Two days in San Diego

by Alice
Pacific Beach Car

Two days in San Diego

We spent two days in San Diego from Thursday 28th to Saturday 30th July 2016.
Jeudi 28 à samedi 30 juillet 2016, San Diego.
Giovedì 28 fino a sabato 30 luglio 2016, San Diego.

trilingual post by: Simone & Alice
article trilingue de : Simone & Alice
articolo trilingue : Simone & Alice

1st day in San Diego/1er jour à San Diego/ Primo giorno a San Diego : Pacific Beach & Vegan Pizza

Simone: Apart from the heat, we slept pretty well. I woke up around 7:30 and went to have breakfast. Around 10am Alice woke up… 2nd breakfast.
We went grocery shopping, and finally, as the hostel had a great kitchen, we were able to cook (not metamphetamine like in Breaking Bad, we were so into the show those days)  a good healthy meal: SPAGHETTI!!!

Simone : Hormis la chaleur, nous avons plutôt bien dormi. Je me suis réveillé vers 7h30 pour prendre mon petit-déjeuner. Vers 10h Alice s’est réveillée… 2ème petit-dej! Nous sommes allés faire les courses et enfin, comme l’auberge avait une super cuisine, nous avons pu faire un bon repas : SPAGHETTI!!!

Simone : Nonostante il caldo, abbiamo dormito abbastanza bene. Io mi sono svegliato verso le 7:30 e ho fatto colazione. Alle 10 Alice si sveglia e ancora un’altra colazione. Siamo poi andati a fare spesa e  finalmente, dato che l’ostello aveva una cucina, abbiamo cucinato (non meta-anfetamine come in Breaking Bad, serie televisiva che in quel periodo ci accompagnava) i miei tanto adorati SPAGHETTI!!!

san diego hostel kitchen Simone cooking in SD

Alice:
We had planned to meet Camille, a friend from Wos at a pizzeria close to Pacific Beach, so naturally we decided to visit this place for the day. It took us a little while to get organised and understand how to get there, but we figured we’d take a bus and make it out alive! Well, it was a bit of a struggle since there were works on the road, and therefore the stop wasn’t used, and there wasn’t any indications on where to go instead. We tried to understand where was the closest working stop, and luckily we had the change for the tickets!

Nous avions prévu de voir Camille, une copine du Wos, dans une pizzeria à Pacific Beach, donc on a décidé de visiter cet endroit pour notre première journée à San Diego! Nous avons mis un peu de temps à nous organiser et comprendre comment aller à la plage, mais on s’est dit qu’on y arriverait bien en prenant le bus ! Bon, en fait ça a un peu été la galère parce qu’il y avait des travaux sur la route, donc l’arrêt de bus le plus proche n’était pas desservi, il a fallu trouver le suivant, etc… Heureusement que nous avions de la monnaie pour le bus !

Direzione Pacific Beach, qualche piccolo disagio con l’autobus a causa dei lavori stradali. Il piano era passare la giornata a Pacific Beach prima di incontrare in serata Camille, un’amicizia del Wosbar, in una pizzeria poco distante dalla spiaggia. Con un po’ di organizzazione e fortuna arriviamo a destinazione.

Pacific Beach bus stop

Our whole trip had been in spent in warm weather (remember Washington??) and under the sun but trust me or not, Californian weather felt different. This sounds so cliché, but it felt like a caress and I couldn’t get enough of it. As I’m white as a sheet, I used the time in the bus to cover myself in sunscreen and just observed the view. It was pretty great… Pacific Beach felt like a beautiful Californian beach town. I definitely felt and understood that – finally – I had made it to California. Writing this months later, I kind of really realised all we’ve done and seen and how it played up in terms of the dreams I had before going to the US. I don’t know if I really had any sort of Californian Dream at all, I think I never really thought about the day I would see California. But now it feels like San Diego was a turning point and a decisive one for the rest of my life.
Anyway, back to San Diego. Once on the beach, I’m not going to lie: we lied down, tanned (burnt) and swam!

