San Diego Arrival

Category: San Diego 2014 Published: Friday, 21 March 2014 Written by Evilmatt

So I was busy for the weekend of my birthday but I decided to take a trip the weekend after to celebrate and see more of the US since I'm out here.

I picked San Diego as my destination. I've been in the area before while on business taking a side trip to sea world driving down from So Cal but never visited the city proper so I decided now was the time. I got a cheap hotel in the downtown / marina district which turned out to be a Westin and a cheap flight via southwest from San Jose airport which is my local airport of choice. I booked friday and monday off and set off on thursday after work for the airport.

The TSA decided to massage my hands with a detector wand thing and so I got to go down the pre-approved tsa line which is a new thing. It meant I didn't need to remove my shoes laptop belt or anything and didn't queue at all just shoved my travel back on he xray and empty my pockets. It was pretty quick and easy makes me want to try and get the approval thing for real.

After that I settled in to wait. I grabbed a seat by the window and watched the sun set over the mountains which was pretty nice. They had to move my flight to another gate so I had to hustle down a few gates to meet that but then they boarded pretty quick.

I had a fairly good position so got a window seat and settled in for the one hour flight time I snoozed for most of it. When I got to San Diego I found on the hotel website that there was a shuttle bus for free so I found the stop and waited. About 9:50 ish the shuttle turned up and it turned out I should have phoned them to tell them I wanted it. But the guy let me squeeze in the front even though he was picking up a load of air crews.

A wait and a short drive later I was at the hotel and I checked in, because I was only here for a few days they offered me a green package where they don't automatically replace towels etc (you can still request it) and I get a 3 vouchers for 5 bucks off food and such. I decided to hit the bar and headed down enjoying a pint of lost abbey then one of Mission Heferweizen and a stone ipa all local beers. The heferweizen was my favorite so I rounded the evening off with another pint. I found when paying that the vouchers were only for food which wasn't what the girl on the desk said but still not really the end of the world. I headed up to my room and feeling a bit peckish ordered a sandwich and caeser salad. It is my birthday treat after all.

After that I watched some tv read a bit then turned in ready to hit the town tomorrow 

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