This was a 10 day road trip along California's famous coastal highway in a convertible.
San Francisco - Met up with old Capital One friends, Tsvetan and Jarisara, for lunch, took my cousin Alizeh, a freshman at UC Berkeley, to dinner, and did some tourist stuff again.
Carmel - I love the vibe of this town, relaxed and happy, a great place for the low-key kind of Dolce Vita.
Hearst Castle - This may be the coolest building I've seen in the US. The beauty and opulence of this mega-mansion is something to behold and crown jewel for m was the pool, maybe the most iconic in the world.
Pismo Beach - Just a stopover, nothing special, although it was close to Pebble Beach, which was cool to see.
Los Angeles - LA is a fairly known quantity so not much to say. At Colleen's behest, we took a TMZ bus tour, which was the corny guilty-pleasure type fun you'd expect it to be. I also rode a mechanical bull for the first time and did miserably.
San Diego - Nice city by the bay. Highlight here was a shore dive into the kelp forest off La Jolla. It was my first cold water dive so I was wearing a 7-9mm wetsuit with hood, gloves and shoes. The hood confused a playful seal (photo below) who initally though I was a giant awkward seal, but even after he figured out we weren't seals, he still hung out with with us for several minutes. But the oddest thing was being 40-50 feet under water and seeing birds swimming by you like rockets. Cormorants seem remarkably at home under water for a flying species, and the amazing thing is some Cormorants can dive to three times that depth!