 L’intégralité de notre voyage aux Etats-Unis s’est fait dans la chaleur (vous vous souvenez de Washington??) et sous le soleil, mais étrangement le climat californien nous a semblé différent. Ca fait vraiment cliché, mais j’avais l’impression que le soleil n’était qu’une caresse, et c’était incroyablement agréable. Comme je suis blanche comme la neige, j’ai profité du trajet en bus pour me badigeonner allègrement de crème solaire et profiter de la vue. Pacific Beach ressemblait vraiment à une magnifique ville côtière californienne… A ce moment-là j’ai vraiment senti et compris que – enfin – j’étais en Californie. En écrivant ça des mois plus tard, je réalise tout ce que nous avons fait et vu et dans quelle mesure ça a joué en terme de rêves que j’avais avant d’aller aux Etats-Unis. Je ne crois pas que j’avais un quelconque rêve californien, je pense que je n’avais jamais pensé au jour où je verrais enfin la Californie. Mais maintenant j’ai comme l’impression que San Diego a été un moment crucial pour le reste de ma vie.
Bref, une fois sur la plage, je ne vais pas vous mentir : nous nous sommes allongés, avons bronzé (brulé) et nagé!


Tutto il nostro viaggio é stato caratterizzato dal caldo (ricordate Washington) e dal sole cocente ma, credetemi, le temperature Californiane sono assolutamente tutt’altra cosa. Ciò che dico può sembrare molto cliché, ma paragono le temperature di qui ad una carezza. Avendo una carnagione molto bianca, ma veramente bianca, ho passato parecchio del tempo sull’autobus a cospargermi di protezione solare, ovviamente il paesaggio che intanto ammiravo era fantastico. Pacific Beach mi ha fatto capire che finalmente ero arrivata davvero in California.
Scriverlo ora a distanza di mesi, mi fa rendere conto di ciò che abbiamo visto e passato e che ruolo abbia avuto tutto questo in termini di sogni da realizzare, non so se fino ad allora io abbia veramente avuto un vero e proprio « California dream », ora però posso dirlo con certezza: la California ha segnato un punto cruciale nella mia vita.
Comunque, ritorniamo a parlare di San Diego. Una volta arrivati alla spiaggia ci siamo distesi, abbronzati (bruciati) e nuotato!

Pacific Beach Car Pacific Beach Rescue Simone in Pacific Beach

Alice in Pacific BeachPacific Beach large sunset

It was easy to revel in the sights around us, and the way to go to the pizzeria to meet Camille was no exception. The sun came down as we watched in awe what was in front of us… And we felt at home, believe it or not.
Woodstock Pizzeria was a very nice place, especially as

  1. they had vegan pizza with vegan cheese
  2. it was trivia night

Now I hate to admit it, but we were utterly pathetic at the quizz. Really, truly, awful. But that didn’t prevent us from having load of fun! Camille was the quiz master, so we really got to talk to her once she very generously drove us back to our hostel. She was really sweet and even though Simone already knew her, I was very glad to had made her acquaintance!

C’était un plaisir d’observer et d’apprécier ce que San Diego a à offrir, et le chemin pour rejoindre Camille n’a pas fait défaut. Le soleil se couchait littéralement devant nous… Et on s’est senti chez nous, croyez-le ou non…
Woodstock Pizzeria était un endroit vraiment sympa, surtout que :

  1. Il y avait des pizza vegan avec du fromage vegan
  2. C’était soirée quiz

Bon, ça me fait mal de l’admettre, mais on était vraiment pathétique au quiz. Vraiment, totalement super nuls. Mais ça ne nous a pas empêchés de nous éclater ! Camille menait le quiz, donc on a vraiment pu lui parler une fois qu’elle nous a gentiment proposé de nous ramener à notre auberge en voiture. Elle était vraiment chouette et si Simone la connaissait déjà, j’ai vraiment été ravie de faire sa connaissance!

