Nataliya and Seth's La Jolla Vacation

It was the day after Thanksgiving, otherwise known as Black Friday. All the stores compete on this day to get the most shoppers in their stores by offering deals that you wouldn't often find. We went to the Carlsbad Country Outlets to look for such deals. Nataliya bought sweater at Banana Republic at a great price, but besides that, we didn't get anything else to speak of. There was one interesting thing we saw as we walked by one of the mall's restaurants. One family was seated around a table, saying a prayer before eating. However, the chain was broken by one member who held a cell phone to her ear. I stepped away from that table in case a bolt of lightning happened to fly from the heavens in her general direction.

After we had our fill of shopping, we picked up Karina and headed to Old Town. This is supposed to be the oldest town in San Diego and gave us a taste of how Mexican life (for those who were well off) used to live. Inside this area is a restaurant that Karina recommended called Casa de Pico for lunch. It was an excellent choice and the Mexican food was very good! I even cleaned up my plate which I never do at the Mexican place back home (a.k.a Chevy's). Nataliya and I shared a huge margarita while Karina and Jared stuck with water.

After we finished eating lunch, we continued to walk around and stepped into a candy store where they were making homemade taffy, but with old-fashioned taffy making equipment. Most of the handling of taffy was done by hand, and we were getting tired just watching them make the chewy, gooey, sticky junk-food.

From there, we went for a drive to the Seaport Village. Then we made our way for a quick drive through their version of Little Italy that makes ours look like Huge Italy. Heh.

Whereever we went, the ocean was not too far away. It was interesting driving near the ocean and seeing surfers clad in a full neoprene body suit, carrying their surf boards under their arms

We went to the ocean to hang out as the sun went down, first stopping off for a hot beverage at the Living Room Coffeehouse.

Afterwards, Jared prepared us his specialty dish - Tandoori chicken! He found a Tandoori paste called Classic Ashoka Punjab and he used it to make a delicious meal! After dinner and still tired from the jet lag, we fell asleep soon after dinner