Farewell Del

It's boxing day and we are checking out of the Del and moving from Coronado into San Diego for the night.

We approach the bridge over as David reveals he does. not. like. bridges ........ transmission resumes once we are on the other side.

It is a simply delightful and sunny day so we are off to Balboa Park to explore the plethora of museums dotted about the place and attempt to walk off our food babies. So naturally, first stop: lunch.

What is it with American restaurants? They clearly have a million empty tables inside, yet they alwysy declare some kind of 20 minutes wait until they can possibly squeeze you in - we wait 20 minutes, eat our salads in 2 minutes and are off to explore the world!

Of course we each want to see a different museum and they are miles apart, so we split up with a plan to meet later at the air and space museum.

I chose the Japanese museum as they have an exhibition of lucky cats! That museum is c.l.o.s.e.d. booo David is already off to see some horticultural delights, so i head off with Grant to the auto museum to see the volkswagon exhibition which is kind of kooky and fun (for 2 minutes). Again my dreams are shattered when the puppet theatre is c.l.o.s.e.d, so we stroll through the park towards the air and space museum where the four of us hook up again.

Some people are GRIPPED from the first glimpse of a moon rock and some people (me) are not so much until we hit a special exhibition on 60's air hostesses - have I died and gone to heaven? Who is the air and space museum nerd now? I AM!! Oh double triple happy days.

We eventually tear ourselves away as we want to take a tour of the Marston House, an arts and crafts mansion listed as one of the 25 most important arts and crafts houses in America. It has a cute little store in the old carriage house, some beautiful gardens we stroll through, and then the tour of the house itself which is access almost all areas and fabulous.

My favourite rooms are the original kitchen, and then ... Helen's room. After touring all the other Marston children's rooms, with their walk in wardrobes, sleeping porches, and separate bathrooms, with big windows looking out to the front drive and gardens we get upstairs to the back of the house and .... helen's room. Helen's room is roughly the size of the room i had as a child - room for a bed and ... well, just the bed really. But whereas I had huge windows looking out to the garden, Helen had one small high up window. As our tour guard helpfully mentioned - perhaps if Helen had stood on her toybox she would have been able to glimpse the outside world.

All I can imagine are echoes of "Helen - go to your room" for the rest of the afternoon.

The sun is setting so it is time to head into town and check into our uber glamorous 5 star hotel, the US Grant. It is AMAZING - the very glamorous and enourmous lobby is strewn with chandeliers, fresh flowers, champagne covered couches on shining marble floors, and a dapper gent tickling the ivories on a grand piano. happy days.

Our rooms are equally as glamorous and we take an hour or so to jump on the beds and make a costume chnange before meeting up in the Helms Williamson suite for a cool fizzy drink. For the zillionth time we attempt the difficult and complicated (apparently) task of skyping. Bernadette, Peter, Lily etc - believe me, we tried many times, but each time we were obviously either drunk or idiots. Somehow we reached Ute once or twice, but I'm fairly sure that is because she skyped us. Oh technology (and alcohol) - you win again.

We head out for an evening stroll and end up at an outside patio restaurant the bellboy has recomended. Our waiter is Hank Azaria and immediately starts regaling us with tales of the uncouth Queenslanders dining inside, and insisting we all have martinis (was it he who insisted on the martinis? I'm sure it was) IMMEDIATELY we spot the special of the day - Maine Lobster!! God bless David's mother, whose parting words of advice for the trip were "If you get a chance to eat Maine Lobster ... DO IT" So with that as our rationale, it is Maine Lobster all round, a cheeky little white to accompany it, and before long we are completely shickered and our food babies have become twins. Thankyou Mrs Helms - best motherly advice EVER.

We take an after dinner stroll through town, and head back to the hotel a) because those are the most comforatbel beds EVER, and b) beciase tomorrow we are going to DISNEYLAND!