I spent the weekend with Andy and his parents at Oceanside :) It was brilliant. They had an apartment called the 'Blue Whale House' which was by the beach. The first night, we went out for dinner and finally found a small pizza place. It was rather funny. When we passed the shop, it was completely empty and the guy inside watched us, in a desperate kind of way, and clearly was really wanting us to come in. He sat up when we paused outside the shop like a meerkat. We decided to go in just to make his day and he very nicely advised not to get two pizzas but one big one because it would definitely be enough! Lovely chap for a business that clearly wasn't that successful. I managed to not draw attention to my messy eating (Andy noticed) and with my knife and fork manage to cut through my paper plate (clearly a bit violent).
We walked back to the apartment and had drinks in the living room, chatting and laughing. It was really fun and the initial nervousness I had of meeting Andy's parents faded pretty quickly. Andy told his story about travelling from San Francisco to San Diego the previous weekend and how the bus driver seemed to continually yell at random people "GET OF BUS NOW!" It became an ongoing joke for the weekend like "GET OUT BED NOW!".
The next day we went to the Museum of the History of Music where we played with the instruments and had a really good and interesting time. Andy was very tempted to get a Mandolin but decided it wasn't really the type of thing he liked to play. His ukulele got restrung though and consequently, he was playing that throughout the car journeys between places. We went to a mission next, it was beautiful and it was interesting walking around it. There were sprinklings outside and and Andy grabbed me and started pushing me towards them. I was so scared I was going to get soaked. I couldn't stop laughing though. Then we drove back to the apartment and had a barbecue on the beach. It was so much fun. Andy's dad, David, had been mentioning a barbecue all day so Lynne, Andy's Mum, and I pretended it was spontaneous idea of ours to have a barbecue. It was so lovely. The sun was setting and it was Andy's parents anniversary so it was a really special occasion. I finally got up the courage to hadn over the wine I had brought them in my bag (I was scared they might not like it) and so we opened it up and celebrated. Andy was in his penguin onesie as it was pretty cold. His parents cottoned on pretty soon to the fact I say 'sorry' all the time so they were teasing me continually and then they made me make a decision to walk to the end of the pier or not. I finally said that we should after all the Haslams were staring at me and then they pretended like I had made the worst decision ever. I couldn't stop laughing. "Well if we have to. Lissy you are so demanding, first the barbecue and now this walk."
We walked to end of the pier - Andy still an penguined up - and we had milkshakes at a proper 60s diner. It was so old fashioned it was great! We walked back (with Andy;s parents taking continual pictures of us from behind) and it was really lovely. Andy and I then decided to go and play ukulele on the beach. It was really quiet and the sea sounded so nice so that was a lot of fun.
The next day, sadly my last day with the Haslams, we went to a reinactment of a battle which took place in San Diego. It was really fun. We saw a cannon being lit, heard lots about the history of the place, saw snakes slithering across our path, and tried new foods. There was this classic drink that Andy;s parents bought for Andy and I to share but to me it tasted kind of like cough medicine. Andy was loving the fact he knew I didn't like it but wouldn't say that directly "Go on, have a bit more". It made him laugh a lot. We then went to La Jolla Coves to see the seals and have a very late dinner which was really yummy.
It was a lovely weekend and I really enjoyed it. I am a very happy bee :D
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