È stato facile godere di tutto ciò che ci circondava, il sole , il tramonto, ci siamo sentiti veramente a casa!
Direzione Woodstock Pizzeria, per incontrare Camille. Il locale , molto carino, aveva nel menu la Pizza vegana con il formaggio vegano. Era la serata in cui si giocava a Trivia, e detesto ammetterlo, il nostro risultato fu più che patetico!
Nonostante il disastro al quiz ci siamo divertiti tantissimo, Camille era la « presentatrice del gioco » abbiamo cosi avuto finalmente la possibilità di parlare con lei  una volta terminato il tutto.

Pacific Beach motor Pacific Beach early sunset Pacific Beach late sunset Cider in Woodstock Pizzeria

Day 2 of our two days in San Diego:
More beaches!
Encore plus de plages!!
Spiaggia spiaggia spiaggieeeeeee!!!

 

To save money, we had breakfast and lunch at the hostel, and decided that we would have to see the other beaches San Diego has to offer. So we took off to have even more problems dealing with the bus situation… We had to buy a pass, and the vending machine only gave up to 5$ change (and we had a bigger note than that!). It was pretty much a mess, and we really got to understand why Americans have so much cash on them all the time! But we ended up fixing the situation by buying some crap at the 7/11 since no shop wanted to break our note…..

Histoire de faire des économies, nous avons pris notre petit-déj et déjeuné à l’auberge, avant de décider de voir les autres plages de San Diego. Une fois dehors, nous avons eu encore plus de soucis de bus… nous devions acheter un pass, mais le distributeur de tickets ne rendait au maximum que 5$ (et nous avions un gros billet). C’était vraiment le bazar, on a compris pourquoi les Américains avaient toujours de la monnaie sur eux… On a fini par régler la situation en achetant un truc au 7-Eleven comme aucun magasin ne voulait casser notre billet… 

Per economizzare un po’ abbiamo fatto colazione e pranzo all’ostello, prima di partire alla conquista delle altre splendide spiagge di San Diego.Anche questa volta con qualche problemino con i mezzi di trasporto o meglio con il metodo di pagamento:  portate con voi sempre banconote di piccolo taglio, vi assicuro che vi semplificheranno la vita in queste occasioni! Le macchinette automatiche per i bus danno un resto massimo di 5 dollari e la maggior parte dei negozi non cambiano il denaro, insomma acquistare per cambiare denaro ecco!

 

First beach on the menu / Premiere plage au menu / Prima spiaggia del menu giornaliero :
Ocean Beach

This one had a completely different feeling about it, but it was awesome too! It was more of a very laid-back, somewhat hippie place, really revolving around the beach. There were also more surfers on this beach.
Something pretty funny happened, too. As I was peacefully trying to get some relaxing sleepy time on the sand, a guy named to us to ask if we had appropriate sunscreen. At first I really wondered what he wanted but he added that he was a bit worried because I – wait for it – « glowed ». Yes, that’s how white my skin is. Actually, it was very sweet, because said guy had skin cancer and was concerned about me getting one if I went all lobster on him. He offered me to use his sunscreen, but I had some good one so I declined and thanked him. [Spoiler: I got sunburnt]
If you don’t want to get all sunburnt like me because you don’t have enough cream in handy or anything decent to cover yourself, consider using this great beach packing list !

Cette plage m’a donné une sensation complètement différente de Pacific Beach, mais c’était génial aussi ! Il y avait une ambiance plus détendue, un peu hippie, vraiment tournée vers la plage. Il y avait aussi plus de surfers. Un truc un peu fou m’est arrivé… Alors que je me détendais tranquille sur la plage sans rien demander à personne, un mec est venu pour me demander si j’étais sûre que ma crème solaire était bonne. Au début je me suis vraiment demandé ce qu’il voulait mais il a ajouté qu’il était un peu inquiet parce que – vous êtes prêts? – je brillais…. Oui, ma peau est blanche à ce point-là. En fait, c’était vraiment sympa de sa part, parce qu’il a précisé qu’il avait un cancer de la peau et qu’il était inquiet à l’idée que j’en fasse un si je me transformais en homard. Il m’a proposé d’utiliser sa super crème solaire, mais la mienne était bonne donc j’ai refusé et l’ai remercié. [Spoiler : j’ai eu un coup de soleil]

