Showing posts with label surfers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surfers. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Where in the world is Karmen? San Diego!


San Diego: Home to a zany news team and mi amiga Noelle; namesake of the globetrotting villain who inspired the name of this blog.

Dinner with Noelle
For dinner we met up with Noelle, another one of my friends I met while studying abroad in Spain.  She couldn’t stay out late that night, so we got dinner in Coronado.  Not-so-funny story: Noelle is a teacher at a school where the other teachers went on strike.  Rather than break her contract, she abstained from protesting.  That means in order to avoid any potential harassment from fellow teachers; she had to wake up early to cross the picket line before the teachers on strike got there.  She said she might go incognito, à la Carmen Sandiego (there's a theme in this post, if you couldn't tell).



Me and Noelle


Mission Beach
We were delayed with our mini tour of San Diego on Friday due to a waterworks problem at Gwendy’s house.  If you've been keeping track, that's three houses Gwendy and Josh have in California.

Unrelated to the waterworks issue, but I was happy to see the Federal Hill couch at Gwendy's.

Outside seating at Gwendy's

Local wildlife

Once we fixed the issue best to our abilities, we headed to Mission Beach, which is only a block away from her place.  It was chilly, to San Diego’s standards, but we walked around anyway.  Anything's better than the -20F in Minnesota.






Saying good-bye to the Pacific.


Attempting to look like Carmen Sandiego with my scarlet jacket.  Since I was missing a fedora, I thought popping my foot would make up for it.  It didn't.

La Jolla
One of the many places that Noelle recommended, La Jolla is an upscale neighborhood with lots of shopping (squeal!).  We had no time to shop, but the best part was the location.  It sits upon the cliffs overlooking the water.  Nearby are sea lions just hanging out on the cliffs next to the crashing waves.  This was our last stop before we headed to Joshua Tree to camp that night.



Sea lions 



Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Day 15: California Pacific Coast Highway - SF to Monterey



Road trips out west were a yearly tradition when I was younger.  It’d make sense for my dad to take us on the California Coastline by now, but that man is rarely logical.  I don’t know what took me so long to do it myself, because it is amazing.  We decided to take the coastal highway -- California Route 1 -- from San Francisco to Los Angeles.







This guy told me I should take a video of him because he has a YouTube account. 


Monterey Bay



That's a huuuge gull! 




There's more sea life on this dock than in Half Moon Bay 



Those nasty brown squiggly things are barnacles, according to Ayk

Friday, February 4, 2011

San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge


When we picked up the rental car for the trip, I was excited to see that it was red.  It's my favorite color.  Ayk said the color for something as fleeting as a rental car didn't matter.  I told him color always matters.  Case in point: Golden Gate Bridge.  This landmark would not be nearly as famous if it weren't for that lovely coat of rust orange to contrast against the sea green bay.  Aesthetics always matter.


Clearly, we both are a fan of red. 







Surfers in the bay 




Container ship from China.  Hooray for cheap electronics!
Alcatraz on the right


Finally the weather cleared up for us to take a shot of the skyline. 


That didn't mean the wind didn't let up.