San Diego, Day 1

It's about 9:45PM out here on the west coast right now...been a long day! got up at 4:15AM EST in order to catch a 6:15 flight out of BWI...luckily i have Northwest Silver Elite this year, which lets me bypass normal security lines, otherwise i probably would have missed my flight! flew BWI > Detroit, quick layover in Detroit, then a loooong flight from Detroit to San Diego, got to San Diego around 11:15AM PST...it is nice to walk off an airplane and immediately look out through a huge window and see palm trees and open water just beyond the airport!

met up with strubler, justin and kat at the rental car terminal, picked up the rental cars (i don't get mine until monday but justin and strubes each have one for our time here in san diego)...had some time to kill before frizzy got done with work so we drove down to the Gaslamp Quarter close to downtown San Diego, grabbed some food and walked around a bit...then headed north about 15 miles to Del Mar, where Frizzy and Nicole's apartment is located...met up with them at the apt. as well as bunch of their family and friends who had already gotten out here earlier than us...loaded up all the cars with wedding stuff and other miscellanous stuff we were going to need at the beach house, then started heading further up the coast to Oceanside, where the beach house is located...

...holy shit! it was a truly amazing drive...the main interstate (the 5) was loaded with rush hour traffic so we took Coastal Highway 101 instead, pretty much driving right along the coastline for about 20 miles...it took pretty long because it's not an interstate, and we were driving through towns with stop signs and traffic lights, etc...but goddamn, it was one of the prettiest drives i've ever been part of...just small beach town after small beach town, nice houses, big cliffs going down to the water...this is definitely an outdoorsy place, there were tons of people out running, surfing, etc. etc...and i guess it goes without saying that the weather was absolutely picture perfect...this is also the first time i've seen the Pacific Ocean...it's kind of neat how out here, the towns come right up to the edge of the water, there's not as much of a distancing between them as you seem to find out on the east coast...it really seems like the ocean is an integral part of daily life and recreation...

...anyways, after awhile we finally got to the beach house in Oceanside...pardon me for repeating myself but holy shit! my first thought when we saw the place was, "hmmm, maybe my plane actually crashed on the way to california and i've died and gone to heaven"...this is an amazing place!!! it's 3 levels plus a loft, top level has kitchen and main living room with a widescreen tv, bedrooms on the second floor (each of the top floors has a balcony as well)...the bottom level (basement) is normally a "kids" room, in this case it's the single guy's room...2 bunk beds and a trundle bed...and a foosball table! and our own fridge and tv! the basement room/bachelor pad opens out to the back of the house, where we have an outdoor hot tub, a fire pit surrounded by chairs, a couple of lounge chairs, and table and chairs covered with a canopy...and you just have to walk down some stone steps and you're on the beach!

i did actually walk down to the water almost as soon as we got here (my first time ever setting foot in the Pacific Ocean!), and goddamn it is cold...they warned me that the pacific is much colder than the atlantic, but this is ridiculous! the water is ice cold right now...presumably it's only going to get colder as i go up the coast...which means i could see myself doing a lot of sunning/reading on the beach on this trip with very few actual excursions into the water...

not much else to report on today, it's been a long, long day, spent the evening getting settled into the beach house, went on a beer/food run, now we're all just hanging out watching Big Lebowski on DVD, one of my all-time favorite movies...

trying to figure out what i'm going to do with myself tomorrow and friday...wedding related activities don't start until friday around 4, don't have any obligations before then...the one thing i definitely want to do is check out the San Diego Zoo, beyond that i'm not really dying to do a ton of sightseeing in san diego, especially since we're in this absolutely amazing house and i don't feel particularly motivated to leave it! maybe try to make it down to Pacific Beach to have breakfast at the Green Flash as per my friend Olle's recommendation, but it's tough since i don't have a car of my own down here yet, so would have to walk/take the train most places...so aside from the Zoo i'll probably just hang back at the house and try to put a dent in the massive amount of beer we bought today! of course, my other big priority while this far south is to also consume massive amounts of mexican food...sorry to ramble on, hopefully as this trip goes along i'll get better at figuring out what i should write about and what i should just keep to myself! not sure how much blogging i'm going to do while down here in san diego since i figure any post would mainly consist of "today i sat around and drank a lot of beer and played some bocce ball"...unless i get some really cool pics or something...that's all for this post, next post is gonna have some of the pics i took today...