Sensazioni completamente diverse da quella visitata il primo giorno, ma comunque sensazioni fantastiche! Molto più tranquilla, un po’ « figli dei fiori » e con molti surfisti in più.
Un episodio che ricorderò sempre: quieta e distesa sulla sabbia un uomo ci chiede se avessimo della lozione solare veramente adatta, riferendosi alla mia pelle che cominciava ad arrossarsi. Si ragazzi la mia pelle è veramente pallida, in realtà era seriamente preoccupato per me in quanto lui stesso ha avuto problemi di cancro allo pelle. Fatto sta che fu cosi carino da offrirmi la sua lozione, io ne avevo una molto buona talmente buona che mi sono bruciata.

Ocean Beach in San Diego Around Ocean Beach Surfer in Ocean Beach

Actually, another crazy thing happened, so I guess this is the beach of funny encounters. A gang of seagulls took control of the stuff of people close to us who were swimming. They left all of their belongings, including some bags of chips, which the seagulls were trying to get their daily nutrient recommendations from. Believe me, there is NO WAY I put myself on the path of these wretched creatures, so the guys were fortunate that braver people went to save their stuff! (Sorry guys!).
So you can imagine that when it was our turn to go and have a swim, we hid everything (it also helps that we didn’t have any food on us!). The waves were HUGE, I totally understand why there would be a lot of surfers. It was a lot of fun, we both really enjoy big waves to ride on so we had a tremendous time. And it got even better when we saw a sea lion just a few meters from us! Everybody was pretty much psyched and it felt like the best day ever! We’re not that hard to please…
Once we were thoroughly exhausted by all the tumbling in the waves, we decided it was time to change beach. While we were waiting for the bus, we grabbed a delicious and huge rice and bean burrito for next to nothing. Yummy!

Un autre truc un peu fou s’est passé, donc on va dire que c’est la plage des situations étranges… Un gang de mouettes a pris le contrôle des affaires d’un groupe de jeunes qui étaient tous partis se baigner. Ils avaient laissé toutes leurs affaires sans protection, ce qui incluait des paquets de chips. Grossière erreur. Evidemment, les mouettes ont essayé de se faire un banquet. Croyez-moi, il n’y a AUCUNE chance que je me mette sur le chemin de ces monstres, donc heureusement que les propriétaires des paquets de chips ont pu compter sur des gens un peu plus courageux que moi pour sauver leurs affaires ! (Désolée !)

Vous imaginez donc bien que quand nous avons décidé d’aller nager, nous avons bien tout planquer. En même temps nous n’avions pas de nourriture donc il y avait peu de chances que nos affaires se fasse massacrer par une bande de mouettes. Bref, les vagues étaient GEANTES!! C’était génial, et j’ai compris pourquoi il y avait plus de surfeurs. On s’est éclatés dans les grosses vagues et on s’est même retrouvés à nager avec un lion de mer à quelques mètres ! Tout le monde était super excité et ce jour est monté assez haut sur ma liste des meilleurs jours de ma vie ! Je ne suis pas très difficile… Une fois totalement crevés à force de se faire retourner par les grosses vagues, on a décidé qu’il était temps de changer de plage. En attendant le bus, on a chacun acheté pour presque rien un délicieux burrito au riz et haricots rouges. Miam miam !

Altro episodio successo a poca distanza: una « banda » di gabbiani ha fatto strage di patatine e cose da mangiare lasciate incustodite da un gruppo di ragazzi andati a nuotare. Credetemi in nessuna maniera io mi metterò sulla strada di queste odiose creature, fortunatamente delle persone più coraggiose hanno salvato il « bottino » e la tranquillità delle persone che si trovavano li!

