philly

I'm a fan of San Diego. We've been staying at Lady's sister's place in the Hillcrest section of SD. I thought SD was going to be completely unwalkable, but we've been walking around a bunch (once we drive to where we're getting that is). Hillcrest is very neighborhoody and walkable. I've noticed that all of the electrical boxes in Hillcrest, and from what I can tell, the rest of SD are adorned with some cool original artwork presumably by local artists like the one above. It reminds me of Philly's Mural Arts Program, but on a smaller scale. I'd love to see something like this in Philly complementing MAP. Some more info on the boxes here.

After a good rest from our crazy journey from LA, we slept in and made our way over to a crazy spot called the Corvette Diner. It's a kitchy spot off of University Ave (the main strip in Hillcrest) with servers dressed up retro and the decor of the space more than matches. After being seated by our hostess with the mostess, we were doused with straws from two passing by servers. I settled on the All American Dip which wasn't the greatest, but it hit the spot. Lady's peppermint smoothie was the highlight of the meal and had several sips. The homemade, homecut fries (fried in fresh veggie oil) came in heaping helpings and took up most of the space on my plate.

We walked around a bit, but it being the Fourth of July, most shops closed up so it was purely window shopping. One of our train mates from the night before suggested we hit up Babette Schwartz. We walked by, but it was closed. How to explain it… it seemed like a local, funkier version of Urban Outfitters without trying too hard as Urban does.

Here's an example of some of the interesting street art I've seen in SD. There's a good deal of stenciling around the city. I haven't had my digital camera at the ready while passing by many of them, but I have taken a few shots. These CENSORED ones really caught my eye, especially this one on a USA Today box.

We headed to Coronado Island to watch the fireworks at night. We thought we had a good spot picked out by the bridge back to SD, but it turned out we were on the wrong side of the island. We quickly hoofed it to the clubhouse and picked out a spot on a bit of an elevated spot by a practice green. We saw some fireworks start off a little ways off, but the ones we came out for didn't start until after 9p. When they started, they were, unfortunately, shooting off on the other side of a gigantic tree. Oh well. We saw the really high and big ones, but missed most of the show. Such is life.

I've added some more shots to the CA 2008 flickr set starting here with this shot of a very cool car we stumbled upon while walking around.

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