Working for the Weekends!

For the first 6 weeks of my internship, I have the weekends off! (Later this month I switch to having Tues-Wed off.) So Yoav and I have been trying to make the most of our weekends off together! Two weeks ago we went to Catalina Island with his sister, brother-in-law and niece! The weather was super nice, and it was really beautiful! We stayed at a really nice hotel and it was kind of like a mini vacation! We did lots of fun touristy stuff in just 2 days such as going on a glass bottom boat, seeing a movie in an old theater, and renting a golf cart to drive around the island! :)






Last weekend we had a "staycation" in San Diego! We went whale watching on Saturday morning which was really fun! We saw lots of grey whales, which are currently migrating from Alaska down to Mexico! We even saw one breach 3 times, which is apparently really rare! Unfortunately my camera died, so this is the only picture I actually took of a whale (see that bump in the water...that's a whale. hahaha)



So I stole these pictures from the Birch Aquarium website!




Today we are going to Balboa Park to have a picnic and go to some of the museums! There is a deal where you can go to 5 of the 14 for like 30 dollars, so we are going to do that! My choice is the natural history museum, and he's picked the museum of flight, and we haven't decided on the last three yet!

As for what's been going on at work, I've been learning a lot about the research projects the Navy is working on, and been learning a lot about animal training. Here are some highlights from my past week:
- I got to help hold down a dolphin while it was having a medical procedure, which was cool because I was right up next to him while he was out of the water!
- I got to feed a sea lion! (Granted, it was while I was on "pee watch" since we needed a urine sample from him haha)
- I learned how to give tactile cues to a blind dolphin for his behaviors, which is really cool since most cues are visual. Plus this dolphin is just adorable.
- Yesterday was kind of a slow day, not much research and not many trainers, so I got to have a lot of animal time. I got to play with one of our older females, who does this really fun behavior. If you shrug your shoulders in a "what are you going to find me" fashion, she will swim around the pen and bring you back some treasure like a shell or seaweed! hahaha :)



Also, I finallyyyyy went to the gym to start swimming! I know I've been saying this for months, but now I really am getting myself ready for a swim test! All the girls from work go to the gym/pool after work to workout together.

Overall, lots of awesome stuff going on in my life right now! :)