After yesterday's long entry, I don't have much to say. I went to the dentist today for my first cleaning in four years (being in college with no parents to take you to the dentist is hard!). It was relatively painless, and the lady said my teeth were in pretty good shape given how long I've been away from the dentist. I have another cleaning appointment in 6 months. Seems awfully soon...

Aside from going to the dentist I was pretty much unproductive today. I mostly sat around at work moping, missing Patrick and wishing I could make myself do research. You'd think guilt would make me more motivated to work, but it just makes me feel bad about myself. Tomorrow I have classes, so I'll at least feel like I've accomplished something.

Okay, here we go! If you don't want to click on all the links and read everything, you can look at the most interesting pictures in my photo album, here. And for everybody else, here's a recap of our San Diego spring break (all the pictures are pop-ups).

Monday:

• Drove to San Diego from Palo Alto via the I-5.
• Stopped at Mudd on the way there to see Andrew (and use the bathroom!).
• Checked in at our hotel and had dinner at Anthony's Fish Grotto. There was a cute little boy at the table next to us. The fish was not outstanding, but we had a great view of the bay, and I liked the restaurant's name.
• Took a nighttime walk around Seaside Village, the Convention Center, and the Gaslamp district. Then we took a scary walk back to the hotel through a less charming part of town. There were a lot of bail bonds stores in that area and a whole parking lot full of homeless people (though it makes me sad, it's definitely better to be homeless in San Diego than in Boston).
• While exploring the Gaslamp district, we stumbled upon Hustler Hollywood! It was like an adult bookstore combined with Victoria's Secret. It was well-lit, well-stocked, and well-staffed. No creepy old men or dark back rooms. Very nice!

Tuesday:

• Had breakfast at Hash House A Go Go. The portions were freaking huge. No, really! Look at these pictures--my pancake was twice the size of my head at least! (my breakfast, Patrick's breakfast) The food was really good though...I had the brown sugar banana pancake (yes, that's just one big pancake, not a pile of smaller ones) and a small side of fruit (doesn't look small in the picture though, does it?).
• After downing as much delicious breakfast as we could, we walked to Balboa Park and rested on some grass. There was a house with a room for rent on the way there. Isn't it beautiful?
• After we digested a little, we walked around Balboa Park more. We saw some old people lawn bowling.
• Balboa Park has a lot of museums. We went to the Museum of Art and the Aeronautic Museum (boring, but free on the 4th Tuesday of the month). We also walked around a small garden.
• I swung on the swings in the park for a little while since it was such a nice day.
• In the afternoon, we visited the island of Coronado. We took a ferry there! We walked across the island to visit the Hotel del Coronado, which is reputed to be beautiful, and indeed it is. We ate ice cream on a bench overlooking the beach. Some giggly college girls asked Patrick to take a picture of them, and he did. Then we took a picture of us in the same spot, since it seemed to be a popular picture-taking spot. Then we went down to the hotel's special patch of beach and walked in the sand for a little while. I swear, they must filter that sand every morning--there was no trash, wood, or rocks in it, just pretty seashells. It was so soft!
• Ate dinner at Il Fornaio (also on Coronado). Again had a great view of the bay (the other side). And good bread! I like Il Fornaio's bread a lot. And their plates have cute little men on them.
• Shivered in the cold for half an hour, waiting for the ferry back to the mainland. Pretended to be interested in souveneirs in local shops so we wouldn't have to stand outside.

Wednesday:

• Went to the San Diego Zoo! My mom gave us two tickets as our graduation present. While at the zoo, we saw many entertaining animals. High points include:
• A fishing cat that was trying to kill a hapless duck that had flown into its enclosure. How morbid--everybody was gathered around the glass, waiting to see when the cat would pounce. There were little kids yelling "Kill the duck! Kill the duck!" Anyway, the duck kept swimming underwater whenever the cat tried to pounce. It was still alive and quacking when we left...
• Other random animals, including a giraffe, rhinos in love, and a capybara (I did a report on capybaras in 7th grade). But the most exciting animals were...
• MONKEYS! Yay! Patrick loves monkeys, and I have a special fondness for them as well. The monkeys in these pictures were guenons. Here's a monkey in a tree. But even better--monkey fight! Yeah! It's like West Side Story--Debrazza's Guenons against Schmidt's Guenons. Here's another shot of the fight. Actually, it wasn't much of a fight. The monkeys on the right got distracted and started picking bugs off each other.
• Here's us on the Skyfari aerial trams (I love those things!). (me in the tram, Patrick in the tram)
• And here's us looking goofy in front of some gazelles. One of the gazelles kept trying to drink the other gazelles' pee. All the other gazelles shunned it, not surprisingly.
• After the zoo, we sat by the Lily Pond (me, Patrick). Then we watched the sunset from the end of El Prado.
• Amazing dinner at Prado restaurant. I had the pressed salad, and we split a plate of jumbo prawns, and this crazy good dessert (tres leches). We got to see people taking wedding pictures in the gazebo nextdoor.
• Then we had a second dessert (because we were on vacation!) at Extraordinary Desserts. It was a white chocolate Napoleon. The restaurant's atmosphere was kind of weird, but the dessert was good!

