Exploring San Diego

After a hard week at work, it was time to enjoy the weekend, Californian style. The weather was, in my opinion, pretty ideal for it, with a temperature of over 20 degrees, and blue skies and sunshine. However, the locals found it rather chilly… So sounds like a pretty nice place to live, then ;-).

We started our lazy Saturday with a lunch at a Greek restaurant with a couple of friends of Alex, Deepika and Noora. From there we headed out to the coastline, out to Torrey Pines State Reserve. It’s a beautiful piece of territory just north of San Diego, by the coast. Next doors is the famous Torrey Pines golf course – one of the most famous ones of its kind in the US. We strolled along the beach up towards the natural reserve, and had a walk, taking in some pretty stunning landscapes. The ochre-colored cliffs kind of reminded me of Massif d’Esterel here on the Cote d’Azur. So a pretty nice place to escape the hustle and bustle of San Diego, then.

We then made our way to nearby La Jolla, another rather beautiful piece of Californian Coastline. La Jolla is one of the poshest areas in San Diego – in fact in the US (apparently La Jolla had the highest property prices in the US 2008 & 2009). It also houses University California, San Diego and other educational institutions (including an international French school – one of Stephane’s mates works there). It was pretty dark by the time we got there, so didn’t really have much time to explore the area, but it seemed nice enough! We did have time to see the sea lions at La Jolla cove – quite amazing to see them “so close to civilization” (the waters around La Jolla Cove are actually an ecological reserve, ‘tis why probably). Having seen how the rich and famous live, it was time to move on and get some dinner.

We decided to dine at a steak house Marko had recommended in Downtown. And we were not disappointed – the taste of the steak was only outdone by its size! After that, we headed down to little Italy for bit of stand-up comedy, organized by David and a Californian lady friends of his, who had come down to meet him all the way from Orange County near L.A. The comedy was excellent; the theme of the night was an “improvisation competition” between two teams of comedians. I’m not always a big fan of American comedians (I prefer the more subtle British humor), but this night was an absolute hoot!

For the next day, Alex had a hiking trip planned for us around Poway lake, near where he lives (near by San Diego standards – actually means about 20 miles away). We met the crowd at the big car park near the lake – a typically cosmopolitan group (I counted 2 Italians, 1 German, 1 Iranian and one Indian this time in addition to me. Oh, and one American, nearly forgot!). The hike was pretty cool, nothing too strenuous, but no complaints about the beautiful scenery and the company. A pretty good way to start a sunny Sunday, if you ask me.

To offset this burst of exercise, we lunched at the Hash House in Hillcrest – an event I will remember as probably the best value-for-money meal in my life. The burger I had was certainly the biggest one I’ve had in my life, and lone of us also tried to eat a waffle about the size of a family pizza (she impressively managed to finish nearly a third of it. I can proudly claim to be the only one to have finished my meal – doggy bags for everybody else! And the place specializes in breakfasts, would you believe it!?

This ridiculous eat-feast called for some more exercise, so me and Alex headed down to Balboa park for a bit of more exercise. Balboa Park is a vast park (as its name implies!), but so much more than that – it also houses a large number of museums and tourist attractions. We started off by visiting the international houses (including the Finnish houses), and then headed out past the botanical gardens to the Spanish Village. Most buildings and places in Balboa Park are kind of fake-old, but it’s all done in quite good taste. So I would say that Balboa park quite deserves its reputation as the top tourist attraction of San Diego (based on what I’ve seen so far).

Me and David finished the weekend by checking out San Diego Charges win in a bar in Downtown. (the Chargers are the San Diego’s NFL team). Good all-American way to end the weekend!

Welcome to South California!

After all the years I’ve worked for my company, I’ve been “treated” to quite a lot of travelling opportunities (I put it in quotation marks since a trip to dark and cold Oulu in November isn’t really what I would consider a pleasure). But one of the places I’ve never had the opportunity to go to is San Diego – so I was quite happy about the opportunity to spend 10 days there working (especially since the weather here on the Cote d’Azur is a bit chillier than normally).

The flight is quite a long haul, with changeovers in London and JFK. But, as long as I have a good book to read and some quality movies to watch, I don’t mind. So I didn’t find the travel all that annoying (apart from the last leg from JFK to San Diego – US internal flights are pretty crap, and distances are soooo long in that country). I arrived a bit late, with Alex waiting for me at the airport. Alex, whose place I was staying at for the next week and a bit, is an old mate of mine, who used to work with me in the UK, who since emigrated to sunny California. Great to see him after all these years! After some quick beer & grocery shopping, we headed back to his place in Poway, at the outskirts of San Diego.

My rather intensive tour of San Diego started on Wednesday night with my friend Stephane – a good drinking buddy from my days in the UK, who also drew the conclusion that perhaps the UK isn’t the best place to spend the rest of your days in, and decided to emigrate to South California. We started off by driving down to Del Mar by the Pacific Ocean, quite a posh part of San Diego, for dinner. Apparently a very nice spot, unfortunately it was too dark to fully appreciate the place. The restaurant was nice enough though, if a bit haut cuisine for my taste ;-). Our stomachs filled, we headed down to UTC (University Town Centre), where Stephane lives. Unsurprisingly enough, the nearest pub near his place is a place full of Frenchmen – naturally we headed there straight away. What ensured was plenty of beer drinking, catching up, and some pool. And a headache the next morning. So pretty much identical to a night out in Guildford with Stephane – just in a rather warmer climate!

The next day was hard – in addition to having to put up with my hangover and jet-lag, I was also assaulted by a rather painful toothache. Today was thanksgiving, which means everything is closed – including dentists and pharmacies. So I had to live with my pain unfortunately... Thanksgiving also meant some rather serious challenges in finding an open restaurant in the evening – we spent more than an hour driving around San Diego trying to find an open place – in vain. We ended up in Jack in the Box, which is kind of like McDonald’s – so no traditional thanksgiving dinner for us then! After we finally managed to fill our stomachs, Alex took us down to Coronado island to check out the rather impressive Hotel del Coronado. It is, apparently, one of the few remaining examples of the American “wooden Victorian beach resort” type architecture. Well, it certainly impressed us – certainly one of the most impressive hotels I’ve ever laid eyes on (quite a few films have featured this hotel – the most famous one being Some Like it Hot).

Alex then took us over to the other side of the Coronado island, to Coronado pier (where you can catch a ferry to the mainland) from where we were treated to some pretty amazing views over Downtown San Diego. Our trip back to the mainland was kind of adventurous, as we were stopped by an officer of the law for speeding. Thankfully the old sport let us off with a warning… Before heading back for some well-needed sleep, we had time for a quick walk around downtown San Diego. It's the only part of San Diego with sky scrapers, which gives it a more urban feel compared to the otherwise spread out San Diego. Normally it's a pretty busy part of town, but tonight there was hardly anybody around - everybody was eating thanksgiving turkey I suppose.

The next day at the office was a bit better for me, since I had now recovered from my hangover, and had managed to acquire some medication for my toothache. We started the weekend by heading downtown, into the Gaslamp district. The historic part of San Diego, dating back to 1867, used to be a pretty run-down part of town, apparently, until it was redeveloped during the 80’s and 90’s. Now it’s a pretty good area for going out, plenty of restaurants and bars about. We started off the evening by meeting up with Marko, a mate and ex-colleague of mine from my Southwood years. Like Alex, it seems that he’s settled in pretty well with life in South California (from what I’ve seen so far, can’t really blame the guys!).

After catching up with Marko, we headed over to Pacific Beach to an Italian party. The party demonstrated that San Diego is a pretty cosmopolitan place, I guess, the two Americans were outnumbered by 3 Italians, one Finn, a German, a Mexican, a Spaniard and a Dutchman. It’s kind of an interesting city in that it’s a real melting pot in terms of its ethnical mix (with a strong Mexican touch), but at the same time it’s quite a conservative city due to the strong Naval presence in the city, I suppose. Anyway, a good way to end the working week and start the weekend ;-).

A Cultural afternoon in Nice

During our stay here at the Cote d’Azur, we’ve been enjoyed more the natural pleasures the region has to offer, rather than the cultural games the Cote d’Azur also has to offer. There’s quite a cultural heritage here – seeing as a lot of artists came down this way to take advantage of the considerable beauty this region has to offer (and enjoy a few pastis and bottles of rose, while at it, of course!).

But since the weather’s been a bit rubbish during recent times even here, we figured a bit of culture wouldn’t go amiss. So, this Sunday we decided to head out to Nice and pay a visit to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art in Nice, which is supposed to be pretty good. Since my parents are always up for a good museum or three, we decided to make a family gathering of it! It’s quite impressively located on the Promenade des Arts, between the town centre and the old town.




I have to say that I’m not normally a big fan of modern art, but this particular museum was a positive surprise. The temporary exhibition by a Chinese chap by the name Cai Guo-Qiang, didn’t really impress me all that much. But the permanent exhibition was pretty cool, with the works being just mad enough to be interesting, without going too far. I particularly liked the mad, out-there, abstract sculptures by Niki de Sainte Phalle. There were also, naturally, quite a few works of the Yves Klein, famous for having invented a colour known as IKB (International Klein Blue), who was born in Nice and worked here for many years. I also liked the little booth dedicated to Ben, another famous chap from Nice, famous for his catchphrases.

But the best thing about the museum, if you ask me, is the balcony on top of the museum. This rooftop balcony, reminiscent of something designed by Gaudi, offers great views over Nice. What was especially nice was that the sun had made its return, so we could enjoy the views to the fullest.

