All I have is a phone interview at 2pm today, and I can’t
wait to have a day off to relax. I already have plans for this sunny day.
Kristen, a dear friend whom I met at UCSD, is engaged and she and her fiancé
Mark both work, so they are gone by the time I wake up. Their place is
awesomely located in walking distance to the beaches of Redondo Beach, a sweet
Southern California coastal community.
Kristen informed me the night before that the beach near her
place has a cement walkway down the coast, and I can’t wait to take my roller
skates out for a spin. It’s been years since I have skated, but this was a
regular activity while living in San Diego for five years. I loved gliding down
the cement walkways jamming out to my Walkman (okay, just kidding- I probably
had a Nokia phone, although I’m not remember at the moment). Today I have my
iPhone and am ready to rock.
Within about 10 minutes of skating I realize I am no longer
my 22 year old self. Skating is a hard workout! I’m huffing and puffing pretty
early in, and it doesn’t help that the weather is a perfect 75 degrees. I can’t
stop smiling though, this feels like an amazing break from planes and medical
centers. I stop to sit on a bench near the Redondo Pier, a bustling touristy
area full of fried food and ice cream. I’m flooded with positive memories of
warm summers (eh, warm all the times) in San Diego, and am also reminded of
Santa Cruz, one of my favorite places in California.
I change back into my tennis shoes and slurge on a seafood
lunch at a place where I have a clear view of the bay and the sourdough bread
is on point. Sourdough bread and blue cheese dressing are two signs of a
quality seafood restaurant in my book. This day really couldn’t get much
better.
I roll my eyes as I huff and puff back for my phone
interview, which luckily only lasts an hour. I take off from there and travel
North to meet some other friends from UCSD for dinner. It takes me nearly 3
hours to travel about, oh, 40 miles in LA. God bless the place. I pull off the
freeway simply to get off the freeway and allow my GPS to recalibrate, and I
randomly catch sunset over some fancy valley in a neighborhood where I’m pretty
positive celebrities live. Sometimes detours are the best parts of drives.
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| Redondo Beach, CA |
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| Pretending to be 22 |
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| Redondo Pier- ate lunch here |
I end up in a diverse ethnic neighborhood full of Asian,
Indian, and Latino cuisine, and have no idea where I’m going. I eventually meet
Kim, who I haven’t seen since graduating nearly 10 years ago (whoa!), and
Melissa, both friends who I was on staff with as an RA at UCSD. We catch up on
life over amazingly authentic (and reasonable!) Thai food and then head to the
Republic of Pie for some dessert. Yes, Republic of Pie truly is as ridiculous
as it sounds. Kim orders the Chocolate Banana Bread Pie which looks more like a
piece of art than pie. It tastes just as good.
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| Chocolate banana bread pie- tasted as good as it looks |
Melissa and I head back to her house in Glendale, where we
stay up chatting until the wee hours of the night. Being around old friends is
good for my soul. I start to think about how important social support is.
People truly do make a place. I also take a minute to appreciate the diverse
array of experiences that LA has offered me over the course of one day. I begin
to wonder if LA is slowly courting me with the charm that exists underneath the
smog and traffic…
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