A Weekend in San Diego

This past weekend was three days long for President’s Day so people were taking advantage of the long weekend to go home and spend time with their families or do something else special. Since I live in New York it wasn’t really worth it for me to go home for three days because with all the traveling involved. It would feel like I was leaving as soon as I got there. So when my friend, Ariella, asked me if I wanted to go to San Diego with her to see her parents and visit around I said yes. It was the first time I would be visiting San Diego. Since enrolling at USC I hadn’t had the chance to explore much of California so I was excited to see a new place and get away for the weekend.

Our trip started on Friday afternoon. The four of us piled into the car my friend, her roommate, me, and another girl who offered to give us a ride down. Our drive was pretty easy and there was less traffic than expected. We stopped at a place in San Clemente that my friend had raved about for their delicious rice bowls. After driving for another hour or so we arrived in La Jolla, a suburb of San Diego, where my friend lived. We met her parents and sister and then decided to head out to explore. We went to this beautiful beach that Ariella had frequently visited in high school. She told us when the sun sets in between the columns of the pier everyone from La Jolla comes to watch. We were pretty tired that day so we decided after some driving around we would call it a night.

On Saturday we woke up early and drove to downtown San Diego. In downtown, we went to Little Italy where they were having a farmer’s market. We looked at each stand and tried all the samples they were offering. We bought fresh orange juice and kombucha. We walked around downtown a little longer and then drove back to La Jolla where our other friend was being dropped off. After meeting our friend, we drove to Rigoberto’s a place Ariella would frequently visit after school. We ordered burritos and decided to take them down to Windansea Beach where about five different photo shoots were taking place. As we were eating our burritos a puppy came running up to us and dug his head into one of my friend’s burritos but she still ate it.

On Sunday we had planned to go hiking but when we woke up it was raining. We decided to face the rain and do the hike anyway. Our hike was meant to take us on a trail that would lead to the La Jolla Shores beach, but after about fifteen minutes hiking the rain really started coming down and the wind was getting stronger so we decided to call it quits. After we had given up on the hike Ariella drove us to a lookout point where we could see all of La Jolla.

Later that day we went to Convoy, a street in San Diego known for all kinds of Asian food. We went to Ariella’s favorite ramen place and each got huge bowls of noodles. The next morning we left after her mom made us really good buckwheat pancakes. Overall, it was a really enjoyable trip. I got to explore a new city, eat good food and it was a great way to spend the long weekend.