Legoland!!!

Hahaha.
I had intended to go to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad (the next town along) today - but, it's closed on Mondays. Inconsiderate of them really.
So, seeing as I was there before I discovered it was closed.... went to the place next door instead, Legoland.
Turned out to be an expensive day - $20 taxi fare to get there and $67 to get in!! I nearly baulked at that but I figured I was there and didn't really want to just turn round and go back to Oceanside. So I paid the $67 and in I went.
It was very entertaining actually. If I was 10 I would have had an absolute ball. And there were lots and lots of kids there. Must cost a fortune to take a family.
The place is divided into themed areas - animals, castle, pirates, duplo (for the real littleys), etc. The pirate area was awash with water haha. Kids loved it.
Miniland was the most impressive part for me - a whole bunch of mini cities, all made from Lego, representing various parts of the USA. Not having seen any of these places I can't vouch for the accuracy, but the detail is amazing. At one stage I thought I'd come across an areas set aside for overseas representations - Egypt, Paris, etc, but no..... Las Vegas casinos.
Washington DC had its own area, separated/cut off from the rest of "America" - not sure if that's some sort of deliberate political statement or not! Probably unintentional but.....
All up I spent about 4 hours wandering around. Caught a bus to Carlsbad railway station ($2) and then the Coaster train back to Oceanside (one stop, $5). Cheaper than another taxi but much longer timewise.
While at Oceanside I investigated trains to LA - $24 (or $26?) for a ticket to LA. Pricey but much cheaper than the $120 - $150 it would cost to get there by taxi.

Speaking of costs.....BANK FEES!!! It costs me $2plus to use local ATMs plus my bank charges me another $5 because it's not one of their ATMS. Bit unfair seeing as they don't have any over here!!!!
Can't really do anything about that but.... it sucks that each withdrawal is costing me an extra 7 or 8 dollars each time. I could pay for everything with the card instead of withdrawing cash but a lot of things seem to have 2 prices here - one for cash and an extra dollop on top for credit. Works out about the same I suppose. I prefer to use cash though as it's easier to keep track of how much I'm spending.

Anyway.... off to sort out photos and upload some to flickr.

Later......