The Narrative of Kurt & Becky

We’ve returned!

So we’ve had quite a weekend. My last post was made from our hotel, before dinner on Saturday (13 Jan) For purposes of storytelling, I will ignore its existence.

So, Saturday (12 Jan) we slept in, packed the car and got on the freeway. We were hungry for lunch so we stopped at Thanh. It is a Vietnamese place my coworkers and I frequent for lunch. I wanted to introduce Becky to phở. So after lunch we took on the 405 to the 5, and on past the Nuclear plant, past the Marine base, and into San Diego County.

We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott Carlsbad, which was very nice… or will be. If you clicked on that last link, you might have noticed the bold print under the picture that states:

Hotel renovation scheduled 11/1/06 to 2/1/07.

To be fair, I noticed the announcement on the website before I called to book the room and the booking agent mentioned it again when I did book the room, but we didn’t know the extent of the “renovations.” Let us use a little picture essay, shall we?

That was the progression of the room right outside of the elevator. As you can see, while we were there, they re-wallpapered, pulled up the old carpet and put in new carpet.

Like I said, when it is done, it’ll be really nice. While were were there, the lobby looked a little underdone.

Back to our adventure. After checking in, Becky and I went for a drive around Carlsbad, it is a really pretty town. We stopped off at the Carlsbad Outlets and did some shopping.

Before dinner we went back to the hotel for a breather. (At this point I authored my previous post)

For dinner, Becky and I adventured to a local microbrewery called Pizza Port: Tasty Grub and Grog. I enjoyed a handmade pizza and a local brew, Becky enjoyed the same pizza and a nice Shiraz. The place was lively, the way a bar is, but it was more family-friendly. The majority of the seating was on long benches (like at Chuck E. Cheese’s,) so it was fun.

After our meal, we did a bit of walking around downtown Carlsbad. It reminded me a bit of downtown Seal Beach, quaint, not as rowdy as downtown Huntington Beach. As we strolled, we stumbled across a little Italian restaurant that looked nice. We stepped forward to look at the posted menu to see if they had any tasty desserts. As we did so, an employee came out to greet us. She told us about the handmade marinara, blah blah blah. At this point we had read the entire menu and saw no desserts. As we were about to move on, Becky asked the advertiser if they made desserts. She said they did, and went on to sing praises of the establishments’ desserts. She mentioned that they have the best tiramisu in the area, and they have handmade cannoli. At that point we took a look at each other and succumbed to her lure. You see, I love cannoli. Becky loves tiramisu. In we went. When the waiter asked us if we would like a glass of wine, we said why not? We both got some port to go with our deserts.

After our wonderful dessert, we came back to home base, relaxed, and purchased Idiocracy on pay-per-view. I’d give it about 3/5 stars. Funny, but not Mike Judge’s best work. After the movie we drifted off to sleep.

Sunday (14 Jan) brought our trip to LEGOLAND California (we didn’t visit LEGOLAND deutschland on this trip.) As many of you know, I am what is known as a AFOL. I’m an Adult Fan Of LEGO. So this trip to LEGOLAND was exciting for me. We had a great time there, but I would like to mention that this amusement park seemed quite geared to the “younger than fifteen” crowd. “Now, Kurt,” you say, “most amusement parks are focused to the younger population, and you are really good looking.” That’s true. But I would argue that an amusement park can be primarily focused on children, but have an appeal to a much wider audience. LEGOLAND is 90% awesome for, say, a 10-year-old boy, and only 30% awesome for, say, me. In comparison, Disneyland is 90% awesome for a child and 90% awesome for me. The key is the overlap. If you can get a large number of attractions that appeal to everyone, you’ve got it made. In the shade. While you wade. I’m awesome.

