Weekend in San Diego

Two of my oldest (as in long time and not age-wise) and dearest friends, Leslie and Jocelyn, are here for a visit. They arrived late Friday night and the next day we drove down to spend the weekend in San Diego. Here are some highlights of our two-day stay.

Here we are Jojo, me, Les, and Joce checking into the Residence Inn Marriott. This is one of my favorite chain hotels to stay in since the service is always good, the place nice and clean, the rates are reasonable and they have several convenient locations.

Here is our suite. When you walk in there is a living room (that can also serve as sleeping space since there is a pull-out couch).

There was a little kitchenette and a dining area. Of course since this was technically a vacation - we did not do any cooking or any dishes! But having a working kitchen was a nice option.

The suite also came with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

We lunched at nearby Santorini Grill which I had read served very good Greek food. Although the restaurant was small, the food was really good. I got the gyros plate which came with the meat, a salad with lots of feta cheese, rice, pita slices and tzatsiki sauce for dipping!

After lunch we dropped Joce and Les at Legoland (someone recommended that they visit the theme park). Since Jojo and I just went to Legoland with my family, we decided to pass and instead met up with Jojo's high school classmate (Toots) who is based in Temecula (about an hour from San Diego). After coffee with Toots, we went back to pick up Les and Joce.

We headed to the Gaslamp District and decided to have dinner at the Gaslamp Strip Club. (FYI - it's a steak place and not an actual strip club!). There was an hour-long wait for a table so we browsed a couple of the shops before dinner.

Gaslamp Strip Club is a concept restaurant where you have to grill your own dinner. We ordered a rib-eye and new york strip which arrived raw. The dinner also comes with a huge bowl of salad and a basket of garlic bread (which you could also toast on the grill).

Les and I working the grill. Turns out grilling your own steak is not as easy as one would think. We had to go back several times to grill our beef because every time we cut it it was still quite bloody!

Here we are after dinner - everyone is feeling pretty full and happy.

The next day after breakfast we headed to Old Town San Diego to board the Trolley Tours which took us around the city as well as nearby Coronado Island.

Waiting for our tour to begin. The tour takes about 2 hours but you have the option to hop on and off the trolley in several of the designated stops. We hopped off once at the Horton Shopping Complex to have lunch. Other than that we pretty much stayed on board the whole time.

Here we are after the trolley tour and just about to head back home to Torrance.