol. We talked for like 30 mins or so until it took off and we both fell asleep. I also noticed that a lot of people were actually talking to the people next to them, even though they were strangers, so maybe people from Cleavland are just friendly or something. After this, the next flight was straight to Toronto! Yay finally. This ended up being one of those really small people that suited 16-20 people, so that was a neat experience. This was only about an hour so we finally landed back home around 8 am I think. My dad picked us up and then my mom (being old) had to sleep for a few hours before I could head back to school. So that's about it, I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventure in Los Angeles/San Diego :P For the next vacation, whenever it is, I will try to not write so much haha.