we wanted to go to catalina today. we looked up online which ferry we were going to take and what we were going to do once we got there. we even invited over a friend to join us. we didn't make any reservations and didn't call any of these places. that was our big mistake. we get to the ferry and they're closed. the sign says they resume operation in another month. thanks for not putting that on your website fuckers!

there were other groups arriving and reading the sign, just as shocked as we were. we'll just take another ferry! one of the groups had the number for the other company and called. they're booked until 2pm. well that's no fucking good for us. we're not spending the night in catalina! we have dinner reservations on this side of the sea.

scottish festival parade

ok girls, time to make up your mind as to what you want to do today. time to formulate plan c. we decided to go to the queen mary, which was visible from where we were. i haven't been there in a long time and the girls have not been there at all. we arrive and there's a scottish festival going on. that's ok, we'll just view the queen mary and if we have time and interest, we'll check out the festival. ticket lady says you can't do that. the festival is taking place on the queen mary so we had to buy tickets to the scottish festival. oh fuck it, we're here and already paid for parking. we decided to also buy the ticket to view the russian submarine called scorpian that's been docked there for awhile for display.

queen mary, meet the scorpian

we checked out parts of the queen mary i've never looked at, though i've been there many times before and have even spent the night there. so that was a good thing. they've got this kooky ghosts tour now that is silly but it's an enhancement. we also took a look around the scottish festival, at the vendors, parade, and watched some people performing bagpipes and drums. out of curiousity i was looking at the kilt books to find the tartan for my irish great-grandfather's name but didn't find anything concrete, only suggestions. (they did have irish names and there was even a book for tartans of the world, like there was a tartan for every american state, really odd.) i don't think i have any scottish in me but who knows. maybe one day i'll visit my roots in ireland and learn more about that branch of the family but it's so distant. i don't think my great-grandfather was even from ireland, just decent, maybe 2nd generation at the most recent.

insert torpedo here

i had fun checking out the russian submarine. it was cool to see all the labels in russian and i remembered enough of the alphabet to decipher the buttons to launch torpedoes! there were signs in english as to not touch any of the buttons as the submarine was still operational so i didn't press the torpedo buttons, but it was tempting! it's amazing how many crew members they squeezed into the submarine. i don't think you'll ever find an all female submarine crew! there's only so many showers and toilets. can you imagine all that pms? no way! i'd definitely go crazy and have cabin fever.

since we didn't go to catalina, we finished our day early and went to the restaurant hours before our reservation. not what we planned to do but a good day overall.