Weekends in Pacific Beach

I think we are finally starting to learn to enjoy living in this neighbourhood. For the price we pay (not that there are any cheap neighbourhoods in and around San Diego either) I think we might as well make more of it than just using it as a place to sleep between our trips to campus.

We have now added to our Saturday morning routine a little bike ride to the farmer's market. The market's really nothing special, to be honest. It's a few scattered stands at best and the selection consists mostly of avocados, citrus fruits, tomatoes and some flowers and plants. It's got nothing to do with the colours, the smells, the atmosphere and the abundance of an ordinary local Paris neighbourhood market. It's mostly expensive and the vegetables/fruits are occasionally a bit tired, but I guess we go there under the illusion that we are buying from the farmer, not a corporation, and that we might come upon something fresh. But for us this is also, and not least, a good motivation for actually getting out of bed before noon ...!

It probably takes a few times to figure out where the good stuff is to be found. We have had some really watery strawberries at the market already, and avocados that were so tasteless they weren't even fit for guacamole (or maybe in particular not fit for ...) But, we now have an egg-woman we like to go to, who recycles our eggboxes too, an avocado woman who gives you exactly the ripeness of fruit you ask for (and more than seldom gives you a big discount too because of whatever ...), and there's a guy that sells fresh orange and tangelos juice. And we got great basil and tomato plants there too. And, like I said, it's the bike ride. Besides, not everyone in America has a weekly farmer's market in the neighbourhood, so it's sort of a privilege ...

I try to remind myself every day that we now live only a few steps from fabulous Sail Bay in Mission Bay, and that if I want to smell the sea I only need to walk around the corner. Another way is to do a jog along the bay down to the beach. This is now part of our routine, as much as I abhor running in general. It probably takes about ten minutes to run along the bay until the isthmus where we can cut across to the ocean beach, and ten minutes is probably as long as I can run in one stretch. So, we run down to the sea, I catch my breath while C runs five minutes further down the boardwalk and back, then we run together to our house along the bay again. All in all a thirty minute workout. I do hate running, but I might come to enjoy this eventually!