It's Fun Having Visitors!

Well Charlie and I had our first visitor last week.  My friend Dana came to spend about 5 days with us and just enjoy sunny San Diego, in hopes she could return to NY with a tan!

It is always fun to have someone come into town.  It gives us a great excuse to revisit what makes San Diego such a great town.  Also, since I have yet to find a job, I was able to spend the trip with her!  It was awesome to have a buddy around, and especially her.  She is a very easy going and fun person to be around.  Needless to say, the first thing we did (and everyday there after) when was here was head to the beach!  I was a little worried about the weather, a few days before she came we had mostly days in the mid to high 70's and the week she was here it said it was dropping to high 60's but I forget that San Diego can still be so warm even in the 60's.  It turned out to be perfect sunning weather which we did plenty of.  We even jumped in the water a few times!

Coincidently we had two other friends in town that were staying up North with Matt and his girlfriend Alyssa.  Poor Charlie had to work this day but we all met at Torrey Pines Beach to do the hike on the cliffs and walk the beach.  Such a gorgeous day.

Then of course after our scenic hike we needed to refuel..

Luckily Charlie scheduled worked out that he had his 3 day weekend when she was here so on one of his days off we decided we would take the hike to Blacks beach.  It was another great day and Dana and I pretty much had the beach to ourselves!  I was even able to get some pictures of Charlie surfing on his new board.

The view from the top of blacks beach.

We spent a majority of our time at the beach, lots of walks and tanning sessions.  I am always appreciative of where we live but when you have someone visiting it is like another reminder to be grateful!

Luckily Dana's selfie game was on point so we got a lot of pictures, which was good because I'm not nearly as on top of it as she was!  

A view from the end of the pier.

I was hesitant about posting this next part because I didn't want any parents having panic attacks but Charlie said I should just go ahead and do it.

One activity that Charlie and I have been saying we are going to do is go spend a day in Tijuana.  There has been a lot of movements to start cleaning it up and bring back life to the area.  Charlie has a coworker who actually lives down there, originally he is from Rhode Island, and commutes to Poway everyday.  He had been assuring Charlie that things are better down there and Americans are starting to come visit on weekends again.  Also, a lot of the Southern California surfing community is still going to Baja regularly and Charlie has been pursuing a lot of surfing sights about Americans traveling.  We generally have the mindset that if your not an idiot and doing any questionable activity, you will be OK and can enjoy yourself, which is exactly what we did!

While Dana was out here we had a few other friends in town as well. They were suppose to leave on the day we went to Mexico but coincidentally their flight was cancelled!  They are big travelers and brought their passports to SD with them on a whim so they were excited to jump on the opportunity to come with us!

We were all a little nervous when we first got there.  There was a HUGE line at the border to get back into the states and we weren't expecting that at all.  We actually were thinking maybe we should turn around now and get on line to get back but we decided not to since we had come all that way.

Once we all got to the main street, Revolucion, our anxieties had started to ease.  We found a great modern clean place that was on a rooftop which is where the picture above was taken.

View from the roof.

I wish I had pictures of the food we got.  It was all so good.  We probably ate at 4 different places, getting street tacos, taquitos, nachos and other creations on the same ingredients hah.  It was really authentic, clean and tasty!  Despite its reputation, no one got sick from the food or drink, just stuffed. We did a lot of walking around, bouncing to different places, shopping, and of course, eating.

We stumbled (not literally) on a really cool brewpub type of place that had a lot of local people who were are age.  We had some authentic locally brewed beer..

As well as some local favorites, I'm pretty sure it's a michelada which is beer, tomato juice and seasonings all around the rim.  Heather (Rob's wife who is pictured below) was practicing her Spanish and asked someone sitting next to us what they were drinking.  Definitely didn't understand their response even though we asked a few times but we called over the waitress, pointed to their drink, and they delivered which is what you are seeing below! We were all pretty excited about that..

We brought back a lot of goodies, Charlie and I got some really cool glasses, a new blanket, a little pocket book for me and a couple other trinkets.  By 8pm we decided we should head back and were pleased to walk up to no line at all at the border!! It was as easy as ever to get back and took all about 2 minutes.  Once we were over we hopped on the trolley home.

Then we tried to stay up, but all fell asleep on the couch..

It was a great week! I will miss having my beach buddy around but we made everyday count!

Easter 2015 in San Diego

We had a really nice Easter over here.  About a few weeks ago we were at dinner at my Dad's and he was making noises about having to cook so I offered to host it! My first time cooking not only Easter dinner but dinner in general for my family.  I was excited to have this experience for the first time.

Charlie had worked six days that week so was also very eager to have a nice relaxing Sunday with a bunch of good food too.