We finished a very nice and cultural afternoon with some coffees and cakes in a nice little tea shop on Place Garibaldi, before catching the tramway back to the train station to catch the train back to Cagnes-sur-Mer….

Holiday planning soirée

We are planning a trip to Mexico and California with some colleagues of Mathilde. The plan is to do a bit of eco-tourism in Baja California (where our good Mexican amigo JayJay has worked as a guide), and combine that with some Urban America (San Diego and San Francisco). Since some advanced planning / synchronization is required to make this all happen, we had decided to schedule a planning session/dinner at Valerie’s and Gilles’ place in far-away Bonson. After picking up Marie and JayJay in Nice, we headed down the Var valley and up the windy road which leads to the dramatically located village of Bonson…



Everybody was supposed to bring something to our soirée, it was up to us to bring the beer and a carrot cake. Logically enough, I was assigned to prepare the beer (ie. buy it and put it in the fridge), and Mathilde was tasked with the more challenging task of baking the carrot cake. Better that way around, methinks… (and that’s not ‘coz I’m afraid the beer wouldn’t be cold…).

The planning soiree was a great success, I feel. It has to be said, that we didn’t actually end up doing a lot of detailed planning in the end – but boy did we have a good time (I did, at least). There was plenty of food on the table – in fact, we weren’t able to finish, hard as we tried… Especially the deserts were, how should I put it, divine… Carrot cake, cheese cakes, and most importantly a huge pile of crepes with “La Preparation”. “La preparation” needs some further explanation – it’s a very special preparation, with nearly magical properties. I cannot tell you more – the recipe is top secret and all that. Suffice to say that I very strongly insisted another planning session is definitely needed in the near future.

So, as I suppose you’ve already realized, dear reader, we had a very good time indeed!

Walking around Cap Ferrat

One of the good things about living in France is that there are quite a few public holidays (11 in total). Today was one of them (remembrance day). Since the sun was out and the sky was blue, we decided there was no excuse not to go for a hike. Since the weather is getting a bit chilly this time of the year, we decided to play it safe and go for a coastal hike. Since we’ve done the Cap d’Antibes walk recently with some friends, we decided to do Cap Ferrat this time. So, after a solid breakfast, and some bumming about during the morning, we jumped on the train down to Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Before the hike, we fortified ourselves with a dessert and coffee in one of the coffee shops in the picturesque harbor, having a look at the fishermen cleaning their nets, and the azur-blue med. We then started our walk, which took us along the Villefranche beach up to Cap Ferrat. We decided to walk towards Pointe Saint-Hospice, on the Beaulieu side, from where we had some great views towards Beaulieu (and Villa Kerylos) and Italy. I like this part of the Cote d'Azur, the steep cliffs luckily make it hard for the property developers to ruin the landscapes, as they've done between Nice and Cannes.

The walk then took us through the port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, which is a surprisingly “proletarian place” (considering Cap Ferrat is, among the other caps like Cap-Saint-Martin and Cap d’Antibes, probably the most exclusive place to live in on the Cote d’Azur). Having said that, all the buildings seem to be occupied either by real estate agencies, restaurants or hotels (any self-respecting Cap Ferrat resident lives in a villa!).

The last bit of the walk took us around the Pointe Saint-Hospice, from where we were treated to a bit of rugged cliffs and more amazing views. Having made the tour of the Pointe, we headed back towards Beaulieu to catch our train back. All in all, a walk like this is pretty much the perfect day to spend an autumnal public holiday in the South of France. I can’t help but add that autumnal days like this are a bit like summer days in Finland… ;-)

German Reggae and How To Eat a Rabbit

We haven’t been to Nikaia for any concerts since my double concert-whammy of AC/DC – Cranberries last summer. Well, in my case, 3 concerts in 6 months is actually quite a lot ;-).

This time the plan was to see Patrice – the German-Sierra Leonean reggae dude. A good crowd had showed up; we decided to sit back in the stands (let’s say because I’m an old fart ? ;-) ). Patrice put up a pretty good show, and the atmosphere was great all around (maybe a bit too good where we were sitting, the teenage brats behind us were getting a bit annoying at times – another sign of me getting old perhaps?). We were pretty impressed with the good French he spoke as well.

The following day, we had the folks over for dinner – an early father’s day dinner, let’s say father’s day in Finland is the following Sunday). We decided to prepare a real French classic for them, a bit of rabbit stew (we found a free recipe in Carrefour Market, of all places!?). Having purchased all the necessary ingredients (at the local market, of course!), we got cookin’. For starters, we prepared a pumpkin soup, and for main course, as already mentioned, a good honest rabbit stew, with some mashed potatoes. With a bottle of Chianti Classico as wine (the bottle we acquired during our trip to Tuscany last summer).

