Finally, a time to sit down and write my thoughts. Well, lets start with FRIDAY, when i totally skipped Urban planning and Specs and my wonderful shift at the architecture cafe and hopped on the plane at 6:30 am in the morning. I got to San Diego at 11:25 am PST to be greeted by sunshine and palm trees. It's definitely a far cry from what Montreal has been for the past few months. Of course, as many of you know, I have a lot of stereotypes and biases of Americans that I find more reinforced everytime I come to the wonderful U S of A. Sitting next to me on my flight from Pittsburgh to San Diego were two rednecks who were discussing the latest stag hunting technology. "Oh man, look at this XT 3003 Effortless Crossbow... It's pretty nice except for the fact that its grip seems to be too small for me... Oh check out the antlers on this... you see this and this how it curves up... oooo look at the symmetry on that..." Meanwhile, I just snicker and in hopes that they didn't hear me or else they would have probably made me their next hunting target. The irony of the situation was that I was deeply engrossed in my book "fast food nation" by Eric Scholloser, a look at the dark side of the fast food industry that has monopolized the North American way of life and in turn, monopolized the way the world looks at food and other social issues.

TANGENT. ok back to arriving in California. Well, i discovered that my bag was selected and I didn't know that one wasn't supposed to lock the baggage. Hence, I realized my lock had been broken off and I somewhat felt violated that someone had gone through the trouble of looking through my giordano t-shirts and joe boxers. Despite that happening, I was greeted by my buddy Cindy who so graciously picked me up ditching her work that day to hang out with me despite her being fatigued. We dropped off my stuff and got her roomate Pam who was sitting at home and went to La Jolla cliffs (pronounced LAHOYA not la JoLL-Ah) and later discovered that I could have gone to the Salk Institute (By Louis KAhn for you architecturally inclined friends ... ahem... Latimer) on a sunny day but in the end i only ended up goin on Sunday to discover that it was locked. :(

So I'm thinking, I could live in California.

Did I mention that I was wandering the downtown of LA by myself (well the CBD to be exact- thats the Central Business District for those of you who didn't know that is actually a term) for about 5 hours until my buddy Pete came to get me ... that guy is awesome... he drove 3 hours to come hang out for a few hours :*) Thanks Pete for the tour of Santa Monica and the good Korean food.
But during those 5 hours, I got to see some architectural gems that I discovered by accident including Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady Peace. I spent a good hour inside just admiring the architecture and also noticed another guy was inside who was also taking sketches and looked like a well distinguished architect. I wonder if he was someone famous except i didn't talk to him because by the time i wanted to, he already got up and left. So maybe I could have gotten a good job this summer. Not.

Anyway, I think we're supposed to go to Mexico today. Another friend Bonnie (from my missions team as well... Note:oh yeah, cindy and pete were all on my missions team together; Cindy and Bonnie were on my team and were my cantonese speaking friends who kept me sane during those strenuous times in Guatemala. hahahhaa.) also came in last night for some conference.

Anyway, two more days in Cali and off to Boston to see Jas get married. YES! I have a huge list of cheesey music for the wedding!! mu hahahahaha.
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