Location: San Diego, California, USA

A few weeks ago, I had my niece Ayla help me colour a bunch of 8×11 drawings I made that would end up being the accompanying visuals to a very important presentation I planned to give that night. Ok, so. Picture this: it’s D&D night at my buddy’s house. The only real plan is to drink tea, eat way too many snacks, and fight some pretend monsters. Except tonight I show up and give a haphazard, slightly manic, 20 minute speech about why you should join me on a whirlwind trip to San Diego in a couple of weeks, all while slapping drawings onto the wall that look like they were coloured by a 6 year old. Because they were.

Is she frantically building a conspiracy board?? What is happening here?

It was a long shot to have people join me on such short notice. I know, I know! Much to my travel bug’s horror, it turns out some of my friends have lives they can’t just drop on a whim.

Woe! Woe is me!

ADVENTURE WAITS FOR NO ONE THOUGH so Garrett and I decided to go anyway! And here we are! Steps to getting to San Diego are as follows:

• Kiss the dog on the head.
• Get out of bed at an absolutely ass o’clock time (Happy Birthday Garrett, it’s 2AM!)
• Catch 3 flights.
• Arrive!

Easy peasy. My first adventure of the year and I am reminded how much I love travelling because I feel alive just getting on the plane. I booked us a private room right in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter, which was historically a firelight lined neighbourhood for brothels and gambling dens back in ye olden days. Now nightclubs, galleries, restaurants and music halls fill the Victorian buildings. Every cobblestone block we walked had some mix of bass heavy club music, jazz, and Latino hip-hop and pop. Palm trees swayed in the warm breeze coming off the ocean. Young partiers filled the walking streets edge to edge, hopping from one place to the next. I didn’t realize Tijuana was so close that you can literally walk there, but the sheer abundance of Mexican food and cantinas should have been a good hint!

The woman who checked us into our hostel recommended we walk up the block to Tacos El Gordo, which she said roughly translated to ‘Fat Tacos’. You know what? Yep. Fat tacos sounds perfect. Despite having been up for 20 hours we ventured out into the Friday night bustle.

We walked up to the smoky little corner taco shop that had what we were told is an omnipresent lineup (usually a sign of delicious food!) Employees were shouting out orders and basically throwing tacos onto cafeteria trays. Each worker seemed to be responsible for one single ingredient and had to keep making as much of it as possible as fast as possible. “Left lineup for beef, right lineup for pork. Go go! Keep moving! Here’s your tac… DON’T DROP THE TRAY.” I’d heard that Asada fries were a big deal here too so we ordered up a couple little tacos and the fries and well well. Let me tell you. If it wasn’t 10:30 at night I’d have definitely gone back for seconds. Seasoned steak, pico de gallo, avocado crema and cheese on fries. How could you say no to that!?

The place doesn’t close till 4 AM apparently. What kind of taco place is open at 4 AM?! The good kind I guess.

It’s Garrett’s birthday and we absolutely couldn’t end the day without some kind of dessert. I didn’t have a candle but sitting on the floor in our hostel singing happy birthday over a plastic container of carrot cake was the perfect way to end the day.

Can’t wait to adventure out into the city tomorrow but for now I’m going to get some sle…. Zzzzzz

Sav