Last Days in the USA

   In preparation for my trip to China, I wanted to go ahead and set up my blog with a few items of note for future followers as well as say a few words about San Diego and the good times I've been shown before I ship off on the 26th.
   For the future readers/followers: I want to let you know that I will not be writing novels on this blog.  I want to keep it short and sweet with plenty of pictures to entertain you when my words fail to do so.  I won't be sending out e-mails when there is a new post, however, if you are interested in receiving updates, there is a link on the page where you can enter your e-mail address and receive updates automatically.  This blog is intended for family and friends who wish to keep up with me during my travels and take a peak into life in China as well as see the work I will be doing for at least the next eight months.
   Besides being an informational blog for friends and family, I will try my hand at making you laugh with funny anecdotes or events that I pick up/experience throughout the time I am abroad.  However, if I fail to entertain you, it's like I said, there will be pictures and videos so you can skip the text and go straight for the good stuff.

OK! Now on to the aforementioned good stuff, here is a little bit about my trip to San Diego as of late:

   Right when I arrived, it was so nice to feel the humid air from the Pacific ocean and I instantly pictured myself on the beach with a beer in hand and some beautiful ladies roaming the sands.  My good friend Scott picked me up from the airport and we immediately surged into a very long and eventful day.  Compared to my hometown of Denver, the part of San Diego I have experienced is full of a quite rich and diverse culture without borders or barriers dividing the separate comunites.  The diversity of the people I have met/seen is unfathomable and I have only been here for a few days.  With that being said, it is also amazing to experience such a plethora of foreign restaurants that are quite authentic and represent several different countries and continents throughout the world, especially from the Western Pacific and Central/South American regions.  As soon as I got in, I couldn't wait to get my hands on some authentic Mexican cooking drowned in green chili.  I don't mean to rub it in Dad, but it was delicious!

   Another delightful surprise was the fact that at many small bars in small suburban communities they had in-house breweries as well as a surprisingly great selection of imported beers.  I found more bars in the style of the Falling Rock Tap House of Denver than not.  I even ran into a couple of imported beers on tap that our famed Wilbur's liquor store of Ft. Collins did not even carry!  I immediately dove into a Rodenbach '08 Grand Cru that was out of this world, but for those of you who don't drink these types of beverages, I won't bore you any further with a list.

   Since landing in San Diego I have also gotten to travel to the beach which unfortunately didn't have the best conditions, but I managed to catch a wave on a surf board for 150+ yards.  I tried my hardest to stand up on the board, but I have grown weak from laying on my parents couch these last 3 weeks after securing a job, and thus was unable to lift myself up.

   After some beach time, my good friend Scott (pictured above) and I headed out to catch a Padres game which was quite a bit of fun although I was constantly watching the scoreboard to see how the Rockies were doing against the Marlins (3-1 Rocks, oh ya!).  The Padres have seen better days, but it was still fun to be at the game and see devoted fans still root for their home team regardless of the outcome (Phillies 4-2 in the 11th).

   My experience thus far in San Diego has been great and I am so grateful to my good friends who let me crash at their place and introduced me to even more people with whom I could learn about the culture of the area.  Tomorrow I am headed out for Los Angeles to stay with an old friend, but seeing as how I will arrive several hours before him and I meet up, I will be left to roaming the streets of LA with all of the other vagrants.

   I hope you enjoyed this post and will stop by to check the posts in the future.  If you have questions, comments or feedback, please don't hesitate to send them to me via e-mail at Munkyguitarist@gmail.com.  I will be posting again once I get all settled into China and have some free time to get pictures as well as stories.  Thank you for reading and to all of my friends and family, I miss and love you all so much!  Thank you for the support.

Tony G.