Parks, Poker & Patriotism

January 6th 2017

Because no one in our apartment has any clue as to when we are supposed to leave, we use the opportunity to sleep in on a travel day for once and have a chill breakfast — then we head to the airport and from there on to San Diego.
The crew on our flight is barely done passing out drinks when we already find ourselves in our final descent above the huge LA region that looks pretty beautiful in the darkness.

My backpack, at this point, still remains in San Francisco and will take about 24 more hours to finally arrive here.
We don't let that stop us, though, and grab something to eat — our server is named after a season and a Texan man with a cowboy hat is playing poker on the TV screen above. Welcome to America.

After breakfast in the hostel the next morning (Bagel, fruit & orange juice — what more could you want?) we head over to Balboa Park, which is home to several museums and other attractions. By the way: The label 'park' doesn't seem to exclude busy roads here in the US...
The pretty Japanese garden is too expensive for us, but we find the architectonically interesting botanic building instead, in which a wide variety of different plants grow beneath a large glass dome.
Among other things, there is a collection of carnivorous plants with a catchy warning sign.
Spread out over the whole park are many pretty buildings in Spanish colonial style, some fountains, gardens, and sculptures — it's quite nice in here.

Thanks to widespread Wi-Fi coverage I was able to catch some Pokemon that I was looking for since about half a year — a good day indeed.

Afterwards we are having lunch in Little Italy and walk through the harbour district along the coast.

On our way back we are interrupted by the deafening sound of fighter jets taking off at an airbase a few miles off along the coast.
Dreams come true

It's raining. In San Diego.
That happens about five times a year — and of course we are lucky enough to witness one of those five days in our four-day stay here.
We have slept through the breakfast on purpose, starting with lunch today. At the table next to us, we observe a strange conversation between a woman in jogging clothes and what looks like a homeless man who is first blessed and later almost hypnotized by the woman — reminds us of our spiritual experience on Christmas.

We make our way to the harbour of San Diego to get our daily dose of patriotism aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway. Some posters in front of said ship praise it as a 'living symbol of America's freedom', and heroic music comes blasting from every corner.

In a documentary with holograms and other light effects, we are familiarized with how the US Navy utterly defeated the Japanese fleet in the battle of Midway despite being outnumbered 2:1. After that, you can take pictures in front of huge waving flags and in a corner, Santa is landing on an inflatable US aircraft carrier.
A guide showing us the conning bridge of the Midway asks around where the visitors come from. "Japan" — "Ah, Sushi!" — "Uhh..." — Well, at least he didn't say Pearl Harbour.
Jan walks across the flight deck, excited like a little child, pointing at different jets: "Look, that one is the one I can't fly." "Ohhh that looks just like Battlefield 3!"
Aircraft carrier review: The Americans are way ahead of the Koreans — the mantra here is not 'Freedom is not free', but the much more precise 'Freedom is about $10 billion per aircraft carrier' — I'll leave open whether the money might be of more use elsewhere.

The USS Midway was in active duty up until 1992 and is now docked as a museum in San Diego. What better thing is there to do on a rainy day than having a look at that?