travel

Thanksgiving in San Francisco

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I woke up my parents at 4am this morning so we could drive up to San Francisco and don’t hit the holiday traffic. They didn’t come to America to sleep anyway, right?
We made it up to San Francisco before 11am and the first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge.

A view over Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge and San Francisco.

After our sightseeing we headed over to friends to celebrate thanksgiving. They wanted to see my parents new house, so mom had a tour on the phone.

Thanksgiving – not a big deal for me as I did not grow up with it, but for some it is, having excel sheet of who is doing what and recipes are important! All color coded off course.

Turkey is baked and ready to be carved!

The mash is always by favorite at a Thanksgiving dinner, I am a sucker for potatoes.
Coffee after dinner. Wait, someone put an octopus in my cup!

Santa Barbara

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My friend is visiting from Sweden for a few weeks and we drove up to Santa Barbara for the weekend. We went out for a few drink last night so she was not feeling so hot today. We also went shopping in at the outlets on the way up to Santa Barbara yesterday and so today she wanted to wear all her new cloths and shoes all at ones, even though the fashion police told her not to.

We were trying to catch up with sleep on the beach for a while before I got hungry and thought we should go for some lobster rolls on the pier. She was not really feeling it though, I had to take a photo…. the best part is that this photo was not at all staged, I started to feel a little sorry for her.

After some fuel, I thought she might be feeling a little better, but she wanted to go back to vegetate. I didn’t really mind as I didn’t get much sleep last night either, I was tired as well, but did not feel quite as bad as she did. After a while I got a little bored though and started to take photos of the palm trees…

Still an awesome weekend with a lot of fun!

San Diego Day 2

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We had a few hours to stroll around San Diego in the morning before my bus was leaving back to Los Angeles.

They had a long distance swimming competition that was pretty exciting to look at. I don’t think I would have gotten very far if I were to compete in one of these competitions.

Julian

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We took a day trip today from San Diego to a small gold mine town called Julian, it’s a really really tiny town with just one street, but it is famous for the apple pies.
I have never been much of a pie person and I am always suspicious to vanilla ice cream, but since this is what they are famous for, I had to try it. It was ok, but I am still not convinced. 

We stopped by Lenora Winery on the way home, excellent wines!

 

Back in San Diego we headed out to La Jolla beach, and it was crowded, makes me appreciate the Los Angeles beaches that rarely gets this crowded.

Wait, doesn’t everyone bring a grill to the beach? 

A Whole Bag of Polly

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My auntie is visiting my cousin in San Diego, I went down there for the weekend to see them. They had brought me a whole bag of Polly from Sweden, I LOVE POLLY!

Santa Barbara

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We had a chill morning on the campground, deciding what to do of the day.
We took off to Santa Barbara, and the Brewing Company for a beer flight.
I like Santa Barbara a lot and today was a beautiful day. It was two days since I showered, so it was nice to jump in the ocean!

Had an awesome lobster roll for lunch out on the pier.

Santa Barbara harbour.

Wine Tasting in Santa Ynez

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It was already dark when we came to the campground last night, so we set up our tents, had a small BBQ and headed off to bed. The  nice thing with camping is that you tend to always wake up bright and early!
On the schedule for today was wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley, outside Solvang. We had no real plan, just drove around to see what we could find. 
We started off with Andrew Murray Vineyards.

A kind of hidden location behind the big Firestone vineyard, or actually, Andrew Murray Vineyards are renting a spot on one of Firestones big fields and it was kind of difficult to find, but it was well worth it once we got there.

Since we were already in the hood, we thought we’d might as well stop by the Firestone as well.

You can get Firestone everywhere, I think they might even export their wines.

We had one more stop scheduled, but were gonna meet up with some more friends and they were running late, so we stopped by Curtis Winery as well for some tasting and picnic. Turns out Curtis is also a part of the Firestone Wine Family.

We were all a little tired and tipsy and felt it was nap time, but we had decided we were gonna meet up with our friends at the Zaca Mesa Winery. We were still early so I was wandering around a bit.

I found their steel barrels that were recycled Pepsi Cola barrels.

Zaca Mesa was the last stop for the day, and also the best wine!

Puerto Nuevo

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We took a day trip down to Mexico to eat lobster, something I’ve been wanting to do for over a year now!

They have Gringa Cerveza on the menu.
I settled for a more local version though.

I had two lobster and a beer for US$20

Nice view from the restaurant.

We stopped by a taco stand on the way home. I did not really feel it though, so I passed.

Going Back to LA

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It’s cool when I to go to Sweden, cos I get to go home to visit my family, and then I get to go home again when I go back to LA. 

I took the train from Katrineholm to Stockholm and saw this awesome prawn sandwich at the Stockholm Central Station. I felt I didnt have time to stop and get it as I had a connection to go to the airport. As I was sitting on the train waiting for it to depart I got more and more bummed at myself that I didnt stop to get it because it really did look awesome. The first thing I did as I had passed the security check at the airport was to get myself a open face prawn sandwich and a beer!

I had a connection flight in Chicago, they had put up a bunch of Star Spangled Banners in the American Airlines terminal – just in case you forgot which country you’re in!