I met Nick for lunch yesterday. We went back to the Tin Fish since the food was good & it's right across from the convention center. One of the guys he worked with at Tufts happened by & joined us. Nick's all dressed up because he chaired a session that morning. That book he's looking at is the program for his conference - Experimental Biology. He was trying to decide what to attend in the afternoon. After lunch, I did a little shopping in the Gaslamp District and then headed over to Balboa Park. My first stop was the Botanical Gardens. The building is made of wood lath & is one of the largest of its kind in the world. It was built in 1915 and houses over 2000 plants both permanent and seasonal. Apparently there is a "carnivorous plant bog" in there, but I didn't see it...They had a large display of Easter Lilies right inside the front door.
Lots of iris and orchids all over the place.
I'm partial to the ferns. I think I was fascinated by the visual effect of this same kind of fern last time I was at the Balboa Park Botanical Garden.
These two plants seemed to have a nice contrast, both in shade of green and in texture.

This building houses some of Balboa Park's museums. All of the architecture is similarly ornate. It was originally built for an exposition celebrationg the completion of the Panama Canal in 1915-1916. Additional structures were added later at an exposition in the mid-1930's that was held in the hopes of alleviating some of the economic trouble of the Great Depression. The Balboa Park complex is massive. It includes more than a dozen museum, parks, gardens, performing arts venues and the famous San Diego Zoo.The museum of Photographic Arts is housed in this building.
Natural History Museum. I'm going to check out their special exhibit on Pompeii today.
I came across some more ferns in a little place called the Zoro Garden. They were just uncurling. I think it's pretty cool how they develop, so I spent a bunch of time taking pictures of them.

Here's one that's almost fully spread out.
When I was done at Balboa Park for the afternoon, I headed back toward the Convention Center to meet Nick. We went back to our room to change & get ready for a reception hosted by Tufts University for it's alumnai. There were quite a few of Nick's friends & colleagues there. Left to right - Sue, Dan, Sai, Nick, & Gaston. Sue was everyone's advisor, the rest were working on their PhDs together. It was a really nice reception & we both enjoyed seeing old friends.

(Sorry about the quality - my camera setting dial moved & I didn't notice!)

After the reception, Nick & I went to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel called the Indigo Grill for a bite to eat. Have you ever seen such massive servings??? It was really delicious & the restaurant had interesting decor. My dinner was a Pork Porterhouse with orange kiwi salad (spicy), grilled plantains, smashed potatoes and some kind of onion string things. Nick had grilled chicken with rice pilaf, a huge mixed green salad in a shell and black beans. It felt like we needed to be rolled to the door when we were done. It was so tasty it was hard to stop eating it all!