Wine Country and Comic-Con San Diego!

Its been quiet the last few days, mainly because we stayed in Santa Rosa for Simone's training program. I've been using the time to do the mundane things like washing, shopping and researching trip options coming up. And watching daytime TV on the side. I've learned about guns, the Hutterites, secret underground tunnels in France and a lot of very useful other topics. Yes I've been watching the History and Discovery Channel :)

On the first day of the course after the program was over, we met with a few of the ladies from the program and went out to dinner together, to a place called Johnny Garlic, which is Guy Fieri's restaurant. Both Simone and I had the ribs which sounded good. Simone decided she prefers the wet style ribs to the dry rub style we got here, but they were tender and tasty. I took her leftovers home for lunch the next day.

Speaking of keeping food - the Hilton Sonoma is the first hotel we came across that did not have a fridge in the room by default. I had to actually ask for a fridge to be brought up to us.

Ribs at Johnny Garlic

On the second day we went to a local Mexican joint I had looked up, and the food was excellent - and so cheap! Our entire meal came to 30odd bucks. I had the pulled pork quesadilla as a starter and then the devil shrimp as my main, with rice, avocado and salad. The shrimps were delicious, cooked just right and the spice on the sauce, which contained red and green peppers and onion, was just right so it didn't overpower the flavour. The rice was a bit mushy but I don't know if that's meant to be like that or if it was simply overcooked.

Simone had a burrito with shredded grilled beef.

After driving back to San Francisco today to drop off the rental car and fly to San Diego we ended up at the airport where I saw this vending machine :)

After arriving in San Diego we took a cab to the first hotel where we picked up the Comic-Con passes. Our driver Alex was very friendly, he's originally from Kuwait but lived in Alexandria (Egypt) for ten years and has been a San Diego resident for 4 years. He was originally in the furniture making business and importing/exporting before becoming a cab driver here - it's interesting what people have done before their life in the US.

We got our tickets and then got another cab to our hotel, The Keating. Well let me tell you about this place: in the entrance area you have a side table with free watermelon water and a small popcorn machine is next to the elevator. Behind the counter it spells "Welcome To The Keating" in various artsy photos. After we got to our room we were both quite surprised - this isn't like any other hotel we'd been at. Very modern and artsy, The Keating is what they call a "lifestyle" hotel, whatever that means....(well I think we know what it means :) ).

Video of the room

The shower is in your bedroom.

Coffee/esspresso machine

Bang & Olufsen stereo thank you very much.

Our bed.

Fresh cookies next to the bed!

A multiple device charger, various snacks. And yes, that marked packet contains connies, lube and other essentials :) One thing was in there that I thought looked like a cock ring, but must be something else.

Bang & Olufsen TV and speakers of course.

The hotel is only 4 blocks from the convention center and right in the entertainment district, so all the restaurants and bars are within walking distance.

Tomorrow is the first day of the con and no doubt there'll be a ton of photos coming tomorrow.