I recently got the chance to meet up with a couple of friends from college. We were all three Exercise Science majors. One was a soccer player and the other was a swimmer, so both athletes. Then there was me. A good ol' sorority girl. Somehow we managed to become friends though, so I was stoked when I found out they were coming to San Diego. They were with a group of their friends who, I kid you not, were either Canadian, a swimmer, or both. So once again, I fit right in!
Even though I am far from being Canadian or an Olympic swimmer, I had a great time. I arrived Tuesday afternoon. We hung out on the beach for a little while then got ready to go to dinner in the Gaslamp District. The only problem was that we had no way of transporting seven girls, so we decided to take the bus. This was a first time experience for many of the girls, myself included. It was quite interesting; however, we learned that for only $5 bucks you can purchase an all day bus pass and Google Maps is ballerrr. It literally tells you exactly which bus to get on and where to get off. We would have been lost without it. One of the girls decided she was not a fan of the bus. She said something like, "I am not a public transportation kind of girl. I'm the kind of girl who needs a driver. I am taking a taxi back. I just wanted to try it once. But mark this one in the books, girls. San Diego-July 2012, my first and last bus ride." In her defense, it was really crowded so she got stuck in the front of the bus by herself while the rest of us were sitting in the back. After one or two stops though most of the people got off so she was able to sit in the back with us. After the bus ride she said, "Once I got to the back of the bus I was fine. I don't know why Rosa Parks even complained. The back of the bus is where it's at."
The Gaslamp District was a pretty popular place that evening. There are restaurants lining the street, as well as little shops. In front of every single restaurant was someone trying to persuade you to eat there. It reminded me of China Town in NYC where all the Asian ladies are basically begging you to follow them down some secret stairwell to buy their "designer" purses. We chose a restaurant that had a Happy Hour, so we were forced to eat in the lounge area. Three of us got stuck sitting on these awkward stools, while the other four girls got to sit on the comfy couch. Although no matter your seat, eating comfortably over this small coffee table was near impossible. After dinner we walked around a bit. We saw a street magician put a nail up his nose and "hammer" it in, found a cute boutique that was unfortunately too expensive for most of us, and ended up at The Melting Pot for dessert. This was another first for many of us. The chocolate fondue was amazing. We were all in Heaven. Then reality set in and we realized we still had to bus it back to the condo; however, our bus #30 no longer was running. So we had to take bus #2 to the trolley station, then take the Blue Line West to Old Town, where we finally boarded bus #8 to get home. Upon arriving home, we found out that the two girls who had the key had not made it back to the condo yet. We waited for what seemed like forever for them to finally show up and let us in.
Wednesday morning three girls went to the San Diego Zoo, while the rest of us decided to venture into La Jolla (pronounced Hoya, not Jolla, like I thought. But give me a break, I am from Kentucky...Bullitt Co. at that). It was only about a 20 minute bus ride. We got off in the shopping district and saw numerous signs for a missing cat. This wasn't just a normal cat. It looked as if it walked straight out of the jungle. The reward for finding it was $5000. You best believe we kept our eye out and were prepared to catch that beast. Unfortunately, we never saw it.
While looking out over the water, we saw a beach. We decided it was a genius idea to walk to the beach. And by walk, I mean hike a million miles in flip flops and sundresses with beach bags. On our way, a guy running with his dog passed us going in the opposite direction. A while later, he passed us again. This time going in the same direction as us. I mean, was there some shortcut we weren't aware of or were we just that slow? We were almost to the beach when we decided to stop for frozen yogurt. It was delicious. After we ate, we continued on our journey to reach what we thought would be a lovely beach. Boy, were we wrong. Once we arrived, probably an hour after we had first noticed it, the beach was crowded. Really, really crowded with lots of kids. The ocean was green. It was not worth the hike, that's for sure. But we were there and decided to make the best of it. So we laid out for a bit, but shortly after decided it was lunch time. We hopped on bus #30 back to the shopping district and found a BBQ place. After lunch we stopped at a crazy hat store and then it was back to the bus stop to catch a ride home.
I hung out on the deck with some of the girls that night & left around 8:30pm. Shortly after I got onto the 5 expressway/freeway/whatever you want to call it, I got stuck in traffic. The Border Patrol was open. Every car was stopped by a police officer who casually glanced in your car. Luckily I'm far from looking like I'm from Mexico (I really need to work on my tan), so I was waved on through. A car in the next lane was not so lucky and had to pull off to the side. Not sure what happened to them.
While I was in San Diego, I received a phone call from the mom I had recently interviewed with. It's a mother's helper position for six month old twins. She said, "We interviewed a lot of people for the position. My husband and I decided we really liked your energy and the way you interacted with the twins, so the position is yours if you'd still like it." I start one week from Monday!
[But I swear Thursday afternoon when I was in my neighborhood with the kids, I saw it. We were having a picnic in the park, minding our own business, when a large being caught my eye. I was like, what in the world? As it jumped over the fence, I realized I had just let $5000 run away from me. Such a let down.]
We walked through the shopping district to the park where there were about a million kids. I thought I was on a mini vacation and was getting away from kiddos...apparently I attract lots and lots of rowdy children everywhere I go. We basically had to dodge kids on our way to look out over the ocean. It was beautiful though. We walked down some stairs out onto the rocks. There were sea lions nearby laying out on the rocks, lots of kids snorkeling, and lots of pelicans. In fact, one pelican stole some poor kid's sandwich. (The kid probably deserved it.) It was still in the plastic bag. It took 'em a while to bust through that one..good ol' zip lock.While looking out over the water, we saw a beach. We decided it was a genius idea to walk to the beach. And by walk, I mean hike a million miles in flip flops and sundresses with beach bags. On our way, a guy running with his dog passed us going in the opposite direction. A while later, he passed us again. This time going in the same direction as us. I mean, was there some shortcut we weren't aware of or were we just that slow? We were almost to the beach when we decided to stop for frozen yogurt. It was delicious. After we ate, we continued on our journey to reach what we thought would be a lovely beach. Boy, were we wrong. Once we arrived, probably an hour after we had first noticed it, the beach was crowded. Really, really crowded with lots of kids. The ocean was green. It was not worth the hike, that's for sure. But we were there and decided to make the best of it. So we laid out for a bit, but shortly after decided it was lunch time. We hopped on bus #30 back to the shopping district and found a BBQ place. After lunch we stopped at a crazy hat store and then it was back to the bus stop to catch a ride home.
I hung out on the deck with some of the girls that night & left around 8:30pm. Shortly after I got onto the 5 expressway/freeway/whatever you want to call it, I got stuck in traffic. The Border Patrol was open. Every car was stopped by a police officer who casually glanced in your car. Luckily I'm far from looking like I'm from Mexico (I really need to work on my tan), so I was waved on through. A car in the next lane was not so lucky and had to pull off to the side. Not sure what happened to them.
While I was in San Diego, I received a phone call from the mom I had recently interviewed with. It's a mother's helper position for six month old twins. She said, "We interviewed a lot of people for the position. My husband and I decided we really liked your energy and the way you interacted with the twins, so the position is yours if you'd still like it." I start one week from Monday!