That said, the 30% that was awesome, was awesome. My favorite part of LEGOLAND is miniland. In miniland, they’ve made 1:20 scales of some major US cities, like Washington DC and New York. In another section they have famous pieces of art made from LEGO bricks. We also were able to test the LEGO MINDSTORMS. MINDSTORMS are LEGO’s programmable robotics. You can add light sensors, bluetooth and cameras. It is really cool. I mean really really cool. Looking for a present for me, anyone?

Another exciting event of the day was the LEGO factory tour. We didn’t actually go to the factory, because that’s in Denmark. But they did show some machines at work making LEGO bricks from molds. I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the factory shop at the end of the tour where that have a goodly amount of LEGO bricks for sale. I was able to purchase the last bricks I needed for my model on the building I work in. I’ll post pictures once I’m finished.

At this point, we have traversed the entire circle of the park twice. Before we left, we wanted to go on the Sky Cruiser. It looked reminiscent of the old Disneyland PeopleMover. You know, high up, see the park, fun times. So after waiting for three quarters of an hour, Becky and I climbed into the two-seater vehicle. The vehicle had petals like a bike. The problem was that it was built for an taller-than-average ten-year-old. Which translated to I-like-to-eat-my-knees. The whole trip was a grand circle tour of the 50 yards around the ride itself. Anticlimactic to say the least.

After LEGOLAND it was back to the hotel for a nap.
After the nap, we went on another leisurely drive around Carlsbad. We drove by a movie theater and stopped by to see what was playing. Nothing was playing at the time, but in an hour we could see Dreamgirls, Children of Men, or Night At the Museum. We left, found a Panera Bakery-Cafe. Enjoyed a sandwich and tea, and we went back to the theater. We ended up seeing Night At The Museum. It was a very enjoyable film. It is nice to see enjoyable movies like that that are rated PG.

Back to the hotel, sleep.

This morning (15 Jan) we slept in, cleaned up, packed up, checked out, drove to In-N-Out. Where we enjoyed a nice lunch.

Instead of just shooting up the freeway home, we got off in San Clemente and drove around. We some some houses on the hill with some really amazing views. We wound our way up the coast, through San Clemente, Dana Point, and into San Juan Capistrano. As we drove, Becky noticed a sign pointing the way to the mission in San Juan Capistrano. I’ve heard of it, I know it’s historic, so we went.

It was really cool. I really enjoy walking around places that have been standing for over 200 years. I like thinking about who has walked here before me. I think it got us ready for our trip to Europe where 200 years old is the “new building.”

Before we got all the way home, we made a stop at the Macy’s near our house so Becky could spend a birthday gift card. After some deliberation, she settled on a very nice mother-of-pearl faced watch. She’s been looking for a nice watch for a while, and now she’s got one!

Since today, even though it is the last day of our vacation, is the actual day of our anniversary, we wanted to go somewhere nice for dinner. Knowing this, we made reservations at the Napa Rose inside the Grand Californian, inside Disney’s California Adventure.

The experience was very enjoyable. We had a 17:30 reservation, and we had arrived at about 17:15. When we arrived, the restaurant was empty, but they told us to have a seat in the lounge and they’ll seat us in about twenty minutes. “Wow,” I thought, “They’re really strict with the reservation timings.” I found out later that the restaurant opens at 17:30. That makes much more sense now. Once we were seated, our server introduced himself as a certified sommelier. So that’s awesome. After we looked over the menu five or six times (it was very intimidating!) I ordered the lamb, and Becky got the trout. Our sommelier recommended a pinor noir to pair with the trout, and a cabernet sauvignon to pair with the lamb. Becky started with a lemon split pea soup, and I had the house salad with raspberry vinaigrette. The lamb was succulent and tasty, and the wine was excellent. For dessert, Becky enjoyed a flourless double chocolate cake, and I had a creme brulée tart (tart shell with creme brulée in the middle) both our plates were garnished with “Happy Anniversary” written in chocolate sauce.

All in all, we had a wonderful time. And I know I look forward to many more anniversary trips to come.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 0:12 and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.