After a two week break from school... wham! I'm back in it up to my earholes.

It's October now. We went to Monterey, California, Labor Day weekend for a nice little getaway, improved greatly by the fact that it was about 75° there and about 105° in San Diego at the time. Got upgraded to a big suite at the Marriott. We visited the always wonderful Monterey Aquarium, which, take it from me, is the best in the world. Avoided Bubba Gumps and places of that creepy ilk, but had a truly marvelous dinner at Stokes, on Hartnell Street; had an unfortunate Gyro sandwich at a local Greek Street Fair, which made me vom.

Boy, Monterey was hopping. Those local tourists with their baby strollers were everywhere. Took an all-day drive east into Salinas County to the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. We briefly imagined ourselves living in the hill country around Monterey but then got over it.


Last weekend was my brother Lucien's birthday. He is living in San Diego now, so his daughters, Rohanna and Hari, drove up from LA with Lilah, Ro's 2 year old daughter. She was a lot of fun, especially at the zoo the next day. She really came alive at the turtles exhibit, which is kind of creepy. In addition to the normal turtles swimming around, they have some with really, really long necks, which look a little too prehistoric.



We've made 6 months of travel plans: Guatemala at Thanksgiving, Thailand and Hong Kong at Christmas, and Buenos Aires for spring break 2010. Woo hoo! Almost all of that is on air miles and Marriott points. Suck on that, American dollar!