Santa Barbara - a weekend with the Jarvis

(Sarah and John trading junk food secrets)

Finally, we got our act together and headed out to Santa Barbara to see Zack, Sarah and Queen Bea.. It was truly wonderful to hang out with good old friends for the weekend.. We left on a Friday evening around 8pm and arrived in Santa Barbara around 11.30pm -which included an hour stop to buy some wine and flowers and eat some good Indian at a decent Indian restaurant in West Hollywood, next to the WholeFoods, where said flowers and wine were purchased.. As you can see we try to eat Indian food outside San Diego whenever we get the opportunity.

The Jarvis live in a beautiful part of California..It reminded me of Spain, as you head from Malaga to Grenada and from Bilbao to San Sebastian.. Santa Barbara has excellent olive oils - more impressive than the wines that come from the region. We toured a few wine areas, but my highlight was hanging out with Queen Bea, who is getting more interactive by the day. It was the weekend of Cinco de Mayo, which is a Mexican celebration of the Mexican victory over French forces. The date is now observed as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.. The above photo of the Jarvis family was taken at the Longoria wine store in Los Olivos - one of the small towns we visited on our wine routing expedition.

As you can see John has a new fan.. all blond little girls like John.. dont ask me why, but even Lara of the Lara/Nina Gush twin duo likes to hang with the John.. They must be attracted to the Latvian heritage that John has..

You have to love this photo of Beatrice.. so determined on carrying this big rock... soon Queen Bea, pretty soon. We hope that they do come visit us in San Diego pretty soon..

My first Baseball Game

A few weeks ago some friends of John where in San Diego for a conference - this town is the conference capital of California.. The big plus is that we get to see more friends this way and it actually got us to finally head to a baseball game..

In South Africa non-white schools during apartheid (which is when I grew up), we had 4 sports that we could play in our weekly 90 minutes of physical education per week - netball which was compulsory (and where I broke the fingers on my left hand when Margie tackled me); athletics; softball (as girls were not allowed to play cricket) and volleyball (you played if you wanted to meet tall Indian men!!). So for me going to a baseball game reminded me of those days when we would spend 45 minutes out of class (usually around midday) under the hot, boiling South African sun...bliss!

Baseball is similar to cricket only less complicated. More innings and much easier to get out - strikes and you are out.. The games was between the Padres (local SD team) and the Dodgers (LA Team). It was a 3 day match weekend (think if it as 3 one-day matches taking place consecutively over a weekend).

By the 6th innings (an innings ends when someone is out), I was bored.. but amazed at the same time by how much people spend (and eat!!!) on an outing to a game.. This is serious business with drinks costing north of $7 each and a hotdog close to $10. Not to mention the baseball caps, shirts, banners and calendars that are all up for sale.. Top tier entry tickets at $65 each.

The US is definitely a consumption driven nation, more so than any other country I have lived and worked in - well maybe not as bad as Kuwait as there is nothing else to do there than to shop and eat.

Will I go to a game again? Probably not.. Have I ever been to a cricket game? yes, but the last one was the world cup in South Africa in 2003, when India played against South Africa... which is always an exciting game to watch..

I did enjoy the mascot though and the impressive stadium that we were in.. If only the city of San Diego would invest the same amount of capital (estimated to be $500mn) on its roads..

Views of San Diego from Coronado Island

Spring is in the air (not that San Diego actually experienced winter),so it was time to go out and experience a different past of San Diego - much needed given that we live in North County which is very agrestic (like the community in the comedy called Weeds, where all the homes look the same and everything is very cookie cutter.)














The view from Coronado Island of San Diego downtown is rather impressive and definitely gives one the feeling that we do live in a large city. It is a large city, with 3 million people, however the city is very spread out, especially compared to London.
















I guess that over time we will get used to this sprawling town and its many little enclaves that make it unique and attracts a ton of tourists over the summer, which seems to have started about now..

Last night we decided to head downtown and experience the city life for a change. It was good outing, new york style pizza, old cinemas and lots of 20-somethings waiting for hours to get into the trendy Ivy bar where drinks start at $20.

I had a good laugh when I saw some girls out on a hen's night (kitchen tea, bridal shower, bachelorette party) dressed up very similar to the ladettes in Blackpool, out for a night on the town.. jean's sprayed on with muffin tops and all.. I may be very far from the UK but some things seem to be just the same the world over..

Death Valley...

So a fortnight ago, John adamant to get out of SD for the weekend, decided that we should head out to Death Valley, a national park about 5 hours away from San Deigo.



















Death Valley is a rather descriptive name for this place. There is not much to see other than super dry, barren land, large expanses of it.. The highlight is the fact that this place is considered to be the driest place in America. It also has the lowest elevationm 86m below sea level.
It also has salt pans. According to all the reports on this place, a few million years ago there was an inland sea in this place but as the are turned to desert, it evaorated into salt.



















These views above are probably the most dramatic in the park. Other than that there is not much else to see. Even the rumours about wild flowers coming into bloom was not as amazing a sight as we though it would be.

But we came, we saw and left..

Airports!!!!!

Its midnight, and I am stuck in an airport again.. Give me Heathrow (yes Heathrow with those nice BA or Virgin business lounges) any day over the not so great comforts of the airports of America.. where even first class domestic does not guarantee club lounge access. Can you believe that??? My flight is 4 hours delayed..and will only leave at 1.40am this morning to San Diego from San Francisco. I am en route from a red eye (overnight flight to the east coast sans my flat bed) to Jersey where I had a series of investment meetings and then returned back 12 hours later via SFO. never again... but it will happen again.. because San Diego is what Manchestor is to London (thankfully prettier) but one of those cities that is not just large enough to generate demand for direct flights.. Virgin has finally launched VirginAmerica (thank you Richard!!) and as soon as they start their direct flights from San Diego to the east coast, it will become my next best travel friend.. for a service oriented country, its hard to believe that Americans sacrifice the comforts of travel.. its time to take a leaf out of virgin's or british airways book and realise that service does matter and people are willing to pay that little extra to be treated like humans rather than cattle.

Great Indian in SFO

I just got back from spending the last 2 nights in San Francisco.. love that city... a mini London to some extent.. I had to head there for a conference and when I do get to head there I try to find new things to see and to meet up with friends.

So we have found the equivalent to having your local indian/pakistani place. For $27.00, we ate for two and there was plenty left on the table. The food is excellent, cooked by Mexicans, owned by Pakistani's.. finally a place that equals Lahore Kebab in London.. no alcohol here either but there is no shortage of good cocktail bars close by..

try this one.. Bourbon & Branch, a very cool Speakeasy.. and a definite step back into the 1920's. have to make sure I get to return to both of these places pretty soon..

and now I am back in San Diego, watching America's next top model.. and waiting for JK to come home.. for a change I got home before him.

A different slant on the RAND

So as part of my strange travels around the US, I come across small towns.. and on our way to Mammoth, we came across Randburg and Jannesburg, named wierldy enough after the infamous Egoli in South Africa..

these towns were initally created as mining towns for gold, based on the wealth created by gold in JNB.

In 1896, Randsburg was called Rand Camp, and Red Mountain was originally called Osdick. Johannesburg was established in 1896 as the planned service community for the mining camps. It is the only Rand-area town laid out with straight streets and right-angle intersections. All three towns still retain remnants of the past and have been able to maintain their unique ambiance through the efforts of renovation and preservation.

Its however very different from what we know as Johnnesburg. Would you ever find a swap meet (clothes exchange, the concept of bartering comes to mind) in JNB? My poor fellow South Africans would be surprised to see the lack of high rise buildings or cool cars for that matter.. a very different take on the heart of Africa.