A Weekend in the Whale's Va Jay Jay

Ah San Diego, where to begin. Well, probably the weather. As someone remarked, living in St Louis this summer, people have become accustomed to cringing everytime they exit doors. It's a Pavlovian-response, conditioned in both myself and Cassidy. But on Thursday morning the salty sea air, 70 degree weather felt so unreal that I think we almost got hit by a few cars walking to the minivan my parents had rented to drive all the deadbeats (who didn't rent cars, like us) around.



Rachel and Mike's pad, although not touching the beach and featuring a pool like their last place (I know, I know, I never saw it), was still amazing, with a view of an expansive waterfront and beautiful on the inside. They rent the upper unit above a family, but since the landlord was vacationing on Catalina off the coast of LA, we got to sleep at their place, with their dog Petra and bizarre lighting scheme.

Thursday night was the wedding rehearsal, and the church was one of those tiny classic beauties that girls get weepy about, no surprise Rachel picked it, haha.



Smack dab in the middle of La Jolla, there was some local flavor on the block, such as a Ferrari dealership, a grocery store with iPods in vending machines, even a lovable tramp across the street who acted like he'd seen too many weddings to count. After a quick run through at Mary Star of the Sea, we headed to a beach (no I don't know which one, we went to four and I couldn't keep them straight). The luau was nice, I got to talk with some neighbors and relatives, and even got into some good discussions with Mike's family, my soon-to-be-relatives. I offered my cousin a quarter if he caught a bird on the beach, and he tried all night. I drank a little wine, and talked engineering with one of Rachel's high school friends who works as an Electrical Engineer at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories (I think) in San Francisco and her husband (I think) who works with Astra-Zeneca. Basically we talked about ethics in science and how undeniably nerdy engineers can be. World of Warcraft addiction is an embarassment to us all, as far as I'm concerned. Cassidy and I were tired after the long flight, we called it a night and got some sleep before the wedding the next day.

The next day the girls ran off to get their hair done while the guys did things like ate cereal and drank beer on the beach.



The wedding was nice and surprisingly unemotional, mostly because I think people like Mike, he's a pretty good guy, and his family is cool too. We spilled out for pictures and some partying in a stretch Escalade, and I felt like I was at prom for a few, especially when we hit the cliffs overlooking the ocean.



The photographers got creative here, so much so that random passerbys kept taking pictures. One little Hispanic man even started directing people like he was the photographer. Classic.



We hit the reception all a little buzzed and so when my cousin Kevin asked me "how they (got) lights all the way up (a) tree" I gave him a long winded explanation on Mexican-American relations, NAFTA, border patrols, and even bring in the Mexican that somebody gave a beer to from our party bus. He was hanging out in the alley by the reception place, Old Venice. Anyway, after a few nice toasts, one each from my little sister, my dad and great aunt, a couple from Mike's brothers and his dad and insurance agent (yep, haha), we had some good food and some laughs.



Rachel even had the wedding cake maker create a birthday wedding cake for me that was the most sugary substance I've ever consumed. We packed into a car after seeing the newlyweds off and another fun night.



Saturday morning we finally got to have some fun. We hit the beach in full force, about 15 or 20 of us. Mike and Rachel took Cassidy and I out for some surfing lessons, and let me say I love the Endless Summer, but you can't truly appreciate riding a wave until you're on a board trying to do it.



After an ice cream sandwich and a sunburn and a few hours of relaxing, though, we were ready to try out something new, in this case just sitting on our asses for awhile. Thank god I brought my GBA loaded up with Zelda: Outlands, that's all I'm going to say about that.

Sunday we hit a nice little breakfast spot where I ate a big ass breakfast. Carmelized bananas on top of a waffle, with a little maple syrup and butter. Throw some hash browns and bacon in, and a glass of water and one of fresh 100 percent apple juice. Ahh, it was good. Then my parents headed off and we went to Ocean Beach, which is CA at it's finest. It's where Emily (my little sis) and Jon (her husband) live, and I swear it's where they shoot Pimp my Ride.



We walked down to the beach and stopped in at a few bong shops for laughs and stopped at this art gallery called Rock Paper Scissors that had some unreal things. We picked up a picture of a seagull carrying an octopus for Rachel and Mike's wedding present and headed to the beach where the newlyweds were.




After some more fun in the sun, we decided to make an evening show of Talladega Nights, which put the whole weekend into perspective just as we were all starting to get a little moody. After some late-night Ali G, we headed to bed. What a trip.