Day 1 - Arrival and hotel 🌴
March 19 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
I was told quite last minute about an investigator meeting for one of our new clinical trials coming up in San Diego. I was given less than a 2 week notice to prepare and pack!
My flight was direct from Toronto to San Diego at 9am. It was just over a 5 hour flight, and it went quite smoothly. No delays or issues. However the customs line in Canada was terribly long. I travelled with one of our site’s doctors and he has a NEXUS card, so he flew right past all the line and got in within minutes. Meanwhile I had to wait nearly an hour 🥲
He got in early so he went up to his Air Canada lounge. He was super nice and gave me a guest pass to check it out, even though I only spent about 30 mins there 😭
On the flight, I watched One Battle After Another, which has many Oscar wins! It was really good but very heavy themes.
We landed at about noon and exited immediately. We found our driver and it was smooth after then! They drove us to the hotel and it was so beautiful! Turns out this hotel is a whole resort! They have 9 restaurants onsite and a water park/pool area. We checked in and got our rooms. I settled in mine, it was a big room with a beautiful washroom!
We decided to check out one of the restaurants to have lunch. We opted for one of the sports bars. I got a Philly cheesesteak with truffle fries. The doctor got an angus burger with fries. 🍟
After, he decided to rest a bit in his room before he leaves to meet with a friend. I decided to explore the resort. It was a beautiful day, but very hot and sunny. Apparently they are having an extremely hot spring this year. I was relaxing outside in the shade and chatting with my parents. It was so nice! ☀️
I went to my room to freshen myself up before the meeting dinner. I arrived at the dinner and we were eating outside. I met some study coordinators from Hawaii and Ohio. Most people here are Americans, I believe there is only one other Canadian site here from Montreal.
We all got a glass of champagne and had access to an open bar. 🥂 Our dinner was buffet style. There were 2 types of salads, Mexican rice, pinto beans, chicken, cod and roast beef. Everything was quite good but just a lil bit salty. Dessert there was a berry panne cotta, chocolate pecan tart and a fruit tart. I only had the first two and both were yum!
In the evening, when the sun goes down, it gets quite chilly. I definitely needed my cardigan.
After dinner, I went back to my room, took a nice long shower and headed straight to bed cuz I was so exhausted! I couldn’t stay up past 10:30pm PST since I hadn’t slept since 5am EST. 😴Read more
Day 2 - Meeting and going home 🏠
March 20 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
It was just one night’s stay I got for this meeting. I woke up a bit earlier so I can get ready and pack my things. I had to check out before the breakfast and meeting started since the check out time was 11am. The meeting started at 9am so I would need to do this beforehand.
After checking out, I went to breakfast! It was delish, lots of options! I also met up with my sub-I there!
We then headed over to the meeting room, which was right next door. It was a full day of meetings so I was ready. What was hilarious was that at the first break, my Sub-I left because he needed to check out. An hour passed, then 2, and I knew he wasn’t coming back… 🤣 He then texted me “I’m heading to the train station to LA! Have a safe flight back home!”
There were two breaks in the day, one at 11am and one at 3pm. The breaks had amazing snacks! The morning break had delicious fruit smoothies! Green, orange and berry smoothie shots! I wanted to have more! They also had a lot of fruit!
After another hour of meetings, we had lunch. It was also very good, with Mexican influenced meals! We had a nice break so I went for a walk outside! It was sooooo beautiful, like almost 30 C! Apparently they had a heatwave going on, but compared to the Toronto weather, I’ll take the heat! ☀️
After a few more hours of meetings, we got to leave a bit early! I had time to kill before my shuttle back to the airport so I ended up relaxing outside on the seating area (I had a 10pm flight to Newark, then a layover for less than an hr, then 2 hour flight back to Toronto… amazing flight choice I know)
I decided to take an earlier shuttle back to the airport because I wanted to check out the San Diego airport lounge. I got there at 6pm instead of 8pm. Unfortunately when I got to the lounge, it said it was a full capacity… 🥲 So I had to find food elsewhere. Luckily my dinner could be invoiced so I ended up finding a random restaurant and ordering some fish tacos! They were quite good, but I ended up paying $25USD for 2 tacos 🫣 Which is like $30CAD… it was a lot… but at least the tacos were good!
I was so early, so I was literally lounging around, also so sleepy…
Thankfully my flight had no delays so I was boarded and on my way towards Newark! Got there safe and sound, then caught my layover back to Toronto! I landed at 7am with literally 2 hours sleep for 24hrs. Safe to say I was happy to go home and sleep that day! 😴Read more
TravelerOmg but a nice last-minute getaway! Even if it was for work! Excited to hear more about how the conference went the next day!!
TravelerThe food looks really good!!’ Though customs 😭😭 I feel that with all my heart