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2018dclrepo · 6 years

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Final Day in San Diego - Saturday, September 15, 2018

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

We headed down to the complimentary hotel breakfast by 9am. Of all the things updated at this hotel, the breakfast wasn’t one of them. It was Saturday and the place was PACKED! The actual food area is only big enough for about 4-5 people to move around. This was Introvert Hell, especially for a non-morning person. If it hadn’t been “free” and knowing we had a full day out & about ahead of this, I would have skipped it. Oh, and I know it’s beautiful San Diego with its stable temps, but having no A/C in the lobby & breakfast area, especially with that many people, was pretty miserable. (However, the A/C in our room worked MUCH better than the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver - thank goodness!)

We hadn’t been sure when we might do our city tour, or if we’d do it at all vs other options, so we waited until that morning to buy our tickets online (for a bit of savings). Due to the now obvious blister on my right foot and foot/ankle sprain on left from all that walking in flip-flops, I was sadly in socks & sneakers today. A bit after 10am we headed to the nearby Saturday morning Farmers’ Market in Little Italy. It was nothing compared to the broader festival like the last time we were here, so we headed to the port area to board the Old Town Trolley. (I thought there was a stop closer in Little Italy, but we struggled to find it. We later realized it was one block behind us. Sigh.)

We had done the Old Town Trolley on our first DCL visit to San Diego and loved it. (They also have this in other cities, which I would definitely do - in warm weather!) The open trolley and telling of both history and fun trivia were as lovely as the last time we took this tour. While it was only about 76-78 degrees, like the day before, the intense sun was stifling. The shade and breeze in the trolley were lovely, but I was still overheating and dehydrated.

After riding the entire 2+hr tour loop, I declared we either needed to ride around again to the air conditioned mall (Westfield Horton Plaza) or go back to the hotel (which I failed to mention when we were nearest the hotel). Not wanting to waste the day in the hotel room, we went to the mall. However, we realized it wasn't connected inside and was more empty than Circle Center in downtown Indy! Things got worse when I realized a migraine was quickly setting in. (It was a recipe for disaster: strong sun, heat, dehydration, and no caffeine.) So I used the rest of my Uber credits to get us back to the hotel.

Sidenote: Arriving at the mall, I immediately headed inside for A/C while Kara browsed an outdoor, pop-up Etsy market. She surprised me with this thoughtful bracelet.

It’s from a company called La Meno Jewelry. This organization promotes their jewelry for “healing and wellness”. Now I don’t believe in the power of stones, but it can’t hurt, right? (It makes me think of the cursed Tiki idol on The Brady Bunch trip to Hawaii!) My bracelet came with a card noting,

Removes feelings of anxiety and nervousness.

Calms, relaxes, and improves sleep quality.

Protects people and their families.

Improves communication skills.

Both the descriptions and the preferred color combination indicate the care and personalization Kara put into the selection of this gift!

We were back to the hotel by about 2:30pm and I was down for nearly two hours fighting the migraine with two Excedrin Migraine and 1.5 Rx Imitrex (permitted 2 max per day)! I was pretty nervous and unsettled that the headache remained and I didn't have many self-solutions to apply. Still in pain I dug-in and Kara and I set out for dinner before a Saturday night rush hit.

Being creatures of habit we headed for a nearby pizza place we’d eaten at during all of our San Diego visits: Isola. We were delighted to realize they had a notable Happy Hour menu, so we ordered formagio al forno, margherita pizza, & arancini. (I’d discovered arancini on my first trip to Rome and LOVE them. I wanted Kara to try these before our venture to Italy, but sadly these weren’t nearly as good as those from their homeland.) Luckily, it seems part of my headache may also have been from not eating since 10am, so once I got some food in me, my headache virtually disappeared! Phew!

For dessert we headed to this tiny corner gelato shop Pappalecco, which had been closed during a prior visit. The authentic staff and gelato (mint and dark chocolate) were incredible! I highly recommend this to anyone in San Diego.

Then since one dessert wasn’t enough, especially on a final night of our trip, we stopped by an ice cream/gelato shop that had obviously opened recently - at least based on the buzz and the line out of the door: Salt & Straw. The line was a little crazy and reading the menu board we realized they specialize in “different & unexpected” combinations.

I settled on one of their classic San Diego flavors: Freckled Woodblock Chocolate. I guess I expected a flavor of wood-fired chocolate over an open flames. Well this was NOT that. The chocolate must have had an incredible low butter fat/high cocoa percentage, because there was virtually nothing sweet about it. In fact, I ended up throwing most of it away; THAT tells you what I thought of it. (Recently they announced a Salt & Straw is going in at Disneyland, so that’s one more reason I don’t need to revisit the California resort.)

With that it was back to the room to shower & pack. The next morning the breakfast experience was only slightly better. (My next visit to San Diego will definitely be at a different hotel.)

We had the airport shuttle all to ourselves and a conversational driver. Apparently the drop-off at the airport is all new, because where we were dropped off was NOT at the United desks. So we had a bit of a morning trek, because most strangely, the airline desks at San Diego are not connected inside the building! The TSA line was nuts, so we were again grateful we had previously invested in Pre-Check.

Waiting for our plane I bought us some amazing cookies from the Elegant Desserts pop-up shop (& somehow avoided procuring one of the GIANT donuts they had from the renowned Donut Bar)! It was an easy return home, which brings this travel blog to a close.

It wasn’t the most amazing trip we’ve ever taken, but that wasn’t our expectation, so all was fine. Would I do this cruise again? Uncertain, but probably not. I’m all for relaxing actual “vacation” trips, which this was, but I don’t need to fly across 3 time zones to the other side of the country (to technically a different country) to do that. The stop & experience in Astoria definitely make it worthwhile though.

