San Diego Recap the Second

Well well well ladies and germs, I've been back for a week now but am just finally getting around to the 2nd leg of the trip recap. Before I get into the minutia and laundry list of inside jokes, let me just say that Alan and I had the best time. Ever! Haven't seen each other in about 3 years, and even then we'd never spent so much time together, but we still had such a blast. A most excellent traveling companion he was.

Over the past couple of years, Alan and I have bridged the distance between our two coasts with our mutual love for The O.C. It was only fitting, after our gajillions of phone calls, text messages and emails to that effect, that we meet on Thursday night and take it in together. (After all, we were referring to our trip as "Seth and Summer take on San Diego.") His flight was delayed, so he missed the uber-traumatic first hour that included Trey's attack on Marissa

(eek!) and Zack saying "Wake up, I'm a water polo player. We're never nice!", but got there in time to hear Summer tell Reed, "I don't do references before 1990."

Seth as an old man - so good.
After some glorious time spent with our friends in Newport, it was time to make our way out into the city and celebrate cinco de mayo! On a side note, it was quite a thrill to wath The O.C. so close to the actual O.C., and celebrate Cinco de Mayo so close to Mexico. We made our way down to the lobby of our hexagonal hotel

(yes, we stayed at a Holiday Inn. And, yes, we did play much musical homage to this guy:)

(which, given the bat cave elevator and inexplicably entrancing wall of brochures, wasn't the easiest feat), and asked the front desk to call us a cab. The guy who drove the airport shuttle said he didn't have any pick ups for a few hours, so he'd be happy to take us downtown. Sweet! If you've never been, San Diego's a pretty small city, so it's not like he was going out of his way. Alan and I thought we were in for a mild mannered ride a few blocks into the Gas Lamp Quarter. NAY! Troy, the driver, turned out to be a freaking comedian. He began the trend of Alan and I meeting people and having them spill their life histories within 30 seconds of knowing us. Before we even got off First Avenue, we leared that Troy had had sex in the back of a Toyota Avalon at

with a man.

The rest of the ride was equally as hilarious, particularly when he asked if we wanted him to take us to a gay club. "You guys would have a great time; he's cute and you're a straight woman, you guys would be a hit!" We declined the generous offer and made our way to the nearest bar where we were dropped off (it was raining).

Despite the fact that it was a south of the border holiday, we found ourselves in an Irish Pub (naturally). The place was dead when we went in, but as soon as we claimed a table with our beers, tons of wasties poured themselves in. Clearly, Alan and I set the trends for downtown San Diego. After enjoying our margaritas and free souvenier glasses, we mosied on down the street. Shout! - Dueling Pianos! caught our attention, so we went on in. It was in turns hilariously bad, raucusly entertaining, and pretty good! I took a video of the bartender singing Vanilla Ice, but it doesn't seem to have saved. Anyhow, we had quite a time at Shout!, and our request (Help!), was the last song they played for the evening. We went home and played MASH (I'm looking forward to my future as Alan's wife and an Emcee), and watched some tv (a little appropriately timed Cole Trickle) till slumber hit.


SLEEPIN IN IS GIVIN IN!
Friday morning (Seiso de Mayo) I was still adjusting to not working and time zone changes, so I woke up pretty early. We lazed around, ordering room service (seriously, who orders a cinnamon raisin bagel sandwich? might as well get a pastrami, cottage cheese, banana bread sandwich, right Mitch?),

playing with iPods, discussing music, before deciding that renting a car would make excursioning a whole heck of a lot easier. We had some tribulations actually getting to the Thrifty car rental place, but once there, our trusty steed - a Dodge Neon - was waiting for us.

Feel the power!

We took a scenic tour of Hotel Circle (about as scenic as it sounds), took a little drive on freeway 5 to the soothing sounds of Mitch Hedberg (soothing....causing convulsive laughter...whatever).

("Dammit! I wish I had not seen Ricky on the sidewalk!") then made our way to Ocean Beach (The O.B. - Bitch). We had lunch at a little outdoor restaurant, and shot the shit for a looong time, catching up on the significant events of our respective lives over the past three years or so. Aside from the glorious ocean view, we also had a truly odd human being to look at, who we named Bruno. We strolled over to the OB Pier - the longest pier on the west coast. We walked all the way out to the end, and I felt like either Brenda Walsh or Marissa Cooper. It was tight.

It was here that I discovered Alan's fear of cold water. Cold water and hot beverages are his two least favorite things. He kept looking into the water with disgust, which I found pretty entertaining. We went back to the hotel (keep in mind, San Diego = not big) and watched the OC pilot with director's commentary. Riveting! ("Lock em up!" - it's gonna sweep the nation.) I swear, I really do have a life beyond The OC. I watch other tv shows too, and lots of movies (as evidenced by the fact that approximately 90% of our conversation that weekend consisted of some sort of pop culture reference).
Large, your mom died!
Stay classy, San Diego ;)

Alan's friends back in Santa Clara call him aproximately once every hour. Mom tended to the kids while I showered, then I heard back from Lauren Dellinger. We decided to go out to her apartment (again, in OB) and hang out, grab some dinner, and go out. We were joined by Sophia Buchanan (who knew?) ("We went to high school in VA, but I went to college in Colorado and grew up in California"). As we enjoyed our Rock Star & Vodkas,

Alan's friend Greg came over. When he walked in, I had a surreal moment when I realized - I know this guy! Alan's friend Greg was also Laura Mellis' friend Greg that visited Tunlaw a couple times. Crazy! Small world 4eva.

We eventually made our way out to Pacific Beach (PB). We settled on a little Italian place for pizza,

while Lauren called people to "find out where the party at."

"What's that from? Chuck will know!" We went to a party in PB, which was mostly populated with VA to CA transplants, then made our way out to Moondoggies, a bar in PB. Despite the many many drinks, Alan and I were both in that weird "I can't get drunk" state. We hung out a while, made a brief appearance at the Aussie Pub (very authentic), then made the trip back downtown (over the course of which, I ate a perfect apple).

A major fixture of our weekend was the history channel. We learned about many things (Tippecanoe & Tyler Too), but perhaps the best was about Gertrude (Trudy for short) and her swim across the English Channel. "Can you think of a worse name than Gertrude?" "Yes." "What?" "Cornelius." Seeing as how we were continuing on our path of having no agendas all weekend long and it being AWESOME, we once again set out to make a day for ourselves. We decided to go see Kingdom of Heaven after lunch at a little Mexican place downtown. Greggor joined us for the flick. Orlando was dreamy

and the movie was really good. Ridley Scott sure does know his way around an epic. I got carded for the Rated R movie. I've decided that I have no apparent age; I go from extremes like that (looking under 18) to other extremes (people asking Alan if we'd left the kids at home while we went on vacation). Before the movie, we took an adventure around a really weird but cool outdoor mall downtown (the interior mall area had no roof) looking for a pharmacy, as I was stuffy mcgruffy.

I'm not sure at what point of the trip, though I know it was far earlier than this, but the Rilo Kiley song "Portions for Foxes" became our theme song of the weekend. "Bad news" worked its way into about 55% of our sentences. Or derrivatives thereof (bad shoes).


After we all were able to recover from day dreaming about Orlando Bloom, we went out to OB again (it's really chill and beachy - and has sweet, sweet voltaire street) to meet Dianne and grab some margaritas by the beach. We had a great time hangin out, what with our Kidman/Cruise full circle effect. ("Did you read it in US Weekly, or People?") After a couple of rounds and some wings for good measure, we took a stroll on the beach.

The whole bonfire thing is really cool and should definitely be incorporated into east coast beaches. You really gotta love the straight forward nature of Little D. "I bought a house." "Why?" Can I interest you in a piece of Labron's Luscious Lightning Lemonade? Good, I'm glad we see eye to eye. Wicked! The previous statements were brought to you by inside jokes I didn't feel like putting the effort into prefacing, and the letter Q. Saturday was dwindling away into evening, so we took off to our various shelters to shower, nap and sup. Everybody was pretty beat by this point, so we had a really low key evening (once again, in OB). We heart cheap food and pitchers, so that was what we went for. And it was delicious. I went on an anti-Britney rant, and Dianne shared her 7th grade memory of me. We heard drunk guys stumbling out of a bar singing "Hide your love away" by the Beatles, which was refreshing, and exciting! Saturday night's fall asleep flick was Lean on Me..or Stand By Me...whichever one is about Morgan Freeman as a principal, not the one about River Phoenix and leeches.

Sunday was a sad day, the end of the road, the parting of ways. We were flying out of different terminals, so the Thrifty van was where we parted ways. We had a most excellent adventure in SoCal, and I can't wait to see Al pal again when he's home for his & Tyler's friend's wedding in a couple weeks. I'll leave you with these other inside jokes I didn't work into the actual post:

"You're gonna smother him!"*
Cheer up Charlie
iTrip stations*"Amanda & I have a place up on
First Ave"*the stupid channel 42 lady*banana or apple?*
or *"You bring out the weird in me. And I like it."*I'll give it a whirl*

I heart coke products*Internet!

And, just a couple of pics of scenic San Diego for good measure:

Surfers:


La Jolla:


Seals:


Why I was there in the first place: