Tag Archives: La Jolla Shores

San Diego day 2

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Two days in San Diego just flew past. I can’t describe the feeling when I drove on the I5 South toward San Diego and drove past all of the exits in Carlsbad and lower, remembering things from each of them. I still remember how to drive places and what things look like. Insane! But so much fun. The feeling of home has never been stronger.Miriam and her brother didn’t want to spend the full day today in San Diego, so they took the train up to Fullerton this morning. So we drove them to Oceanside and said goodbye and directly after found a breakfast place that was incredible: Petite Madeline. I ordered crepes with white chocolate mousse and strawberries and a french toast on the side. They gave me the wrong crepe (with whipped cream and raspberries) and shortly after came out with the right one. I’m not the one to pass down a crepe or let it go to waste, so I ate both. So delicious! So stuffed!After the intense 26k step day yesterday we just drove down to La Jolla Shores and stayed there for the day. Since I have gotten a pretty bad cold, surfing was out of the question. Everyhing but laying on the beach reading was out of the question. Muscle soreness in our butts from yesterday’s hike is revealing itself more and more for each hour. So all three of us just laid there. It was cloudy like no other days, but it was still warm. If it was sunny I think it would have been unbearable. We only stayed until 3pm and since those 4 hours flew past I guess that I must have fallen asleep pretty hard right there because I got burned. Pretty bad on my stomach. Even after putting on SPF 30 twice!We then drove to Fashion Valley, the prettiest shopping center I know of. I wasn’t planning on getting much, and the one thing I really wanted, they didn’t have. But I somehow managed to spend over $100. I wanted to get new panties from Victoria’s Secret, but they for once didn’t have any nice ones, so I skipped. I did however buy two new bras. I have many, but honestly I should throw many of them away since they don’t fit well anymore. These two though, oh my! They were perfect!I also got a pair of summery jeans from Forever 21 and SPF 50. Also som Dayquil. I hope this cold goes away. I don’t feel too well. I wonder if I can take this as a sick day instead of a vacation day. I I felt like this at home, I’m not sure that I would have gotten into work honestly. I’ll have to check when I get back home.Last night when I was talking to my hostparents, they told me the sad news of Famous Dave’s in Vista (San Diego). The restaurant had permanently closed. Fortunately for me, it is a chain and is open in Irvine, so we drove there, it was on the way back home to La Habra, and had a really late dinner. It was as delicious as I remember. Oh my goodness!It was great being back in San Diego. I already miss it, but I am also very excited to go up to SLO this Sunday.

Bvball, surfing, Fair, Cinépolis

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This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Wow, what a weekend. I am exhausted out of my mind, but what a fun and eventful weekend. Yesterday was a long day and it started with 3 hours of beach volleyball at South Mission Beach. I didn’t play well at all in the beginning, but I got better and I had a great time. Next up was surfing at La Jolla Shores, we were in the water for 2 hours. I have definitely surfed better, but I blame the waves this time, they were really bad. But I caught some and stood up for at least a few seconds every now and then. I thought it was fun.

IMG_20150613_131319 IMG_20150613_132633 IMG_20150613_131409 IMG_20150613_131603 IMG_20150613_131647 IMG_20150613_131728 IMG_20150613_132006 IMG_20150613_132110 IMG_20150613_132230 IMG_20150613_132237 IMG_20150613_132302 IMG_20150613_132311 IMG_20150613_132411 IMG_20150613_132429 IMG_20150613_132419 IMG_20150613_132437 IMG_20150613_132459 IMG_20150613_132553 IMG_20150613_132411-PANO My phone (Google Nexus 5) did this automatically. Google Photos is really cool! It puts pictures from the same geographical place in an album, it creates photo sequences if there are a lot of similar pictures. Or adds effects o pictures, or does this. Pretty cool!IMG_20150613_131918-PANOIMG_20150613_180415 IMG_20150613_182230 IMG_20150613_182819

Third stop of the day was La Jolla Cove. I was hoping to see lots of sea lions like almost exactly two years ago. But we saw just a few. The whole cliff area was changed, and maybe that’s why they left? I hope they were just playing underwater instead, I would be so happy if I could see some while scuba diving this week.

Back to the hotel to shower, then off to San Diego County Fair where we walked around for a couple of hours. It was pretty much exactly the same as two years ago, but it was fun. There were many animals, both small and big, endless with food stands and everything else that has to do with a fair.

IMG_20150613_205258 IMG_20150613_211511 IMG_20150613_213116

Worth mentioning is that yesterday was my big day of luck when it comes to parking. Four times in a day we were extremely lucky and got one of the best spots on four very busy locations. Fist in Mission Beach, then La Jolla Shores, then La Jolla Cove, and at the Fair. I definitely used all my parking luck in one day, so that won’t ever happen again.

At 11pm we left the fair and drove to Del Mar where we spent two hours watching Jurassic World. A great movie, and a great experience watching it at a luxury cinema. The movie started at midnight and was about two hours long. Got back to the hotel at 2:30am and the alarm went off at 6:30 today. You could say that I was tired. And all I did today was play a beach volleyball tournament in Mission Beach. It was a draw 4 vs 4 tournament and I had so much fun all day with some of the people from bvball at South Mission Beach yesterday. You had a partner throughout the first four games and played with a different coed couple in each game. I played with a guy named Bart, and the first game we lost really bad, but we won the last three. I was the setter and everyone loved my sets, and I have to say that they were pretty damn good today! And very many people I’ve never met before acknowledged that, it made me happy.

I was apparently one of the better players with most points in the whole tournament, so after the group plays, the best players in the epic division (the better one) got a buy (was that how it was called?) which means that I automatically won the first game in the playoff. Then there was the awesome division (the not as good division) and the best people in that one won there too. Unfortunately I had to wait for at least two hours before playing the semifinal with a new bunch of people. I had lost it, we were rotating (instead of me setting the whole game), and we lost with 25-17 (we were playing one set to 25). But I am not too sad about it, I was very tired at the end. Michael drove me up to Carlsbad where he helped me in with my suitcases. We said goodbye and I took a shower. I am embarrassed to say that I very much forgot about sunscreen today. It was so cloudy today (June Gloom) and not very warm. It was fine to play in shorts and a tank top. But anyway, I got so burned! My shoulders and especially my face. That sunglass tan is never going away now. It looks horrible…

I have lots of aloe vera on it, so I hope it will at least be better tomorrow. I don’t know what I will do yet tomorrow, I might go to Victoria’s Secret to buy some underwear, I will definitely sleep in first though. I will need a lot of sleep now. And now, I am in bed, and will watch the season finale of Game of Thrones!

Beach volleyball, beach volleyball, surfing

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This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Today I broke a personal record, how many beaches visited in one day; three. I was up so early this morning so I could be at Ponto Beach at 7:30 to play some beach volleyball with the old gang. I played three games with Dan and I have to admit that I played so bad… It might have been because of the wind, or something else, I don’t know. It was very fun even if we lost all the games. At 9:30 am there were so many people there and the waiting time was ridiculously long, so I decided to head down to beach number two, Mission Beach. I met up with Wes and Cathleen from February. I didn’t understand how that worked, at Ponto it is so easy with the list, next on the list play on the next court available unless you are waiting for the challenge court or doesn’t wanna play on that one. But this was just chaos. So I started talking to this other guy, Ko, and he introduced me to a group of players a little bit away from all the chaos and I played with them for the rest of the day (until 2pm). It was so much fun, everyone was friendly, funny and let me in right away. We were a bunch of people so we did side-out, but I liked that. It is easier to focus on every side-out when you don’t have to worry about scores. And we got to play a lot all the time instead of one intense game, then a long wait and another game and so on. It was great and I had so much fun! In the end we played two games, one 4 on 4 (which was the first time I ever enjoyed that type of game), and then one doubles. That game was really fun and even and I have to say that I played really well today. My sets were perfect, even my bump sets were better and more consistent than they have been in a very long time. Fun fun! I even managed a jump serve as the winning point in the 4 on 4 game. I could also jump and hit pretty hard, and also place balls. There was one sick ball where I was so close to the net on the right side, and the ball went straight parallel with the net and landed almost on the line on the angle shot. I think I was more surprised than everyone else.

Today was just a really really good beach volleyball day for me and I am so exhausted and tired in my whole body now. I love this feeling. I don’t really like that my foot soles are sore from jumping and running around in hot sand for a long time.

I am going down there tomorrow again before going back home in the evening with David.

At 3pm I arrived in La Jolla and found a parking spot right away, and very close to the beach too. Lucky! My Swedish friends left right when I came though, but David came and we went surfing right away. Unfortunately I couldn’t be in the water more than about 30 minutes because my eyes were burning like nothing before. I’m guessing that it was sunscreen and saltwater. But that usually goes away after like two waves, but today it just kept burning and burning. It was even worse when I looked out in the water facing the sun. It was so bad I had to go up… My eyes are still sore and it kinda looked like I had cried my eyes out when I got back to the house around 6pm. A shower helped a lot, but I still feel like my eyes sting a bit. What happened?

I took care of the kids tonight while the hostparents went out to the movies. I feel like that is the least I can do for them for letting me come down here, stay with them, AND use the car. They are so nice, and I wanna give back. And also I like spending time with the kids again. Tonight we baked “havreflarn” a Swedish oatmeal cookie, we watched Cupcake Wars, and played basketball in the backyard. I then put the kids to bed and was ready myself to go to bed. But there are always stuff to do on the computer, so here I am, almost midnight and not asleep yet. Well well, I can sleep another time.

Ponto Beach Beach #1, Ponto Beach.Mission Beach Beach #2, South Mission BeachLa Jolla ShoresBeach #3, La Jolla Shores

Ponto Beach/Pacific Beach/La Jolla/sunset surfing

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This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Wow, the last two days were so eventful and I am tired out of my mind right now. If you feel like you need a vacation after your vacation, you did the right thing on your vacation! I have had an amazing time in San Diego and I can’t wait to go back, which I will hopefully do at least one more time before I go back to Sweden. I know I didn’t take San Diego for granted a single day when I lived there, but it still feels like I did, because every time I go here I fall more and more in love with it.

The past two days has been full of San Diego adventures. Friday was all about hanging out on Ponto Beach with Pelle (Swedish exchange student at Cal Poly). It was a very nice day, no pelican poop, 86F on land, 62F in the water, not a single cloud during the whole day. No dolphins unfortunately. Later in the afternoon a few people from the beach volleyball group at Ponto came and set up nets and played. I didn’t join because I had to go home and get myself ready for going out in PB with Helena in the evening. I ran into Chad there, first time I saw him since we said goodbye at the SD airport more than a year ago. It was nice to see him again.

Ponto BeachPonto Beach for the first time since January 2014! ❤ It is not a very special beach to most people, but to me this is the most special beach in all of San Diego. This is where I played beach volleyball, and met a lot of fun people, this is the beach where I always spotted dolphins, and it was always empty.Sunset over CarlsbadFriday’s sunset over Carlsbad! I think everyone following my blog knows by now that I love sunset!

I left the beach at like 5:30pm, back home I showered and packed for the night and today and picked up Helena for dinner at 8. We met up with another German girl at In N Out, first time for both of them. Delicious as always! We then bought drink ingredients at Vons and made a Solero drink at home before taking an Uber to PB (Pacific Beach, the party area of San Diego). We first went to Tavern, a place I really liked because they played good music. We then moved on to Duck Dive which was Helena’s favorite place. The music and people there were weirder. The people might have been because it was later in the night and they were more drunk. But I wasn’t very drunk at all and didn’t enjoy it as much as I probably could have. I can definitely see myself having fun there though, more fun than in downtown SD. The people in PB are young. But on the other hand, I am not much of a party person anymore. I have realized that I would much rather wake up not hungover the day after and do stuff, like surfing. It was still a fun evening and I am glad I finally went out in PB, what everyone kept talking about all the time last year.

We got a ride from some random creepy guys, but we used them and just said goodbye when they dropped us off. But it took a while for them to go away and stop ringing the doorbell. Creepy. But I fell asleep as soon as my head it the pillow. Helena’s house is by the way incredible! It’s humungous and so nicely decorated inside. Helena’s bathroom was ridiculous, she even has radio in her shower, which is also a tub with jets. Only a little bit jealous, haha.

This morning Helena made breakfast for both of us (the third girl didn’t drink and drove home late last night) and that was so sweet of her. Avocado/scrambled eggs bagels. Yummy!

We drove to La Jolla Shores and I am so thankful she knows an old German family right there on the beach so we could park in their driveway. It is a pain in the butt to find parking there. I think you have to go there at like 7-8am to get a pretty decent spot. It’s so stupid. I hate parking here (one of very few bad things about SD). We lay down close to the surf tent and I read a little bit, finished a 100-page cross-over story between Percy Jackson and Carter Kane and then started the second short cross-over story and after that one (which I will probably be done with tonight) I will start reading Artemis Fowl.

Before Johanna came we just lay on the beach, I read some, took some naps, and went in the water with just our feet once. It was cold and with the cloudy sky I would not warm up enough to go all the way in. Fortunately it cleared up later in the day and the day ended in a very beautiful way. Johanna came at 2pm and soon thereafter we put on wetsuits (I had my own with me this time) and went out in the water. It was Helena and Jessica’s (the German girl from last night) first time surfing and they got tired pretty fast and went up after not even an hour. I stayed the longest, more than two hours. It was not the best conditions for surfing today, the current were extreme and it was hard to just be in the water. But I managed to stand up several times and I would say that it went almost as good this time as last time.

The waves got better in the evening and Johanna and I decided to go out one more time, during the sunset. It was so amazing! The waves were better so we both did much better than earlier in the afternoon. And the sunset was sooo pretty! I wish I had had my GoPro with me for that. Watching the sunset from the water was something I had never done before (not that I can remember anyway), and it was incredible. Definitely not the last time I did that, but next time I will bring my GoPro.

La Jolla Shores Resting between surf sessions.Sunset surfing on La Jolla ShoresPre sunset surfing.La Jolla Shores Post sunset surfing. Johanna and I posing in front of a sunset that was much more beautiful in real life. The person who invents a camera that can capture exactly what we see is gonna be the richest man on Earth!La Jolla Shores La Jolla Shores I love sunsets!La Jolla Shores

On my way home I picked up Panda Express and then watched an episode of Arrow while eating a very late dinner. It was a nice evening. I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. Surfing is energy consuming.

I think I will pack everything now, so I can sleep a little bit longer in the morning. Or I can sleep in the car, we have a few hours to kill there, haha!

 

This first and last spring break of mine has been the best! Especially the last part. San Diego will always be my second home ❤