This morning we left Palm Springs early to get down to Calexico for our fair today. The school is located right across the road from the border separating California and Mexico, and due to the its location, the entire school predominantly speaks Spanish. I think this made our Australian accents a little difficult to grasp at times, but we had a fun time there and had some good interest.

Before we left Calexico we planned to hop across the border to Mexicali with Danielle (CUC recruiter), because she hadn't visited Mexico before. When we got to the gate, however, there was a massive line-up for those wanting to come into the USA, so we figured it would take too long and backed out. I'm glad we got to cross when we were in El Paso/Juarez earlier in the month...

From Calexico, we headed west to San Diego, (about a 2hr drive), and because it was still only early afternoon we decided to have a look around downtown San Diego. A couple of tour operators run cruises around the San Diego bay starting from around 20 bucks for one hr, or 25 bucks for two hrs, so we figured for $25 it was money well spent to get a good look at the city's landmarks and get a close look at the naval ships, aircraft and subs around the harbour.

It was awesome to see the USS Ronald Reagan - the world's largest (Nimitz-class) Aircraft Carrier at its home port getting some TLC. To get a perspective of the carrier's size, we were told that it is so tall it cannot fit under the Coronado Bridge (check the photos), which clears 200 ft at its peak.

There was also a hive of other naval related activities in the bay area: Aircraft such as F/A-18s taking off and landing, numerous helicopter hovering about. We also saw navy seals conducting exercises and navy ships in (dry) docks being worked on...it was mint to see it all.

In addition to the sights of the city and bay area, we got to see a number of seals and sea lions...pelicans too!...scrounging fish from thefishermen. The cruise which finished up around sunset was fully narrated too with plenty of humour from the captain! All in all, a great experience.