The beauty of working on a few freelance projects from home right now is that we have the flexibility to take a morning walk, get some Vitamin D and try a new cafe before getting back to work/job-hunting. My friend recommended Cafe Bassam in Banker’s Hill for its kitschy, flea market-style decor and huge selection of loose-leaf teas. If there’s anything that’s occupied my daydreams as of late, it’s strange knick-knacks and flea markets, so I fit right into this weird, beautiful place. And in case you’re wondering, yes, owner Bassam has been known to sell some of the pieces in his cafe to customers.
Yesterday morning, we shared a latte and almond-raisin-cranberry scone at Bassam. Both were a nice morning treat, but I’m still on the hunt for my Gimme Coffee replacement. (I miss it so!) But I did fall for the warm, Euro vibe and would love to come back with a book and cup of tea. No wifi here, folks, but in my opinion, that’s a wonderful thing.
I’d be lying if I said moving to a new place is easy. Of course, I knew we’d have to build an apartment from scratch (so to speak), find jobs, make all new friends and get to know the city, but I guess I hadn’t really understood what that would feel like. And now I know, it feels like anxiety.
I have a lot on my mind (see above) and lost a few hours of the weekend dwelling on all of it, but then, being the list-oriented girl that I am — you say Type A, I say just fine — I jotted down, bookmarked and made mental notes of the things I’d like to see myself doing, seeing and eating as I get adjusted to this new place. Look forward, not back, right? Right. Think about fun stuff, not a lack of income, right? Right!
Here’s to some positive thinking.
1. Road trips to Palm Springs, Santa Barbara and oodles more. Part of the reason we decided on San Diego was because it was so close to so many places we’ve always wanted to visit. Beyond the usual suspects like San Francisco and Santa Barbara, I’m itching to take a slow road trip, where we stop at every small beach town along the coast. A lot of locals have already bemoaned the commercialization of many quaint beach villages, which is all the more reason this road trip should be at the top of our list. Also at the top? A stay at the Saguaro (below), a color-crazy hotel in Palm Springs.
It’s been a week since we walked into our one bedroom apartment in the cute, lively neighborhood of Hillcrest, which is also San Diego’s gay ‘hood, which means it has the best restaurants and shops — or so we’ve been told. There are so many places for us to check out, but I think we can all agree that the most important asset to this neighborhood is Trader Joe’s just a few minutes’ drive away. I’ll never understand why they gave such a popular grocery store such a miniscule parking lot, but I digress.
What I love about our apartment isn’t just its uber-close proximity to Balboa Park (which we can walk to!); it’s how much sunlight we get, how big our closets are, how we have a dishwasher, tons of storage space and even a little balcony that can fit a small table and two chairs. Toto, I don’t think we’re in Manhattan anymore.
In my post-college NYC days, I never invested the time or energy to find interesting furniture or buy anything nicer than Kmart plastic plates. It felt expensive and pointless since I knew I wouldn’t live there forever. But now that we see a bit more permanence in San Diego and are totally, completely happy with our apartment, we’re so ready to create a home, one that reflects our personalities and travels with a unique look. This has meant opting mostly for flea markets and vintage shops and refurbishing/repainting the pieces. Wildly enough, on last Saturday’s trip to Kobey’s Swap Meet, San Diego’s gigantic flea market, we walked away with a dining table, coffee table, three chairs, an ottoman and mirror. This Sunday, we’re heading to the famous, every-third-Sunday Long Beach flea market for more goodies hopefully.
It’s…interesting to reconcile male taste with female taste (blergh), but the upside is we both have a lot of ideas. And over the holidays, I became a Pinterest-pinning, Apartment Therapy-reading, Design Sponge-browsing maniac. Below is a glimpse of our empty apartment and further down, some home decor inspiration c/o my crazy Internet addiction. Oh, and we’re welcome to suggestions if you have any! (I wish we could paint the walls, but sadly we’re not allowed to.) In a few months, I’ll share with you the end results of our design mission.
Back in 2009 I started a food blog. Then from 2011 to 2012, I traveled to 13 countries and documented life abroad on a travel blog. Now here I am with a new blog that combines a little of the food blog with a little of the travel blog with a wordplay on Claire Danes’ other show in one place to share with you what it’s like for me and Eaman (my boyfriend of 7 years) to move to San Diego with virtually no safety net. No jobs lined up, no huge network of family or friends and basically no familiarity with Southern California. I mean, we even sent a deposit for an apartment and just sort of crossed our fingers it wasn’t a scam. (It worked out.) We love a good adventure, can you tell?
We drove nearly 3,000 miles from New Jersey (where I’m from) to San Diego.
We came to San Diego in 2010 during a short weekend trip from New York City, and it was love at first sight. The idea of coming back here more permanently was always on the back burner, so after we got back from our travels — when we realized the idea of becoming lifelong backpackers didn’t really suit our personalities or hygiene requirements — there wasn’t really anywhere else we wanted to live. We figured we would just fit our careers into our lives instead of the other way around.
And moving here on a whim is, in a way, a lovely extension of our backpacking trip. What better way to get to know our new home than to use everything we learned from our travels? Walk the streets (or drive on the freeways, I guess), talk to locals, eat at hole-in-the-wall spots and constantly push ourselves to look for new and unique things. So that’s my goal for this blog: a guide to food, outdoors, style and culture not just in San Diego, but in Southern California as a whole, and a peek at how we ourselves are fitting into a completely new place.
I’ll be posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so…see you Friday!
