Arriba!!! -San Deigo

Hello again. Hope everyone is well.

Day 1
After a fantastic stay in Vegas we drove down and back into California to see San Diego. We got there quite late on and it was a bit of a come down form the hotel we stayed in in Vegas!! we just had an early night.

Day 2

We headed for the zoo. It was ace - the first time we've seen giant pandas, they were so cute and big!!! Afterwards we headed downtown and just walked around and saw the city - A very nice one with lots of history, you can really see the Mexican influence everywhere - so Amy fitted in well with her brown little Mexican bod lol.

Day 3

We went to Balboa park, one of the largest in the states. It was gorgeous, loads of fountains and flowers and even a little Spanish part where artists sell their work. We went on a miniature train ride and walked around the butterfly garden. After this we took a tram back to the car and headed to Seaport Village, you could see Mexico from here its only 15 miles away but we were warned not to cross to the border as there is quite a lot of trouble at the moment. Seaport Village was lovely, lots of quaint little shops and a harbour, the sea was so clear we could see crabs and an octopus near the rocks! There was a park where palm readers were giving readings so I got mine (Amy's) done.....easiest $10 that tarot reader ever earned, it was pretty rubbish although she did tell me I have a "come hither thing going on" whatever that means!

Day 4

Our last day here so before heading out of town we decided to go to the old part of San Diego where the first Mexican settlers set up camp, it was a great little place with old style saloon's and little streets and shops, even the park had people with period clothing on and wagons, we had a nice little Mexican meal and got asked by 3 Mexican blokes if the could play a song for us on their bangoes, they didn't half go for it!!

After our food we headed to Dana Point in the O.C (Orange County) to stay with some of Rich's uncle's friends - Sumone and Lynn. It was a gorgeous town and an even nicer house with amazing views overlooking the beach. We had a lovely meal and a few drinks on the patio, then headed inside for a few games of pool and a match on the Wii.

Day 5

Packed our bags again and went further into Orange County to Newport Beach - now this was where all the surfers were! A gorgeous beach, really white sands. We were playing some footy and all of a sudden I got a pain in my big toe - a bloody wasp had stung me so rich had to play on his own....again. After a few hours at the beach and a bit of wave hopping we went to our next motel which was right near Disneyland

Day 6

As you can probably guess we went to Disneyland for our last day in America - what a way to finish off, however we did manage to get ourselves into the wrong park at first!! In fact when I rang home to wish Jan a Happy Birthday we were in some random theme park not Disneyland like I kept saying! We had to be escorted out and let into the right one....whoops. An amazing day all round, loads of rides, met some characters, then a parade and a firework show at night which was another highlight of trip to the states.

Day 7

The day of our flight, we didn't fly until 9pm so we had the day to look around the area once more. We went up to Malibu to have a look at the beaches which were once again gorgeous, had a walk along the shore and then thought we best head off to the airport to hand in our car, it was really sad to let it, go we'd grown quite attached!

All in all what a fantastic few months we've had, we can't believe how much we've seen and done, America has definitely not seen the last of Team RA!!

We'll be in touch after our first few days in ChristChurch, New Zealand, here comes a very long flight!

Al our love
Team RA
xxx