Tourists in Our Own Town, Chapter 1 - Sea World

After more than a year of living in San Diego, Jack and I are finally getting around to checking out some of the better known tourist attractions located here. And let's be honest, this city is a tourism mecca. On one hand, it's kind of cool to live in one of the top vacation destinations in the country. On the other, tourists are annoying.

But I guess if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! So we start our tourism adventure at San Diego's largest and most over-priced aquarium--Sea World.

Each summer my law firm spends an astonishing amount of money hosting social events for our summer associates (aka "summers," or law students working for us for the summer in the hopes of landing an offer for a permanent position after graduation). The general purpose of the events is to show the summers a good time and entice them to come work for our firm, but the events are also a great chance for the attorneys (and specifically the young associates) to get to know each other's spouses and kids. And because the firm pays for everything--from parking and gratuity to admission and drinks--the events are also a nice opportunity to enjoy a good dinner or a pricey attraction on the company dime.

So one of this summer's activities was "Dinner with Shamu" at Sea World. Roughly, this entailed a buffet dinner and private showing of the world's most famous killer whale. As it turns out, we had a Shamu imposter named Ulysses, but the food was okay, the beer was cold (Sea World is owned by Anheuser-Busch, after all), and I got some good pics of Ulysses (see above), so it wasn't a horrible time. The firm ponied up about $60/person for admission to the park, plus an additional $40/person for the dinner, so at the very least it was definitely something I'm glad I got to experience without having to pay for it.

Our Sea World experience was made even more fun because our friend Matt (Jack's best man, for those in the know) was in town to visit us that weekend and we managed to sneak him on the guest list as well (it's always nice to be good friends with the person who runs the summer events program!). We were only there for a couple hours because we wanted to take Matt to a few other of our favorite spots while he was in town, but it was long enough to enjoy a simulated helicopter ride through the arctic, the sharks, penguins, flamingos, fresh water aquarium, dolphins, manatees, and of course the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales (who are a totally logical fit with all the sea life).

The donkey who wanted to be a Clydesdale (from the commercials).