Green Apple a Day: Birthday Month in San Diego

Have you heard of Birthday Month? We've instituted it at the Churchill household this year starting with September, which is Kevin's Birthday Month. It's the month of your birthday, where you get to celebrate all month long, and it works a little something like this: Looking to buy yourself something special at the thrift store? Go for it, it's Birthday Month. Hankering for a pizza at 10:00pm after you've already had a full dinner? Why not, it's Birthday Month. Want to go to San Diego for some sunshine and surfing? Birth. Day. Month.

So that's just what we did. Oh, and it was Labor Day weekend so Kevin had an extra day off of work...

We started our trip off with a trip to the Saturday Farmer's Market in Little Italy. It was huge! We bought some of the best dates we've ever had, some Korean-style street food, and shared a coconut. We've been addicted to coconuts since this trip. After you drink all the juice, you can take it back to the guy at the stand and he cracks it wide open for you so you can scoop out the flesh. Mmmm, flesh.

There was also a stickball tournament going on in Little Italy, which I found fascinating. It was just so cool to see a sport where kids were playing with their dads and grandpa's. And it's so low tech. They kept score on the street with chalk, too, which was awesome.

Later that evening (after taking siesta because of my low tolerance for heat and our 3:30am start), we headed up to the North Park neighborhood on the suggestion of the front desk guy at our hotel. He told us some fact about how it had just won some sort of most-hipster-y neighborhood title. Apparently, we look pretty frickin' hipster because he assured us we'd love it. And indeed we did. First,we had some spot on fish and chips and brews at a pub-ish place called Ritual Kitchen. Then, we walked the streets and stumbled into a vintage clothing store, where I found two perfect silk dresses. Score. Throughout the whole trip we did most of our travel via Car 2 Go. It's this cool car sharing program where you find a car anywhere near to you with an app, pay by the minute to drive it, and leave it anywhere within the Car 2 Go territory (all of SD pretty much). The best part is you can leave it in any legal street parking spot and not have to plug the meter or pay attention to the time limit. Other pluses: u-turns on a dime, parking in teeny-tiny spaces, and no need to pay for gas since they're electric. They do feel sort of...well, let's just say I nicknamed them "the toaster".

Sunday was our surfing day. We started off with a hearty breakfast at Lucky's Lunch Counter - a place I loved and would highly recommend. They played my favorite kind of old-timey 50's music and had diner-perfect hash browns. Next, we went to a swap meet at the recommendation of the shop girl from the following night's vintage store. For the most part...it was a lot of junk. But right when we were about to call it quits we went down on last row, I found a super cool vintage bowling shirt named Frank. Sure to be featured on a 52 Tuesday post in the near future. Then, it was off to Pacific Beach for our surf lessons! We did it through the San Diego Surf School. The surf instructors were great and we both had an excellent time. There were a ton of people on the water, but most were beginners like us where we were, so it wasn't much of a problem. Kevin and I were even able to ride a few waves together! I pooped out a little early (one hour of our hour and a half session), but Kevin stayed out the whole time and rode a bunch of waves successfully even without the instructor's help. He's hooked for sure! That's him standing up in the last photo.

Sunday night we stayed out late in the Little Italy for drinks and dinner. We both agreed Little Italy was our favorite neighborhood. So charming and so many places to hang out! Kevin ordered his first Negroni - inspired by our recent watching of this Anthony Bourdain show - and I think it's going to become his signature cocktail. We picked our dinner spot based on which restaurant seemed to be the busiest, and the technique payed off. Good food, good wine, good times all around.

Monday we rented a car and drove up to Torrey Pines State Park. The day was overcast and there were (again) tons of people on the beach due to the holiday. Our favorite part was the hike we took down through the bluffs and along the beach. Even though it was overcast it was still gorgeous scenery and a nice walk. While we had the car, we also hit up La Jolla beach. No pictures from there since we didn't end up snorkeling as we had planned. Just way too many people in the small cove area and not enough sunshine to have good water views.

Tuesday we had a late flight out so we had enough time for a few things before heading to the airport. Kevin really wanted to surf again before we left, so we headed to Mission Beach just south of Pacific Beach and he rented gear. I opted to stay on the beach this time and enjoy the sun. After, we both rented beach cruiser bikes and had a blast riding all along the beach. Before the airport, we made a quick stop at Balboa Park for a walk through the the palm canyon and a look at the Prado building.