A perfect San Diego day

Early morning walk on Coronado Beach....

Priceless alone time...

8:15 breakfast on Orange Avenue with Swedish friends who live on the island, Fia & Annika. 

Sisters, Navy Seal Wives & major entrepreneurs.

Owners of Swedish Sweets & Imports

A visit to the cute Californian Beach Cottage on 842 D Avenue built in 1929

 that was our home when we lived here. 

Amazing thing...One of Lando's old soccer balls were laying in a corner of the front yard! 

Great News: The side of our house is now free from the dead shrub and all the spiderweb is gone. 

This must mean that Miss Bossy Pants who I wrote about HERE finally lost the battle and thus had to realize she indeed does not own the power to decide if her neighbors should have to live with dead spider infested shrub or not. Gosh, I was absolutely livid back then!

Lunch at Liberty Station

A bit of essay writing at the stunningly beautiful Coronado Library. 

The best library I have ever sat foot in. 

 

A little bit of shopping at TARGET where I had to show my ID to be able to buy cold medication, 

but NO ID required for the wine. 

LoL! 

Only in America. 

By the way...I just adore stores where you can buy a bedspread AND a bottle of wine :-) 

Then on to The Home Store where I stumbled over these blue and white lamps from Ralph Lauren. 

A quick look on Ralph Lauren Homes website made these lamps the deal of the decade. 

Price at Ralph Lauren: $ 1800.00 yes $ 1800.00 not $ 180.00

My price: $ 99 yes $ 99! 

I LOVE SHOPPING in USA!

We rounded off the day with a great dinner at the Martineze's kitchen in La Mesa

My Emilia to the left with Janine's and Tony's daughter's and playmates from base in Yokosuka, 

Maya and Christie. 

Janine cooking for us all. 

A call from the Coronado Police

Bella blev av med sin svarta nya Longchamp-väska på Halloween. 

Väskan innehöll hennes vackra dyra plånbok från Svenskt Tenn (som hon inhandlat själv när vi var i Stockholm för två veckor sedan), dollar, svenska kronor, Mastercard, svenskt ID kort samt hennes amerikanska militär-ID kort. Saker som är en riktig pain in the ass att förlora alltså. Jösses så jobbigt! 

Men igår eftermiddag när vi var i Old Town ringde min svenska mobiltelefon och det var från Coronado polisen som meddelade att någon hade lämnat in väskan samt att de från polisen ringt till Handelsbanken i Sverige och spärrat Bellas Mastercard. 

Helt otroligt! Jag är mäktigt imponerad! 

Bara på Coronado Island säger jag då. Ingen annanstans. Detta är en värld för sig! 

Det har jag sagt många gånger. Inget på denna Ö är representativt av mainstream USA eller något annat heller för den delen. Haha..på gott och ont. 

Coronado Polisstation på Orange Avenue 

måste vara en av de vackraste polisstationer i världen. 

Som man tydligen faktiskt inte får fotografera. 

Knepigt värre!

 Men denna glada och enormt lättade mamman kunde inte låta bli :-) 

Don't be a tourist...

be a traveller! 

Yes, but sometimes it is great fun to visit places where a lot of tourists go and especially since we have a person with us on this trip who has never travelled before, and thus is in need of some quick-fix in regards to history and culture. So, yes, we went to Old Town San Diego where we had a huge great Mexican Margarita lunch with our neighbors from Japan who also then persuaded us to visit the Whaley House which is by the way supposed to be the most hunted home in America. 

I tried that yellow sauce and it almost killed me!

I had to wash my tongue in my water glas for five minutes afterwards, 

all while the entire table were laughing their heads of at me and my friend Janine reminded me that I am a white Swedish person and should know better :-) 

Oh, the sizes they serve here by the way equals three Swedish portions. 

Lunch with our fantastic friends who were our neighbors when we lived in Japan. 

What a great picture of us all! 

Our kiddos & I 

Inside the Whaley House

Since we are all a bunch of history nerds we engaged with one of the guides, a historian herself, who really gave us the bonus material and exciting anecdotes about 

the house and its former inhabitants. 

Lucky us! 

It really made the entire tour as she was a fantastic storyteller. Her husband is Swedish by the way. Last name: Björklund. The world is a very small place. Love it! 

Truthful Tuesday

...on a Wednesday!

1. It is very, very far from our small town of Mora in Sweden to Coronado in Southern California.
Train: Mora - Stockholm. Plane: Stockholm- Frankfurt- Los Angeles. Automobile: Los Angeles - San Diego.

2. I seriously believe that the main requirement to get hired as an immigration inspection officer is: You need to be a rude obnoxious asshole.

3. The first person tourists encounter upon arrival in the United States is an extremely rude and obnoxious immigrations officer and if the tourist does not understand English very well the immigrations officer only speaks louder, and if that does not make the tourist fluent in English immediately the immigrations officer starts to yell. If the tourist still does not understand the immigrations officer screams: So what are you doing visiting America if you cannot speak English?!!
Watching this atrocity makes me very ashamed over being an American. How can this verbal abuse of visitors  to the United States and Americans returning home alike be allowed to happen day after day at all US Airports? Can somebody please stop this!?

4. At 46 years of age the nine hour time difference between Sweden and California beats me up in the worst of ways. I am still seriously jet-lagged and it is Wednesday! How did I ever manage to do this for a living and always look fresh as a rose? On a positive note, being jet-lagged means that it is totally OK to have a lunch size breakfast before 7 am!

Orange Avenue @ 6:40 am

5. I never ever in my life thought I would seriously consider voting for Hillary Clinton! So help me God!

6. There is nothing that represents mainstream USA on the beautiful, affluent paradise island of Coronado where we are staying, and to be honest at this time I would be horrified to stay in any place that represents mainstream America.

7. After only a few minutes on US soil I had already been contacted by my favorite navy friends from all corners of the United States, again confirming their special status as quality people of the highest order. I feel humbled and blessed to be able to call them my friends.

8. Traveling with three teenagers is a blessed thing indeed! And especially for them $$$$

9. Christmas is just around the corner in the United Sates, and let me tell y'all they are ready. The trees are up. The halls are decked! They will not be caught off guard when December rolls around.