San Diego - A Different World!

As I was cleaning out some of my famous "piles" of papers that I have strewn throughout our house in organized disarray. (Tyler may not know what the madness to these piles is all about, but believe me - I know what is in each pile and which one to go to if I'm looking for something!). I'm like my father in this way - that's always how his office desk at work was.



So, I was sorting through one of the piles and found some randomness from our San Diego trip. A ticket stub to the Zoo, our plane tickets, etc. I also found some notes I had written down regarding our trip that I wanted to remember - how different of a culture a 3 hours plane ride can take you to or what you will experience trying to get there.



Here's a sample of what we experienced:



1. I never thought I'd be "the people with the screaming child" on the airplane. Been there, done that. Em did really well once the plane took off as he fell asleep before the nose tipped horizontal. But for the few minutes while you are anxiously awaiting takeoff, it was pure torture of trying to keep him settled in his seat, happy, and we broke into our emergency stash of food before we had listened to the flight attendant show us how to buckle our seat belts.



2. Alerting the airplane company that you are traveling with a child proves to not go into consideration when scheduling what seats we will get. Both times on the flights to San Diego and once on the way back we were placed on the right side of the plane and then asked to move to the left side of the plane (traded seats with others, etc) as the right side of the plane only has 2 oxygen masks, and the left has 3.

3. I never thought I'd want a lay over (but this is a great opportunity for a young child to re-group).

4. We also experienced a different way of life:
a. Saw a billboard "Divorce: The Better Way" (very interesting....)
b. While we were at Target at 8am we experienced a rude interaction with a fellow customer and the check-out guy. Woman "You guys really need to get more help". Guy "It's 8 o'clock in the morning, ma'am (spoken very rudely)". Woman "Well some of us need to get to work and you only have 2 lanes open". Man "Well no one told you to do your errands before work". (No "sorry about the wait ma'am, we're doing the best I can" from this check-out guy! I told Tyler that in the midwest, we think and feel the same way as the fellow customer, we just steam to eachother about it or the fellow customers. We aren't that direct towards our store personnel!).

5. Our first night in our hotel when we arrived it was very dark and you couldn't see the bay at all. We got ready for bed and heard what we thought was a rambunctious couple next door (neither Tyler or I talked about it until the next morning when we realized it was seals on a dock a 1/2 a mile away!) Those animals are LOUD!

6. We came across a homeless man with a sign "Need Weed. Please help". OKay, NOT!

7. You need to show an ID for EVERY purchase - ANYWHERE. I tried to buy a $3 magnet at a store downtown, nope - not without my ID (left at the hotel).

Well those are just a few mementos from our trip! We did have a blast and I posted pictures on facebook and my Shutterfly share site...