Livin' La Vita Loca

Well, we've been in San Diego for a week now, and we're sure glad to be here! It's such a beautiful place; it kind of feels like we're living a dream. It's nice to be back in the West, although we love Virginia. Here are some highlights of the last few weeks:

Mike (with his brother Jeff for 3 of the days) drove 4 days from Virginia to San Diego so we could have our car and some stuff out here for the summer. Thank you Mike and Jeff! It's such a ridiculously long drive, but Mike hardly complained at all (much, much less than I would have).

Jack and I flew to San Diego (yes, we took the easy way). We were supposed to fly straight from Charlottesville, but when we got to the airport at 5 am, they had cancelled our flight from Cville to D.C. Lame. Luckily, our hometeacher, who had driven us to the airport, was headed up to DC anyway, so he drove us so we didn't have to take the taxi the airline provided. And, we got $500 in United Airline vouchers for our trouble. All in all, not too bad.

The new apartment: It's, er, smallish. The name of the building is "La Vita", hence the horrible pun in the title of this post. We're in downtown San Diego, about 5 blocks from the coast and right on the edge of Little Italy (which we're pretty sure is more of a neighborhood with faux Italian restaurants than an authentic area where "real" Italians live). Anyway, we're on the 17th floor and have a great view of the airport and somewhat of the bay.

Jack and I go running in the mornings along the waterfront, where we zoom past (ok, that's an exaggeration; I can't run fast at all) the Midway (retired aircraft carrier), the Maritime Museum, and whatever Carnival cruise ship happens to be docked. There is also a nice array of homeless men who are very friendly to the girl with the baby jogging past and like to say hi to me.

Mike has a nice little walk to KMOB each morning, which is just a few blocks south of us. He has his own office and has gotten thrown right into work, work, work. Luckily, it's the summer program so it's not crazy big law hours like it will be after he graduates, but I feel bad that he went straight from finals, to driving cross-country, to being a (quite handsome) working stiff. It does seem like this firm has less of an emphasis on happy hours and big social events than our firm did last summer, so that's nice. And Mike says that the people are very friendly. We're just hopeful that the firm will be financially viable enough to give him a job offer. Here's hoping!

Jack is kind of adjusting to Pacific time. He's taking pretty decent naps, but he's still waking up at odd hours in the mornings. No fun. But, since the apartment is so small, we don't have to walk very far to get him from his crib. Way to look on the bright side, right??

Things are more expensive here than in Virginia. Is that possible? We just about had a heart attack at the grocery store the other day. Wowsas. So, I'm on a quest to find cheaper places to shop. Today I'm going to head to this place that looks to be a bit more of a Latino market, but it looks cheaper, and I speak Spanish, so it's worth a shot, right?

Well, enough rambling. Overall, we're doing well, getting settled, and enjoying the beautiful, albeit never-changing, weather. Our couch is a hide-a-bed, and we welcome visitors, so please come see us if you're in this part of the country!!