So thanks for following along. While there are a few small personal & work trips in the coming months, the next formal Travel Blog will be coming in Summer 2019. For this there will likely be pain-staking detail from our first European Disney Cruise, which also marks 10 years since Kara & I last visited Europe together - a VERY different experience!

Presented by: Gayle Hartleroad - DCL Platinum Castaway Club and travel agent with Authorized Disney Travel Vacation agency - Off to Neverland Travel. Contact me today for a no-obligation quote!

#disneycruiseline #cruise #food #travel #vacation #san diego #2018dclrepo

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katygoestoeurope · 7 years

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Day 22---September 21 We had every intention of going inside the Vatican on this trip but the website would not let me book tickets, I tried 5 times over the course of two days and it kicked me out. You can get tickets there but often the line is 2 hours long. Also it's $30 a person without a guide and with a guide it's more like $50 so the prices are exorbitant. We settled on just going to see St. Peter's Basilica instead since it's free. But first, we set out to find that damn grocery store! We went to the end of the street again and then, like detectives, we looked for people carrying bags of food and ended up finding it. It's hard to buy food when you don't have easy access to a kitchen and we're pretty sick of all the quick food. We're both excited to eat at home again. We got some snacks for the plane though which is crucial considering we'll be traveling for 22 hours tomorrow including layovers. Our day got started late and we lagged as we got back from the store drinking coffee and having breakfast (lunch?), but we were both so tired we didn't care. It was necessary to decompress a bit. Around 12 we left for the Vatican, a 1.7 mile walk that flew by because it was such a stunning day. Before we could even get close we had multiple vendors pestering us, not taking no for an answer and it's really just such a shame that they are so invasive because it puts you in a bad mood, it's hard to enjoy the scene! But we got through the gate area and left those people behind so we could appreciate the magnificent plaza. It was so giant and flooded with people. We saw the line to get into the basillica and it was probably 200 people long because you still needed to go through security.... we decided against it. We'll look at pictures in google instead. Our leisurely walk to the park Villa Borghese turned into a frantic game of Find Taylor A Bathroom Stat--a game I've come to know well these past 3 weeks. Once that was taken care of she was much happier! We were in a totally different part of Rome. Quieter, but still so so man epic building and statues. There are a lot of military people here guarding various landmarks, I didn't expect that. I wonder if it's just cuz we're in the capital or if they are guarding other places in Italy too? Their presence here is strong. We also came upon a guy with a bubble net who was dousing the beautiful day in fun with his bubbles. The adults loved it almost as much as the kids who all screamed and ran toward them trying to pop as many as possible. It was so beautiful, peaceful, wholesome and simplistically wonderful. He brought happiness to so many people. He's the only street person we tipped. He wasn't bothering anyone and it was so unique and good. Then we got to the park, strolled around, sat and ate a snack and just let our feet rest for a few. By this point we'd already walked over 3 miles. But then we were craving a meal and decided it's just be criminal to leave Italy without having pasta one more time. I also really wanted to see the fountain at night so we made our way that direction, giving ourselves permission to stop at any food place that looked good. We went past the fountain a little ways and an outdoor seating and the sign "pastaria" caught my eye. This place had, truly, 10 pages of different pastas. I was instantly kicking myself for not finding it sooner because holy wow they all looked incredible. The place was called "Larchetto" and the prices were super reasonable too. I got a brandy, garlic, mushroom, shrimp, cream, and tomato pasta and Taylors was a garlic, tomato, olive oil, sweet red pepper and spicy red pepper. I got a red wine, she got a spritz and we splurge on an olive oil and garlic bruschetta because it's our last night! The food was..... just wow. It was incredible. I wish I could have eaten there all 3 nights we were here to try 3 different pastas. With our bellies full and our bodies feeling light from the wine we walked to the fountain. It was just barely getting dark so there were still mobs of people but the lights on made it look even more magical. Then we went to the gelato place our friends last night recommended- where they have 150 different flavors. Yup. 1-5-0 and they all looked incredible and they were fairly priced too! Called Della Prima. We settled on a medium which was 3 flavors and we got : orange chocolate, cheesecake and mint chocolate. The mint chocolate was our favorite but they were all stellar. We'd just about given up on the gelato but we found out we'd just been going to the wrong places--it's awesomeeeee. Then it was time to go home because our flight is at 7:10am tomorrow meaning we have to leave our Airbnb at 5am. I found myself walking fast out of habit and also because we walked god knows how many miles today and my feet hurt, but also wanting to go slow. I couldn't believe this was the last time I'd be walking home after a day of wandering around unfamiliar streets. These three weeks have been such a treat. I'll miss these times so much, but I know that I'll work hard to ensure I continue to have these opportunities for growth and exploration. But for tonight I slowed down my pace, inhaled a little deeper, and opened my eyes wider. Rome, you've been endearingly wild. My favorite thing was seeing grown men in suits ride little mopeds and seeing grown men in suits walking around with one hand holding a leather brief case and the other holding a gelato cone. Just so great. Although you couldn't pay me to ride a car here yet alone a moped like it actually looks terrifying. We got home to our hosts drinking wine and having cheese and they offered us some. The wine was a personal batch from one of her student's vineyards in Tuscany and the cheese was from another friend. They were both suuuper intense flavors like, wow that cheese was something else. But it was beyond generous of them to share and she even put the wine in cute glasses and made a little display out of the cheese. Taylor went upstairs to find that their daughter, Matilda had hand written out their family pizza recipe that she was telling us about earlier. We both agreed that was the best souvenir we could ever have received. At the top of the recipe she wrote an intro which ended with this beautiful line--"Food is family, love, friendship and sharing". I think that sums up the Italian culture wonderfully.

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