Live for the Weekend (1)

05.08.04

Last night we went to Divisionary Theater for M. Butterfly, a play I'd been dying to see for years.

The show started at 8 pm, so we went early and stopped by El Zarape for scallop tacos. It's perfect! There we were in the main street of University Heights (Park Blvd.), a modest looking neighborhood, enjoying best food in town with very reasonable prices and arts just around the corner.

This morning, the sun smiled broad and loudly. We knew it's going to be a beach day, a busy weekend of Mother's Day and PB Block party. We weren't going to be anywhere near PB, thus we went to Torry Pines. Picnics and umbrellas dominated the North Beach where we usually parked. We walked down to the main stretch, as always. Knowing the water temperature being about 65 degrees, I wasn't hesitating of going in, thanks to weekly swimming sessions. The water didn't seem that cold to me anymore.

We hung out a couple of hours -- mostly I splashed the water and John watched. His left foot got scratched and bled a little. Then we headed for La Jolla Cove while still wet because John really really wanted to snorkel this weekend. I chickened out since I've never done it before. Not to mention there were some big waves this afternoon. We learnt that no floating devices were allowed at the cove, so my hope for wearing a lifejacket in the water wouldn't work. I stayed close to the shore floating here and there but not far enough to see any fish. Water here was colder than Torry Pines.

After we were done, we decided to go to La Dolce Vita Ristorante (Italian restaurant) for dinner. Months ago we walked in La Dolce Vita by chance and were charmed by their crispy thing crust pizza. It's a good time to go back and try something else. Again, we ordered their seafood pizza then a vegetarian penne pasta dish. Well, the pizza was excellent but pasta just OK.

John said one of reasons he wanted to come to La Jolla was to take me to the French Pastry Shop. We went after diner but half an hour too late. John refused to give up and looked up in the phone book for another French pastry place near by. We found French Gourmet, a casual restaurant & bakery at north PB / south La Jolla. $10, an �clair, a chocolate mousse cake, a cookie, and a couple of coffee later we made wrong turns. Next thing we knew, we were sitting in PB block party traffic jam.

PB is a known party neighborhood. Each year, Block Party takes place on mains streets (like Garnet) with free music performances. Every neighborhood in San Diego has some kind of yearly event / festival for celebrating or promoting the community. Block Party is the yearly THING for PB. Not only the event locations, adjacent streets and residents, every direction you go, every 3 or 5 houses, you will see parties, people hanging out with beer at hand, dancing or chatting. Cars cruising by all have heavy bass blasting and you are unable to tell what music is playing but feel the vibrations of beats. This is the soul of PB.

We laid out city map in front of us but had no idea where exactly we were at. It took at least 10 minutes to cross a block and we couldn't see the street signs every well either. Finally, we turned and turned against traffic to a quiet street and really studied the map. We drove back to La Jolla, taking the long way home, which was much better than fighting the jam. I almost thought those 30~40 minutes sitting in party traffic would end our day in a bad note.

Those pastries were heavenly, which made up for the traffic headache. (And the $$$ we paid. They'd better be good, right?)

It's a day full of activities. We got home 8 or 9 hours being out. John wanted to watch a movie. The funny was he felt asleep before it even started. I finished In This World (2002), a movie about 2 young Afghan refugees journeyed from Shamshatoo camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, by land to London. One succeeded; anther died. Mesmerizing!


Note:

PB = Pacific Beach

La Dolce Vita Ristorante => http://www.ladolcevitaristorante.com

Some sources date "In This World" 2003.