Stay Classy, San Diego

My buddy JR is from San Diego and my other friend Doug is from Chicago, so they wanted to head down the coast to check out the opening NFL game between the Chargers and the Bears. I tagged along since I had never been in San Diego, and here is what transpired.

Friday, September 7

After my longest ever BART ride from my work all the way to SFO, I meet up with JR and Doug at the bar near our gate and get the lowdown on all of the people we’ll be meeting up with and on Doug’s NFL and college wagers. Upon landing in San Diego, I switch out of my work clothes in the arrivals area as Dave, one of their friends swings by to pick us up. We were staying with Dave and his girl AC for the duration of the weekend, so we set off for their place first to drop stuff off and have a couple of drinks. We end up meeting a couple other people at their place before heading out for the evening.

I had my first ever San Diego burrito, which is a big point of contention between Northern and Southern CA residents. Both sides claim that their burritos are better, but I think I have to say I enjoyed San Diego’s a bit more. No rice, no beans, no cheese, no sour cream. Just meat, sauce, pico and a little bit of guacamole. The tortilla was becoming translucent near the end from all of the awesome grease. This served as a great base for the evening of booze drinking.

The first place we went to was a sports bar type place called Three Crowns (I think). Decent tap beers and lots of games to play were the calling cards of this joint. You could have your own Bar Olympics here due to the numerous dart boards, pool tables, video games, ping-pong tables and even shuffleboard. I had a good time meeting even more of their friends and getting adjusted to the awesome San Diego weather.

Next bar was Don’s or Lou's or something, I can’t remember for sure. We stumbled into someone’s birthday party being held at the bar, so there were tons of streamers everywhere. It had a townie type of vibe to it, this bar could have been in any numerous Midwest small towns, except it had a killer jukebox that even had Dillinger Four on it. After bullying the jukebox for a bit, I saw someone else at the bar singing along to a D4 song. We got to talking and it turned out he was from MPLS as well and was in the band Scooby Don’t (mid 90’s punk band) which was Billy from D4’s first band. I love meeting random people this way.

At bar close we set off for home and I passed out in an easy chair, beer in hand.

Saturday, September 8

I wake up to find the beer bottle still in my hand after sleeping for 5 or so hours, although the contents had managed to tip out and onto Dave and AC’s carpet. Luckily I had soaked up most of it in my socks. I did my best to clean up my mess and then wandered around the house waiting for the rest of the crew to wake up.

A little after noon we (JR, Doug, AC and I) took off to go to JR’s parents place, as they were going to cook lunch for us. Once there I got to meet some of JR’s brothers and of course his parents. I’ve never had food from the Philippines before, and it was fantastic. We had lupia (think like an egg-roll/taquito type thing), ponset (noodles with meat and seafood), chicken adobo (chicken and pork in a delicious sauce, served over rice), NY strip steak, crab legs, apple pie and ice cream. I was “third plate at Thanksgiving” stuffed after done eating, it was that fantastic.

I fell into a slight food coma after lunch, but we had to go and meet some of Doug’s friends from LA who were also in SD for the weekend. We headed out to Mission Beach, and walked along the waterfront/boardwalk area for a little bit before setting down at a bar near the ocean. It was a gorgeous day out and we had some nice outdoor seating. We stayed there until the sunset, where I got to see a minor version of the “Green Flash”, which is a phenomenon that happens when the sun goes down over the horizon past the ocean. Beautiful.

We scooted back to Dave and AC’s for a bit before heading out for the evening. We ended up at a bar called the Local, which was a nice big bar and we had enough tables for everyone to chill out and set up shop. They had a breathalyzer there, and I totally won the high score (.34 or something). After the bar we stopped at a taco shack, which I peed behind while waiting for my breakfast burrito. After that, it was back to the house where I promptly passed out with a beer in my hand again (thankfully, someone removed it from me this time).

Sunday, September 9

Apparently I had woke some of the other people up due to my nighttime utterances and flatulence, and I apologized profusely, pretty embarrassing. We watched some of the early football games before AC dropped Doug, JR and I off near Qualcomm Stadium so that they could get tickets to the game. After getting some tix off a scalper (who gave us a business card, awesome!), they headed into the game while I wandered off to a nearby Scottish sports bar to catch all of the games. Once the game was over, I headed back to the stadium and met the guys at JR’s sister’s post-game tailgate. Poor Doug was sunburned pretty badly and was looking worse for wear due to his Bears getting stomped.

We were invited back to their friend’s Romey and Brooke’s house right near the stadium after the game, so we took off in that direction. While walking up a hill we saw a cab pull over and a few people start to get out. I say start because one girl in the backseat driver’s side was still getting out when the cab driver peeled out, toppling her backwards. The guys that had just got out of the car started screaming at him and took off in pursuit.

The street the cabbie was going up had a gate at the end, so he had to take a U-turn and come right back past us. The guys were still chasing this speeding cab as it came back towards them. At this point, I was charged up trying to figure out what the heck was going on, so naturally I start chasing the cab while getting my cell phone out to take pictures of the cab. Doug and JR jumped up to go check on the girl, she had gotten up and started dazedly wandering around. The cab got stopped shortly after a stop light when some Good Samaritan pinned him in with their Explorer. The guys chasing the cab caught up to him, only to have the cab driver bolt out of the car, kick off his sandals, and start running away through traffic. I let them go after the driver and took a quick picture of the cab, then ducked into the cab to get the cabbie’s ID and took a picture of that as well.

About 5 minutes, 8 cop cars and 2 police helicopters later, I got the low-down, kind of. It turned out that the people had hopped in the cab and told them they wanted to go to some suburb, but the cabbie didn’t want to take them there. They showed him they had the right amount of money, but he was adamant. They couldn’t do anything else really, so they started to get out of the cab when the driver screeched his tires and started the whole mess. I sent the pictures to the one guy’s cell phone, gave my statement to the officer, and then we continued on to Romey and Brooke’s joint. We had a heck of a story to explain why we were late, that’s for sure.

We had a few beers, some ribs and wings, and then Romey gave us a ride home. I think we all fell asleep before 10. Fun weekend.