So what did you do over the weekend? Perhaps you, like millions of others, did some Christmas shopping? What did “I” (and family) do you might ask? Well, surely not Christmas shop. We did what the French do best - just ignored it and did something fun (minus the cigarettes). We went to San Diego. There sure is nothing like 78-degree, cloudless, sunny weather that gets you into the “Christmas Spirit” (I even had Hot Chocolate with marshmallows- you can’t get more “Christmas” than that!) Although I can’t honestly say the weather was that good all the time; it did get down to 50-degrees at night (Brrrrr! – practically snow weather.)We haven’t been down to San Diego in about 4 years, and we heard about this event they have called “Christmas at the Prado” (which was renamed “December Nights”) up at their Balboa Park area. We had a good time, Balboa Park is an absolutely amazing place – it looks like a piece of Spain landed in the area. Ornate Moorish/Spanish Renaissance architecture with towers, manicured gardens, great city views, and enough museums to make any 16-month old scream from boredom. Add Christmas lights and about 4 million people there that night (well, not 4, maybe ‘3.4’) and you have quite a bash.
The best part was walking past the (lonely) Atheist Coalition booth that had a bunch of creeping looking, sour-faced hippies working it and then about 100 feet up the way was some crazy over-the-top Jesus freaks wearing t-shirts and holding signs like “Repent!” When I passed the dude with the sign, I told him that he should talk to the dudes down at the booth - they needed Jesus (I would have liked to have seen that conversation...)
One thing I really like about San Diego which is much different than L.A. -- the people -- they're much friendly there. Total strangers will just chat with you as if they’ve known you for a while. You don’t get that in L.A. unless you know them somehow (or you just had a fender-bender or sell crack).
Or it could be the fact that if you have a kid (or a dog) people deem you as “approachable”.
What about all of you? Does having a young kid (or dog) make it easier for strangers to talk with you?