Thursday:

• Walked around the Gaslamp district more, looking for a mysterious dress shop I saw while in San Diego for the ACS meeting two years ago. Couldn't find it. Oh well...Picked up sandwiches at The Cheese Shop for a picnic on the beach.
• Drove to La Jolla for a day at the beach. Had our picnic at La Jolla Shores. Here's Patrick at the beach, and here's me brushing all the sand off my feet. The top of my head is really sunburnt (didn't wear a hat to the zoo or Coronado), but you can't really tell in the picture.
• Drove to a different part of La Jolla and saw some seals sleeping at the Children's Pool. It was so cool--there were baby seals and mama seals. We also lay on some grass for a while (Patrick on the grass).
• Walked around the village. Found a cool lingerie store called Neroli. Didn't buy anything.
• Sat and watched the sun set near the seals until we got too cold, then had dinner at Il Forno (not Il Fornaio). We were the only ones there, so the waiter was a little too attentive, but the food was good (they had a special: a 4-course meal for $20). They had Casablanca projecting on to the rear wall of the restaurant and lots of candles. Nice atmosphere. I recommend it!

Friday:

• Drove back to Palo Alto and had dinner at PF Chang's China Bistro. Really good crispy honey shrimp, but another oversolicitous waiter.

And that's that! It was great :) And there's still a bunch of stuff we didn't get to explore, so we may be going back to San Diego again sometime.

Okay, so most of our vacation pictures are on Patrick's computer because his camera is superior to mine. I should have those later tonight. But for now, I can share pictures I took on our way back to Palo Alto from San Diego. We ended up taking the I-5 both ways because we're more familiar with it.

The freeways around San Diego were beautiful. They had big patches of California poppies and wildflowers. Here's a hill covered in poppies.

On the way down there, we had our traditional Jack in the Box lunch in Kettleman City, but that wasn't worth taking a picture of. But here are the cows in Coalinga. You can't really get the full effect unless you can smell them too, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I didn't get a picture of Casa de Fruta, but here's a shot of the beautiful rolling green hills of the Pacheco Pass. And Gilroy smelled as wonderfully garlicky as ever.

It was a wonderful vacation, even the long road trips at the beginning and end. It's tough coming back to Boston to rain (better than snow though) and being alone again. I hope research looks up soon so I can get a little more motivated. Yeah, I know, I shouldn't be whining this soon after an amazing vacation.

Anyway, expect a bunch more pictures along with a recounting of the high points of our vacation tonight or tomorrow!

I'm back from vacation--it was wonderful, of course. Right now, I'm going to bed, but I'll tell all about it tomorrow.

Last entry before I leave for California! I'm flying to Palo Alto in an hour, then we're going to drive to San Diego on Monday and come back Friday, then I'll fly back to Boston on Saturday. So no Caitlin for a whole week! And I won't even be able to check my email when I'm in San Diego, which is just crazy! But that means I can focus on enjoying my vacation with Patrick, so it's good.

Even though the drive from Palo Alto to San Diego is around 8 hours, I'm looking forward to it. Patrick and I made the drive from Mudd to Palo Alto many times during college (both to visit his family and to spend spring break in Carmel, which we did twice), and I remember it fondly, despite the stinky cows near Coalinga, the questionable bathrooms at Casa de Fruta, and the traffic around LA. I love driving through Gilroy on the Pacheco Pass on a warm day and having the smell of garlic just pervade the car. That's a nice area. Anyway, we haven't decided if we'll take the I-5 (which is the route we took during college) or if we'll take the Pacific Coast Highway, which will take longer, but is more scenic.

Anyway, I'll post pictures and tell all about our vacation when I get back next weekend. Until then, stay safe and happy!