For dessert, we still had the Kouign-aman we’d purchased in Brittany during our recent visit. Kouign-aman is a Brittany recipe, which basically means the only ingredients are flour, butter and sugar. Yummie, my kind of cuisine ;-). I think the dinner was a success – especially the rabbit – my dad had several helpings. And if I may say so, it was rather delicious. Not bad either, the Kouign-aman. The glasses I purchased for a recent 70's party proved a great success too (check out the photo!). A nice end to a nice weekend :-)

Back home via Mont Saint-Michel and Auvergne

After our lovely short stay in Brittany, it was time to move on… Our next stop was in nearby Normandy, where the plan was to visit the legendary Mont Saint-Michel.

Mont Saint-Michel is, of course, famous for its abbey, dramatically located on top of a peak which sits on a tidal island in the middle of a large bay. It’s apparently the 2nd most visited tourist attraction in France, after the Eiffel tower. We arrived early in the morning, a very good idea, since it meant we managed to avoid the worst of the tourist crowds. The sight of the abbey didn’t disappoint – I guess it’s one of the most dramatic sites in the world. The fact that the weather was quite cloudy, even slightly misty, gave the place a suitably spooky atmosphere.

Having parked our car (carefully reading the signs – so as to avoid having our car swept away by the tide!), we made our way upwards through the medieval village sitting beneath the peak (I’m sure it was a very atmospheric place once upon a time – but these days every single building houses either a hotel, a restaurant or a shop, unfortunately), to the focal point of Mont Saint-Michel - the venerable abbey.

The abbey first monastic establishment was built here in the 8th century, but the place has been heavily modified/reinforced over the century – the last major modifications dating back to the 17th/18th centuries. The sobre and imposing nature of the structure certainly made a big impression on us – the place has definitely managed to keep it’s medieval nature. We decided to join the guided tour, but gave up on it after a while (the guide spent more time telling bad jokes than talking about the abbey, so…), and decided to have a walk around ourselves. The interior didn’t disappoint either – I really loved the medieval feel, and sheer majesty of the place. I guess it’s not the most beautiful church I’ve seen, but certainly one of the most atmospheric ones. The views over the bay of Saint-Michel are pretty impressive as well.

After a bit more time spent exploring the surroundings of the abbey (during which the sun even peeked out from behind the clouds!), it was time for a spot of lunch. We opted for the classic.choice – Le Mere Poulard, famous for its omelets. We went for the cheap menu option instead, which was perfectly fine. In fact, surprisingly good, considering the place very much felt like a tourist trap. After lunch, we had a short walk around the bay to work off the calories, from where we had some great views towards the abbey (yes, I took rather a few photos…). And then it was time to hit the road.

After a couple of peaceful days in Angers (including a road trip to the Mayenne and Sarthe to visit relatives of Mathilde’s), it was time to make our way back towards the warm South. Since it’s quite a long drive to Cagnes-sur-Mer from Angers, we decided to do a stopover again, this time in Clermont-Ferrand.

Clermont-Ferrand is the capital of the Auvergne region, famous for its volcanoes (including the Puy-de-Dome, which is located just down the road from Clermont-Ferrand). We arrived early in the evening, and headed out to explore the old town, having done our check-in. The place was pretty much dead – I guess due to the rather bad weather and due to it being Sunday, with Monday being a day off as well ?). I guess one could say it gave the place some atmosphere? Anyway, we pretty quickly decided we’d had enough, and decided to go and grab some dinner. Unfortunately, this being Sunday, finding an open restaurant proved to be rather challenging, but we eventually found a rather interesting Auvergne-Tapas type place, where we managed to fill our grumbling stomachs.

The next day, there was no major improvement on the weather front, so we decided to ditch our original tentative plan to head up to Puy-de-Dome, and walk around town instead. Clermont-Ferrand is actually the appy union of two towns – Clermont and Montferrand (we were staying at Clermont). Armed with a pretty good free guide for foot walks we got at the tourist information centre, we headed out to explore town. A couple of hours later, we’d covered pretty much everything there was to see. It’s a pretty interesting town, all in all, but not the sort of place you would make a point of visiting, I guess. The gothic cathedral is impressive, as is the Romanesque church - Notre-Dame du Port (well, the exterior is, I wasn’t that taken by the interior). It’s quite different in nature to other French towns I’ve seen – Clermont-Ferrand is not cute in like towns in Provence, not “rustic” in the Brittany way, nor classy in the Parisian way. I guess you could say the place has a little bit less character, somehow.

Anyway, having done our dose of hiking for the day, it was time to hit the road home… (after a quick visit to Montferrand, the “other half” of Clermont-Ferrand). Good to be back home again, in spite of a very relaxing, if eventful week – and we weren’t sorry to hear we had missed some torrential rains and generally un-cote-d’Azurish weather…