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!
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!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment