So I have just got back from a four day trip to San Diego in Southern California, it was my first time on the west coast of the states so I was excited to see how it compared to all the east coast cities that I’ve visited.
“Southern California, where the American dream came too true’ – Lawrence Ferlinghetti
It’s quite the drive to California, over 11 hours flight time with an eight hour time difference, when you land it feels like 5am in the morning UK time and you’ve been up all night when in reality its about 9pm in the evening in San Diego. Despite the long flight I had such a lovely time on the flight over, as well as having a great crew to work with I was working as number 2 on this flight. On the mid J 747 the number 2 works in the premium economy cabin looking after all 36 customers on their own. On this leg out I had such lovely customers, they were mainly older Americans, all of whom seemed to know each other, they had been on a three week tour of the UK and were now en route to San Diego to drive to the Mexican border where they were going to cage dive with Great Whites! They were such a delight to look after and chat to (“Ma’am you are almost as pretty as the Duchess of Cambridge”), its people like this that really make this job worthwhile.
Luckily the airport in San Diego is only a short drive from the city so it wasn’t too long after we landed that we arrived at the hotel… although not before I was almost lynched by customs for trying to ‘smuggle’ in an apple that I’d forgotten about in my handbag…luckily apple declared to the agriculture department and full details of ‘1x green apple’ written down and we were free to go.
The day after we arrived a friend and I hired a car and left the hotel early, driving two hours up the pacific coast highway to Los Angeles, stopping at Long Beach and Santa Monica on the way up. The pacific coast highway is such a beautiful drive, although I didn’t realise just how much of a presence the US Navy has on the pacific coast, San Diego itself is a huge naval base but there are loads of smaller bases up the coast towards Los Angeles as well.
Santa Monica is an absolutely gorgeous place, known for being the end point of Route 66 – the famous 3940km route across the States, amongst other things including the historic pier and the original muscle beach outdoor gym. Sadly it was only a whistlestop tour before we were back in the car and en route into central LA, Santa Monica is definitely somewhere I would like to come back to though.
I was quite surprised by LA itself, my experience of LA is pretty limited to films and old episodes of The Hills so I was quite surprised to find the majority of it is actually pretty grim… mainly tall blocks of flats and fairly filthy streets.
On Monday we did the famous San Diego trolley tour before it was time to come home. The trolley tour starts from the centre of town and for the special price of 20 of your finest American dollars for airline crew it will take you on a hop on-hop off tour of San Diego and Coronado Island as many times as you like throughout the day.
Our first stop was through the historic Gaslamp Quarter district of the city, full of victorian buildings and old speakeasies it’s a really cool place to explore. After a quick stop we got back on the trolley and made the 2 mile journey across the bridge to Coronado Island.
Coronado is a resort island just off the coast of San Diego itself, although so close to the city of San Diego it is in fact an entirely separate city. The island is famous for its pacific coast beach, regularly named as the best beach in the US, along with the Hotel Del Coronado. The hotel was built in 1888 and makes its claim to fame having supposedly provided the inspiration for the Emerald City in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so there’s a little snippet of useless information for you all!
After dipping our toes in the pacific we headed back into the city to explore Embarcadero Marina and Seapoint Village. Embarcadero Marina is where the USS Midway aircraft carrier is docked, although its now retired it has been turned into a museum and is definitely on my to-do list for my trip at the end of the month. I obviously knew that aircraft carriers were big but I don’t think you completely realise just how big they are until you’ve stood alongside one.
Slightly further round the marina is the Unconditional Surrender statue. The sculpture was designed by Seward Johnson and depicts one of the most iconic moments of US history, a photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14th 1945 in Times Square. He photographed a young American sailor kissing an American nurse on hearing the news that the war was over, this was then recreated as the Unconditional Surrender statue. I won’t harp on about the full story but it’s really worth a google if you’re interested.
Embarcadero Marina ticked off we walked round the harbour to Seapoint Village, a really lovely pedestrian shopping and eating area slightly further round the coast where we amused ourselves for ten minutes watching plenty of harbour seals playing. Our last stop before heading back to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before pick up for our flight home was Kansas City Barbeque.
Kansas City Barbeque has its claim to fame from the film Top Gun, providing the location for Maverick and Goose singing Great Balls of Fire, the bar is also where Charlie surprises Maverick at the end of the film, playing ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’. By the time we had eaten lunch and sung our way through most of the soundtrack on the jukebox and taken the obligatory pictures with the various pieces of memorabilia inside it really was time to head back to the hotel to get ready to come home.
The flight home was pretty drama free, the highlight being seeing an amazing show of the northern lights as we crossed Hudson Bay in the north of Canada in the middle of the night, unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any pictures as the iPhone couldn’t quite cope with taking photos of the night sky through the aircraft windows.
I loved San Diego, it’s a really great city with a much more laid back, relaxed atmosphere to a lot of the east coast cities I’ve visited with absolutely loads to do. The only downside is the jetlag, I don’t generally struggle with jet lag but landing at home at 4pm in the afternoon having taken off at 8pm the previous day when it really feels like breakfast time is quite tricky to get your head round! I’ve had two days off now so tomorrow morning its off to another new destination, 24 hours in Las Vegas!
Life From Above 