Era arrivato il momento di andare a farci il bagno, nascondiamo tutto sotto gli asciugamani e via, tra le onde dell’oceano a divertirci come dei matti, in compagnia anche di un leone marino.
Che giornata fantastica!
Altro giro altra spiaggia, nel frattempo ci sfamiamo con un gigantesco burrito!

bad seagull seagull eating chips

Second beach of the day / Deuxième plage du jour / Seconda Spiaggia del giorno :
Mission Beach

 

Mission beach was yet another style of place. It was a bit more… show off. But it didn’t make it any bad, we really enjoyed the place too! The sun was low in the sky and on its way to setting down, it was great with lots of colors… We laid down again, relaxing…. Of course we couldn’t help hearing a lot of conversations, namely a couple’s first date (boring) and then the talk amongst a group of horny teenage boys hoping to get some that night and talking extensively about it in a way that we could foresee they would not get any… fascinating….

Mission Beach s’est révélée encore différente des deux plages précédentes. C’était un peu plus… la “frime”. Mais ça n’en faisait pas pour autant une plage désagréable, on a vraiment aimé cet endroit aussi ! Le soleil était en train de se coucher et il y avait une belle couleur dorée… On s’est encore allongé sur la plage en mode relax. Evidemment nous avons entendu plein de conversations, notamment celle d’un premier rencard (zzzzzz) et une discussion d’un groupe d’ados qui espéraient conclure le soir-même mais croyez-moi, c’était mal barré!

Ancora un’altro stile di spiaggia, un po’ più …. fighetta, assolutamente non meno affascinante delle altre! Il sole stava per tramontare ed i colori erano unici…. ancora una volta rilassati…. ci piace osservare e ascoltare ciò che ci succede attorno e spesso ciò che succede è il più delle volte abbastanza divertente: questa volta era il turno di una coppia al loro primo « noiosissimo « appuntamento », e di un gruppo di  focosi  adolescenti in cerca della loro preda da rimorchiare per la sera ( ovviamente le prede sono tutte tornate a casa senza che il cacciatore abbia fatto una mossa……)

showing off at Mission Beach Mission Beach roller coaster Around Mission Beach Mission Beach San Diego Simone at Mission Beach Alice at Mission Beach

When the sun started to set, we went to get the bus to go back to our hostel. Of course, we took the wrong one. And then realised that as it was the weekend already, the busses were not all available at that hour, etc. etc. But we honestly didn’t care even a little, because the surroundings of Mission Beach are so beautiful!! It felt like my dream town and it’s now a fact: I want to live there!! It was like the fantasy Californian dream life… in front of my eyes. Sign me in!
We ended up also taking a trolley to get back, and the walk to the hostel was nice and showed us yet another side of this cool city. No way to get enough of this place!

Quand le soleil a vraiment commencé à se coucher, nous sommes allés prendre le bus direction l’auberge. Bien évidemment, nous avons pris le mauvais bus… avant de réaliser que comme c’était déjà le week-end, les passages des bus étaient complètement modifiés et il n’y avait pas le bon bus pour rentrer, etc. Honnêtement ça nous était un peu égal parce que les environs de Mission Beach étaient juste fabuleux. C’était l’endroit précis où je rêve de vivre. Le rêve californien… devant mes yeux ! J’achète !
On a fini par prendre un bus et un tram pour rentrer, et le peu que nous avons eu à marcher nous a permis de voir encore un autre coin très sympathique de la ville. Je ne peux pas me lasser de San Diego…

Era arrivata ora di tornare a casa, prendiamo il bus (quello sbagliato) e ci innamoriamo di tutto quello che vediamo, è veramente il posto ideale per noi!

trolley in San Diego Palms in San Diego Business San Diego Other side of San Diego Grand Hotel San Diego main street San Diego party quarter

Scrabble master, baby!
La deesse du scrabble (!)
« er Dio » (la Dea) a scarabeo (il gioco)

 

Back in the hostel room, two German guys who had just graduated high school greeted us. One of them was very talkative so we talked a lot about California and traveling. It was pretty nice. After chatting and getting ready for bed, we went to the hostel lounge because we weren’t sleepy yet and ended up playing Scabble and I won! I didn’t expect it to be so funny, but with us both not having English as our native language but our common language of communication, it was pretty insane. Also we weren’t really on the same vibe when it came to the rules so it was pretty much WAR.

