It took us a few hours to drive from Anaheim to San Diego so we arrived before we could check-in.
We had two choices of places to stay. Either in a place called Gas Lamp which is the centre of San Diego or just outside at La Jolla where the beach was. We decided to stay at Gaslamp as it meant Cj could have a drink if we decided to go out.
When we arrived we took a stroll from our America's best value inn hotel (we became quite brand loyal after this) into the centre. It was a sunday and there was some kind of charity fancy dress run on so the town was buzzing and the bars were full of people dressed in tutu's.
We found an iHOP and had lunch in there. We liked San Diego. It was a clean city with a nice atmosphere. we attempted to walk around the city to Balboa park but at about half way we had been walking a while and realised America isn't a very walkable place. It came to about 2pm so we had to turn around and check in to our room.
We were impressed with our little hotel room for its cheap price.
In the evening we went back out into the gas lamp district. We walked past a few clubs with people dresses in fancy dress outside. It was only about 7pm. There were quite a few nice restaurants here but us being on a budget we had to go with the very well known TGI Fridays. We were actually really surprised with how cheap the dinner was.
The plan was to go out after but i had the most annoying ear ache and i could i could only hear out of one ear so i wasn't really in a partying mood.
The next day we got up early to drive to our first tourist attraction. We did the Fort Rosecrans cemetery drive. It was a nice place with some great views of the city. Apparently whales can often be sighted in the sea surrounding us. Cj was adament he could see something (more a dolphin then a whale) floating around the shore line. So we drive down to get a closer look, it turned out to be a plank of wood:/
After this we move on to out next stop. La Jolla cove. This place is very pretty and nice seaside town. We grabbed some lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea. We took a stroll along the cove and at one end there is a private beach jut for seals. There were so many of them.
After La Jolla we drove up to see the view at Mount Soledad. This is a big hill that looks over La Jolla and there is a memorial up there.
By this time it was pretty much the end of the day. My ear was hurting real bad on this day, i had taken so many pain killers so we decided to find a big pharmacy and see if they have something to give me. We arrived at the CVS pharmacy somewhere between La Jolla and San Diego. The pharmacist told me that if i have an ear ache it's probably an infection so he can only give me something with a prescription. He told us to go to an urgent care centre and see a doctor.
This was something i wanted to avoid as i knew it would be hassle and expensive. In the end i decided to see a doctor as i had this ear ache for 2 weeks and it was getting worse, not to mention the gunk coming out of it (it was gross).
The sat nav picked up a near by centre which was already loaded into the options. We had no wifi so we had no idea if the sat nav was correct. We drove about 20 miles to a town that looked pretty posh. The sat nav led us down a road with huge houses. We didn't think there would be an urgent care centre at the end of the road, and there wasn't. Never trust a sat nav!
We drove back to San Diego to find a centre. It was quite late by this time so we were pretty hungry but wanted to get this out the way before the centre closed at 10pm. I was seen by a doctor pretty quickly as it wasn't that busy at this time. I obviously dont have American insurance so i had to pay to see the doctor up front. I couldn't believe the cost when she told me, it was something around the $175 mark.
I saw the doctor and he told me i had swimmers ear infection and my ear drops stuck in my ear:/ (which is why i couldn't hear) i bought some ear drops in New Zealand as it felt blocked and thought they might work when i got the ear infection in Fiji. They obviously didn't work and left me with a huge bill. My prescription was for some special ear drops which we had to get at a bear by pharmacy. And the cost of these tiny ear drops was shocking. My ear ache cost me £300, aarrghhh!! Luckily i should get some of that back from my travel insurance.
Once we had finished with the doctors we drove around to find a McDonalds (we didn't have to drive far as America has one on pretty much every corner). This was our dinner for today. We ate back at our hotel and packed up ready to leave San Diego the next morning.
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