San Diego!! Sun and Sand and Sea and Stuff!

Ahhh the West Coast. I believe it was the uber-cool New York rock band Interpol who asked the question “How are things on the West Coast?” … I can answer that question in the form of a blog entry and a type away sitting at Terminal 2 in the San Diego Airport.

And, the simple answer is pretty badass!

I flew out two days ago after a few time zone changes from Mountain/East/Central/East so I was afraid that I was going to be amazingly tired, which I was, but was easily able to fight through it! One of my best friends Anjelica recently did what I’ve been typing about for a while and took a chance. She had been in Orlando for a while and it was starting to get a little stale with work and the whole party scene so she packed up and moved to lovely San Diego. I remember talking to her about it before she went and although she was nervous to make such a big move she agreed with my philosophy which is “Just Try It” … I attempt to never have a regret because of something I didn’t do. You can do things and learn from the potential mistakes, but I never want to have ‘what if I did this’ moments.

Anyway, Anj was cool enough to set up some amazing stuff for me when I came into her new hometown of San Diego. I have a crazy long list of things I can add to the ‘new places’ category. As soon as I landed, we trekked over to Balboa Park, which is where the San Diego Zoo is located … WAY bigger than I thought it would be. It’s not a park, it’s more of a wooded and grassed city in itself. After a long walk through there seeing some awesome sites we checked out the History Of Man building. Much to my pleasant surprise it wasn’t a Chippendales “Caveman” Male Review, rather a badass exhibit of Peruvian history and Egyptian Culture including tons of real mummies. Slightly creepy but amazingly cool. Check out the pictures below to see the building which was so breathtaking I can’t describe it and I’ll allow the photos to do the talking.

After that we went to her new town of La Jolla, CA. La Jolla is a small city about 15 minutes from downtown San Diego that is home to some serious money. It’s surrounded by a few other towns/beaches that are more college friends and economically diverse, but La Jolla seems to be a lot more upscale. She and her friend Gabe warned me it was a pretty nose-in-the-air type city but luckily they showed me around to a ton of places that had their noses properly pointed in the forward position.  

The first place we went was called French 101 … that’s her bar/restaurant. In addition to a killer bar, they have a HUGE bakery in the place. Really cool and amazingly yummy. We had a 4 course dinner which was fantastic all around. In my new and healthy ways, trying to eat mostly vegetarian, I had an incredible smokey “Penne Ratatouille”. Since it was San Diego weather, 74 over a sunset it was perfectly light and pretty refreshing. If you’re in SD or plan on going, 100% go to French 101 – great food, great drinks, great people and surprisingly not expensive (or noses in the upright and locked position).

After that we hit the town for a bunch of different bars down the main strip of La Jolla saying hi to all these people and checking out some amazing bars and lounges all of which had an ocean view. My personal favorite was called “Georges” – it was on the second floor of a quaint strip of shops with a great wine list and amazing view of the ocean from a few stories up overlooking the sand and rocks of the cove. Funny part of the evening … a bunch of us were sitting together and I ordered some wine, and the others followed suit. Gabe asked the server ‘what kind of beer do you have?’ she glared at him and said  ‘I think you know the list … you spilled three of them last night…’. Quick with a reply, Gabe said ‘Oh, right! Which one didn’t I spill? I liked that one … I’ll have the Hefeweizen .’

After that we made our way to the Historic Gaslight District and went to a pretty famous bar called “Whiskey Girl”. Think combination of dance club / rodeo. Pretty sweet! We stayed there for a while and had a few drinks. The joy of heading out to a bar in downtown during the week is it’s so cheap! EVERYTHING was $3.

Day two started off with a trip to the Windan Sea Coffee Shop. Yup, I cheated on Starbucks but don’t hold it against me. It’s literally next to the house, so coffee is a must with a long evening and jetlag. I would have had instant cof…. No, I take that back. I wouldn’t have.

From there we took a walk along Windan Sea Beach (sidenote: the whole first day I thought it was Wind And Sea, not Windan Sea … you can see that mistake, right?) and checked out some of the cliffs. The ocean was really getting strong while we were on the cliffs and saw some amazing waves crashing into the sea walls – you can see a few of the photos with the ocean literally 20+ feet in air off a wall. That sound is incredible… the wave building and rumbling then a loud crash into wall. It’s Mother Nature’s equivalent of the kickoff in football.

Then it was the beach tour. We hit beaches all over the area including Pacific Beach (which I LOVE the area, shops and restaurants everywhere in a really chill environment), Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, and Dog Beach (with puppies running everywhere. I hope to God we can all one day be as happy as all those dogs were running on the beach). A quick stop at Nick’s on the Pier for some lobster and fish tacos before heading back to La Jolla was a fantastic few minutes of downtime. I’m going to make lobster tacos when I get home … never thought they’d be that good – but they’re amazing. Oh, and $3?!?

Back to La Jolla where Gabe taught us how to ocean snorkel. We went into the cove (water = cold) and had at it. I’ve never done anything remotely close to this … hell, I don’t like going in the ocean at all but this was amazing. We saw a bunch of fish swimming right by us and even a few sting rays close to the bottom of the water. We got close enough to touch them, but as soon as you get that close they dart away (which as it swam away all I could think is the teacher from “Finding Nemo”). We did get some underwater photos and as soon as they’re developed I’ll post them.

We had dinner in old La Jolla at this awesome little Italian restaurant … we dined outside because the weather was yet again, amazing. By the way, if this travel thing or the radio thing doesn’t work out – I’m going to be a weatherman in San Diego as my job would be “Today it’s going to be sunny and 74 … looking at the extended forecast, tomorrow through next month will be sunny and 74 with the chance of 73 so bundle up!”

Then we wrapped up our evening at La Valencia Hotel (which is a really really high end boutique resort) for some wine on the deck over looking, you guessed it, the ocean, the local beer and wine place called “La Jolla Brew House” (which had a stout beer to write home about – they used espresso beans and Kahlua in the brewing process)  and a small locals bar called “The Shack”. Then around 1am after we finished at the bar, we hit the small 24 hour Mexican place next to the house for a Shrimp Taco. There is more amazing Mexican here than anywhere I’ve ever seen. Oh, and while you wait for your taco – they give you a giant bowl of roasted hot peppers – jalapenos, habaneros, etc … so yummy but my mouth is still burning like the forest in LA.  The morning I woke up, had an amazing wheat bagel with egg, tomato, fresh basil and feta cheese and headed to the airport.



Overall, San Diego is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. And, I mean that from a variety of angles … the sites, the sounds, the smells are all relaxing. I don’t know how anyone would ever say “Man, San Diego sure is a dump of a city”. Even non-beach people would love this place.

So, now an insanely busy and hectic few days comes to a close as I sit waiting to board the plane for Salt Lake City. Wish me luck on the rental car as I still don’t have my driver’s license. The more I’m doing this, the more I’m enjoying it … hopefully you don’t mind reading my posts as I noticed they’re getting a little longer.

Talk to you from SLC! And, thanks for all the kind words and notes as I’m going about my adventure.

Carter

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Posted by Carter at 9/23/2009 3:03 PM
Categories: uncategorized

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