A short walk brought me to the Mission San Diego. Mass was held every hour on the hour during the part of Sunday morning that I was there. It's courtyard contains the oldest cemetery in California not counting what the natives had before then. I guess the sign was referring specifically to ground consecrated by the Christian church. Padre Luis Jayme, the first Christian martyr in California is buried here. As I eavesdropped on the mass enjoying the beauty of the courtyard, tourists came and went as well as a certain element of mass attenders. Two girls in pink dresses had much fun running around and climbing on the statue of Fray Junipero Serra who's staff made a convenient hand hold to get up onto it's base from the walkway.

At one point from clear across the courtyard I spotted a hummingbird and soon thereafter realized that the chirping I had been hearing was their song. I had not recognized it because the hummingbirds in South Carolina where I grew skilled in spotting them chirped more lyrically and bubbly. These birds were more chattery--more like a squeeky wheel of the little metal toy cars I had as a boy.

On my way back to the resort I learned something of what the transit system did to fascilitate moving people to Qualcom Stadium for a sporting event. Booths were open to sell tickets just for stadium goers. Trolleys were rushed from the stadium end of the blue line back into or beyond town empty to more quickly load up with travelers wanting to get to the stadium in time for the game. This probably slowed me down that afternoon getting around, but since I was not in a hurry, I was not terribly bothered.

Why was I back on the trolley that afternoon? Well, the information I had been given by the resort concierge was incorrect. I could not register beginning at noon nor were there events to attend before Monday morning. So it was back across the bayou and back onto the trolley to see another nearby attraction. Just a couple of stops back towards downtown is Old Town. It is the site of the first European settlement on the U.S. west coast. I ve already mentioned Juan Cabrillo and will do so again. While he was the first European to come to this area, he did not name it San Diego, but rather San Miguel after Michael the Archangel who's feast day was the day after his arrival. Sixty years later another Spaniard, Vizcaino, arrived, claiming Cabrillo's calculations of latitude were wrong, thus claiming to be making a new discovery and named the area San Diego after Saint James who's feast day was the day he arrived. Vizcaino actually erected a building. Whether his building was on the site of Old Town, I'm not sure anyone knows, but certainly this building no longer stands.