Labor Day Weekend

I wasn't really thinking much about Labor Day Weekend (I mean, when you're unemployed, every day is Labor Day! ...ironically) but oh man, what a great time I had closing out summer. On Friday, Kathleen and I were out and about getting sushi and (my) eyebrows did before I went to Redlands for an interview and then got to spend the evening with some old friends and their kids up in Woodcrest of Riverside. Each of them has 2 kids and boy howdy was that fun to watch them break up fights every 2 seconds, discipline, then feed, get ready for bed, keep putting them down, etc etc! We had fun after the kids were down though, which even included an incident with a cat, a fox, chickens and a shotgun! I love all the space up in the hills.

On Saturday I was up early to take care of some stuff, and even had time to ride my bike to the store and around the neighborhood before getting ready and meeting my cousin Brianna and her friend Jen in Orange County to go to the street fair for the City of Orange. It was so fun! They grew up there and had friends around, but we had a good time the three of us.

My aunt found us on OCWeekly.com from the street fair!

The best present ever came from my aunt. Brianna and Jen just graduated nursing school and have been job hunting for months barely so much as like one interview each. Then there's me who's working an unpaid internship and interviewing without hope of a job, and none of us had plans for the weekend, so my aunt generously booked a hotel room for us in San Diego so we could escape for a night and re-energize! It was sooooo nice, and so appreciated, and definitely hit the spot! So Brianna, Jen and I drove down to San Diego and checked into the Andaz Hotel in Gaslamp. I have to say that after living there, it's so weird to check in to a hotel just like two blocks away, but I felt so fancy! That place was nice and we even got free valet and tons of complimentary items from the room.

The hotel was hosting a pool party at their rooftop pool and we got to go for free so we dropped our stuff, got ready and got to the pool. It was so much fun! The DJ was great, it was hot and everyone was so friendly! It felt like a Coachella footnote. We also met a bunch of British guys who were fun, and I could have sworn one of these guys working the event was Harry from Mad Men (who is one of the best characters) at least when he had his glasses on, but I still referred to him as the Mad Man and told him that he reminded me of that guy and assured him it was a compliment.

This was one of the British guys. I wish I could remember the joke he told. I usually couldn't understand him and would ask "Was that English?" and he had some smartalec remark for me

The Mad Man! Obviously not Don Draper lololol

The pool party ended around 6 (so sad!) so we went to my all-time favorite place in San Diego called Bar Basic, which is a pizzeria and a bar. We ate there before going back to the room to get ready for the evening. Oh man did we do Gaslamp right. Fluxx nightclub, Sevilla, barleymash, some other places along 5th Avenue, pedicabs to Side Bar and Bang Bang, all the while meeting quite the cast of characters.

We walked back to our hotel after everything closed around 2am, and Brianna and I were standing outside the hotel talking when we met some Armenian guys who were there celebrating a bachelor party and had the penthouse suite in our hotel, and we accepted their invitation up. It was an entire party of Armenians, and they played their traditional music and danced for us and entertained us with all things Armenian. I guess I should put Armenian Bachelor Party on the bucket list so that I can cross it off now.

At Fluxx (which didn't exist when I was there... at least not under that name)

We loved to tell people we were cousins and they would go crazy, then say we look nothing alike. I would tell them that Brianna was the Latina one and they always said "Oh. I would think it would be the other way around." I guess you just can't go off looks!

Yep! That's an Uncle Carl in my hand!

That looks like a Classic Me face, probably offended about something haha

I feel like I look incredibly mischievous in this picture, which is just as well because I sure felt like that that night, I was up to no good!

Brianna said it was okay to do this because it was Selfie Sunday!

On Monday we were a little slow moving and getting out, but we made it to a brunch on 5th Avenue and met up with some friends of Jen's, and then even saw our group of Englishmen walking! Then we went to lounge at the Hard Rock's roof before walking around Gaslamp and ice cream from Ghiradelli.

Lyrics at the bar on the roof of the Hard Rock:
Made up my mind to make a new start
Going to California with an aching in my heart
Someone told me there's a girl out there
With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair

Brianna said it was okay to do this because it was Selfie Monday!

Hard Rock roof. We collapsed on the couches and barely moved at all

We left in the early evening and stopped off in San Clemente for tacos from a little stand that Jen knew (deeeeeeelish) and I got home just completely done. I am still exhausted today but well worth it!