jebbypal

I really cannot emphasize enough how beautiful San Diego was. Honestly, I've never been anywhere that the scenery or anything ever called out something like "home" to me. Granted, the different places I've visited and lived all have their own charms and have different levels of beauty to my eye, but San Diego eclipsed them all.

It was cooler than normal for San Diego's febuary and the nights were pretty chilly at the hotel, but even in the windy forties, I felt warm despite wearing linen pants for most of the weekend. Of course, I was sensible and packed a microfleece vest as well as a cuordoroy heavy coat, so that probably explains it. And the wind was nothing like the northeast wind so that was plenty.

But oh, the sky, and the sun!!! I really think I do need to live somewhere that is sunny about 90% of the time and my general mood and take on life will be much better. AND GREEN. As I told azuremonkey and poisontaster during my trip to San Francisco, I equate much greenness with happiness. Since almost everything was tropical palms and so forth, I hold out hope that San Diego is green year round for the most part.

ARCHITECTURE!!! Okay, you have to know me to know how little of an architecture geek I am. Pretty buildings, meh. It's ranked right up there with visiting museums. Generally, I have better things to pay attention to. But I loved the architecture in SD. So many modern sky scrapers that weren't the boring same old thing that you see in Northeast cities or in Chicago. Gorgeous spanish influences on the smaller buildings. I think the ugliest building I saw was the jail and the bail bond building across the street from it (No, no story here other than me wandering around downtown alot).

I didn't get to see the beaches really (other than across the bay when I went walking in the park behind the convention center) and I didn't get out of downtown, but I could easily be happy with just what I saw. Also, CLEAN streets. Clean trolleys. Clean cabs and friendly cabbies. The level of friendliness really was almost southern, but without the .... well, small town feel.

Downtown was so walkable and nicely laid out. I think I walked pretty much all of the Gaslamp district and we did venture up to Little Italy on Sunday night to eat...though, if I'd known the map I had was exact, we would have just walked instead of taking the trolley because, dude, it was literally two blocks from our hotel (Holiday Inn on the Bay. Clean and nice enough, but nothing like the luxurious conference rooms that we saw during some of the conference at the Marriot). I liked the mall there in the Gaslamp district, all though I got lost several times trying to find the stairwells to get back to the street. It really was a maze. Ooh, and I finally got a pair of black danskos that weren't clogs, so score :):)

Sadly, I don't think I can ever afford to live in San Diego if I stay in academic science. The cost of living is much much higher than philadelphia. i was paying nine dollars every morning for a three egg garden omelet for pete's sake. I ate a couple of times at Ralph's grocery store and wandered around it to confirm that grocery prices were much higher than I'm used to. Dinners were pricey and I was very annoyed that the party they threw for us at Stingaray's only served crappy apetizers -- as in too sweet sushi rolls (which, I prefer sashimi since I don't care for seaweed) and these itty bitty sandwiches that they'd only give to you one at a time. Plus, we were on the roof top and the wind that night was positively freezing. Me and a few others left very quickly because it was too cold and we were too hungry (sadly, me and a friend ended up eating at Antonio's Fish Grotto which is the worst fish place I've ever seen. Everything was deep fried w/ a layer of sauce and crap on it. I ordered a salad and recieved it with such low quality feta that I was too scared to eat it, plus it didn't taste that great anyways. The clams my friend ordered were rather good though. Still, very disappointing for a place with lots of access to fresh fish).

The other two dinners we had made up for that though (and drained my wallet badly). I never did get to try the microbreweries though, which saddens me.

All in all, a lovely vacation that only solidified my desire to live in the not northeast. I honestly think that North or South Carolina won't be ideal, but it would be better than the frigid northeast. Plus, I'm just not a southerner at heart --- which is why I left OK in the first place.

Siiigh, maybe if B gets rich fast we can visit SD alot until we can move there. I miss it already.