Graduate School Tour Day 1 - SCRIPPS

On monday I flew out to San Diego through Chicago from Albany via a cheap 150$ ticket from United.  I arrived in San Diego right on time, picked up my silver Ford Focus and booked it over Mt. Soledad to Scripps Oceanographic Institute on La Jolla Bay.  I missed my first appointment by 5 minutes but was able to make all the others.  It became apparent very quickly that I did not have the math, physics, or programming skills to be accepted into the geophysics department, much less work with satellite geodesy as I had hoped.  Unfortunately I had planned all my meetings without knowing there was a large hill separating the geology faculty from the geophysics faculty.  Every other appointment I found myself running up and down the damn hill.  I did not like the fact that the faculty were so separated from each other - There didn't seem to be much interdisciplianry interraction among the faculty and most of the faculty office doors were closed.  The school itself was absolutely amazing and had clear views of the bay, the pier where the research vessel docks, and the surfers in the breakers.  It was certainly a change going from Albany where they had to de-ice the plane in a snowstorm before taking off to landing among palm trees and 70 degree weather.  San Diego would be a perfect place to mountain bike, or surf.  As for Scripps, I think my chances are pretty slim. 
    I called up Kladis who had just gotten back to California that afternoon so I met up with him and his girlfriend Audra in Orange California, just south of Los Angeles.  They took me to Chick-fil-A, a local KFC type fast food place for some dinner as soon as I got there.  Then they took me to their favorite coastal spots and we even jumped on a ferry to an island to explore around.  The houses located in the area were all multi-million dollar mansions perched on the beach cliffs and each house had some of the most expensive cars I have ever seen.  We went down to a local beach that Nick likes and walked around for a bit.  We then drove back to Audra's mom's place in a gated community and took Audra's dog Begonia and another dog they were taking care of, Marty, for a walk around a nearby park.  The park was huge for such a busy populated area, and it even had horse stables which we stopped at to pet the horses.  It was very nice of them to put me up for the night.  I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to start driving through L.A. traffic and I was pretty jet-lagged and tired from the interviews at Scripps so I passed out at about 11pm.

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