A running joke in my family has been that the Svoboda's suffer from a syndrome where their eyes are much larger then their stomach, which always results in too much food and too much eating!  I suffer from this as well, hence we had A TON of food.

My family was in charge of bringing appetizers and dessert while I focused on the main course.

I had written and planned out what time I would start everything and how long it would take (a little OCD methodical tendency) so that I had the timing down.

As I was cooking I realized that there would be a few more things that I needed so Charlie offered to skate to our local Sprouts and pick it up for me, comes home with these :)

and of course a bottle of champagne. 

We were doing dinner at 4 so we were able to just hang out and relax a little (well other then all the cooking!).

Our appetizers consisted of 4 different cheeses, hard salami, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives & bread.  Very Euro.  Our main course was a balsamic,Dijon and thyme pork loin with slow cooked garlic, rosemary and Parmesan potatoes with salad, corn and a sauté of garlic, carrots and onions!  Yes i know, we balled out.

Don't let this picture fool you, i was the chef in this kitchen!

It was a little cramped once all the food was there but we managed!

My Brother Pavel, anxiously awaiting..

We did actually get a group shot before the food frenzy began!  Pavel, myself, my Dad, Charlie, Jana and Kitty.  Jana is my Grandmothers sister's daughter.  She grew up with my Dad, walking him to school, and she helped my Mom raise me also.  She has been a very strong and present figure in my life but I never know if I should call her cousin, aunt, etc so I just stick with family :)

And then it began..

The food turned out delicious.  The meat took a little longer then we thought but we started a little late so it ended up all working out perfect.  For dessert Kitty baked some delicious Czech style pastries and Jana made a lemon cake.  Although we were all stuffed by the time dessert came around we managed to eat more..

Everyone really seemed to enjoy the meal and I really enjoyed the company.  This is an Easter for the books!

Hope everyone else had a nice holiday too.

Pacific Beach Living

When Charlie and I came back to San Diego we were really up in the air about where we wanted to live.  We really enjoy Oceanside but the commute just didn't make sense no matter how much we tried.   I was pretty set on living coastal.  Unfortunately where Charlie works, no matter where we are on the coast, it is about a 30-40 minute drive.  He repeatedly said he didn't mind so we set off to look at Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach.  I preferred OB, I like the scene there a little more and there are also a ton of dog friendly places (my hidden motives) but we were looking at literal closets for $1200 a month.  I mean 300 square feet apartments or complexes that have like 30 residents in them and you can look into each one of their places.  We weren't having much luck.  Everyday we would drive up and down different streets looking at for places.  At first we wanted to do a beach cottage but what we were seeing was small and somewhat dumpy (kind of a side effect of living by the beach in San Diego, not paying for nice new place but location rather). After a few weeks i was looking on my Zillow app and around 5pm a place popped up in PB.  It was an apartment but one that had only about 6 other tenants.  It was an upstairs place with 2 parking spots (almost unheard off for this area), a large patio and laundry.  One disappointing thing is that there is no garage.  Any who, I called the real estate manager again the next morning, probably right when they opened and the guy said since i was first person he had spoken to (apparently there was a TON of inquiry about the place but timing got us in there first), if brought in the application he would show it to us first. So when we went and looked at the place I was pretty set on it, Charlie too, so we put down the deposit.

We are about 6 blocks from the beach.  Just about a 10 minute walk.  We are one block from the main strip and have already become locals to some of the taverns.  My cousin who Charlie is good friends with, lives about a 10 minute bike ride away.  Also, we have a great market with cheap organic produce that is a 5 minute walk away.  It is so convenient.  Needless to say we settled in pretty quick.

This is a real picture I took right when we came out!  I sent it to my friends in NY :)

This big kahuna is just down the street from us.

A view of our apartment from across the street.

A little bit of a better view of our patio.

My handsome man.

We were really fortunate that we got such a spacious living room and an actual dinning area.

We bought a table and 4 chairs on craigslist for like $40 and my brother and I reupholstered and painted for less then the cost of the table.

Our whole house is craigslist, we got this couch with delivery for $350! Charlie was on top of it.

I really enjoyed decorating this wall.  Charlie made me the hexagonal shelves as well as the wall mounted bottle flower holders.  I was really touched he made these for me so I really prize this wall! Of course the center piece is my anniversary present to Charlie, a wood burning of our names and anniversary date.  Above that is a picture painted by one of my friends (She has a great shop on Etsy called Studio South Seas!)

One of my favorite pieces is our map of Long Island.  

We are really enjoying PB life here.  It is a little chaotic at night but were usually in bed by the time its really wild.  We are much more the day timers and happy hour attendees.  It is nice to be so close to the beach and town!