De retour à l’auberge, nous avons été accueillis dans notre chambre par deux Allemands tout juste sortis du lycée. L’un des deux était vraiment bavard donc nous avons pas mal discuté de la Californie et du voyage en général. C’était très sympa ! Après avoir discuté, Simone et moi sommes allés dans le salon de l’auberge parce que nous n’étions pas encore très fatigués et nous avons fini par jouer au Scrabble. Et… j’ai gagné ! Je ne pensais pas que ça serait drôle, mais comme nous avons joué en anglais et que ce n’est pas notre langue maternelle mais notre langue de communication, c’était assez fou ! On n’était pas tout à fait sur la même longueur d’onde niveau règles donc c’était LA GUERRE (mais j’ai triomphé) !

Tornati nella nostra stanza, due ragazzi tedeschi ci hanno intrattenuto parlandoci delle loro esperienze e viaggi, non avendo sonno  andiamo nel salone dell’ostello per una partita all’ultimo sangue a Scarabeo.Premetto che la nostra visione delle regole era completamente differente, una vera e propria guerra di nervi vinta poi da me, trionfatrice assoluta!

Scrabble in San Diego

Leaving San Diego after two days and a whole in our heart
Au revoir San Diego…
Arrivederci San Diego…

 

We were super sad to leave San Diego, because we wouldn’t have minded staying there for the rest of our lives. But another adventure awaited us! A friend from Paris who’s now living in Santa Cruz as a Post-Graduate invited us to stay at his place for a few days. Another beach town on the coast of California…. hell yes!
So we went to get our Greyhound ticket at the 7-Eleven and went to the station before hopping in, direction Los Angeles. In L.A., we had to wait at the station (hm, mosquitoooolees!) for a few hours before we were able to take the night bus to Santa Cruz.

On était vraiment tristes de quitter San Diego, parce que ça ne nous aurait pas dérangé de rester pour toujours. Mais une autre aventure nous attendait ! Un ami de Paris qui vit maintenant à Santa Cruz comme post-doctorant nous a invité chez lui pour quelques jours. Une autre ville avec la plage sur la côte californienne… OKAY !
Donc nous sommes allés chercher notre ticket de bus au 7-Eleven puis à la gare avant de monter dans le Greyhound, direction Los Angeles ! A L.A., on a du attendre quelques heures à la station (en compagnie de nos amis les moustiques, ô joie !) avant de prendre le bus de nuit pour Santa Cruz.

Eravamo veramente dispiaciuti nel dover lasciare San Diego, in realtà ci sarebbe piaciuto restare per tutta la vita. Ma un’altra avventura ci attendeva! Un amico di Parigi che ora vive a Santa Cruz come post-laureato ci ha invitato a stare da lui un paio di giorni. Un’altra città della costa californiana….. da paura!
Ritiriamo così i biglietti del nostro autobus Greyhound ad un 7- Eleven, arriviamo alla stazione e ci imbarchiamo direzione Los Angeles, dove faremo scalo per qualche ora in compagnia di caldo e zanzare prima di viaggiare per Santa Cruz.

Bags of Takeyourbag on the way to LA

See you guys on the next beach!
On se voit sur la prochaine plage !
Ci vediamo alla prossima spiaggia!

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4 comments

Charles McCool 15 April 2017 - 15 h 40 min

San Diego is such a fun place. Good thing you had nice weather. Of course they say San Diego has some of the best weather in the world. Yes, watch out for seagulls. They are like flying rodents.

Reply
Natalie 15 April 2017 - 18 h 34 min

The beaches look spectacular. And yes, there is something special about the weather in Southern California. I don’t know what it is exactly, it’s just perfect. J’aime la Californie!

Reply
knycx.journeying 17 April 2017 - 3 h 06 min

wow a spectacular beach day, a lot of water sports, surfing and great meals. That’s a great way to fill the nice view with all these fun programs!

Reply
Megan Jerrard 17 April 2017 - 4 h 59 min

So glad you had a fab time in San Diego – safe trip to Santa Cruz! The beaches here are incredible, I agree, and the food scene is pretty great too. Glad you got to experience some of that fabulous California weather – it’s the best!

Reply

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