**WARNING: This article contains many photos and may potentially cause hunger towards the end**
The summer I have lived these past three months has not been full of road trips, theme parks, out-of-state or out-of-the-country adventures, or even pool parties; but, what my summer has been filled with is a lot of firsts, attempted socializing, plenty of dog loving, and weeknights and weekends with my mom.
Basically, this article is a glorified list.
Beaches
All of my favorites along the Central Coast: I am a NorCal gal who lives in SoCal but loves to visit Central California regularly.
Fitzgerald marine reserve: The beach that is also a forest.
Grey Whale Cove State Beach: Where the only old white male nudist on the beach played frisbee by himself (no, this is not a euphemism for something sexual).
Half Moon Bay: Spent a late afternoon on these cliffs.
Adventures With Mom
California Academy of the Sciences: Upon a Sunday in June, all exhibits were free of charge and somehow every family in the Bay Area knew about it. Moreover, happening to bump into old friends from high school and being in the same park that The Wedding Planner was filmed completed this trip to The City.
The San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge: This was my first time driving over the infamous foggy bridge. Well, I was in the driver’s seat, but mom steered while I took this picture.
Lombard Street: Took the time to spend a couple of hours stuck in traffic with an insane amount of East Indian tourists, terrible Asian drivers that longed to create an accident, and an uncouth American man that peed on someone's wall on Fourth of July weekend in order to drive down this windy road.
Mozzeria: Used Sign Language to order food at this Deaf-owned pizzeria.
Berkeley: Mainly because it is the location of a hole-in-the-wall place with the absolute best pizza to ever touch my lips because the slices are giant, cheap, and gourmet—it doesn’t get better than that, except for this quality, traditional Pakistani henna.
Tea Party: We were both excited because it had been just about eight years or so since the last time. We had seven different pots of tea on this occasion.
Fondue for two: Because neither of us can say no to melted spicy pepper jack cheese to dip bread and vegetables in or dark chocolate to dip strawberries and rice krispies in.
Foot and full body massage: They really focused on the feet (obviously) and the butt which apparently has a lot of tension…it was $20 and they played lullabies for an hour, but we came out of it really relaxed and a bit weirded out.
Last summer I got mom hooked on Doctor Who and this summer she has successfully watched seven seasons and been caught up to the current season. Now she can’t decide if she loves David Tennant or Matt Smith more, so I think this was a successful endeavor.
Chasing sunsets: need I say more?
Interactions With Other People
This deserves attention only because every other summer I avoid human contact like the plague, due to social interactions with people from high school being generally uncomfortable and draining for this introvert. Here are a few instances, aside from going to my church college group and bible study each week.
Backpacking in Tahoe: Surviving in the wilderness with eight other girls in the middle of a flash-flood thunder-and-lightning storm combo. (You can read about our hilarious mishaps here.)
Daily bus rides: a couple of stories came of this.
1) Where a woman enthusiastically hugged me, complimented my appearance, then asked for a cigarette.
2) A middle-aged man hit on me for 20 minutes, informed me that he was a Marine shot in both legs while in Afghanistan, described his ex-wife, that he wanted to make his two kids happy when he saw them on weekends, asked if I worked out (to which I replied, "No, because gyms are boring"), and told me I’m beautiful because I don’t have kids *insert feminist rage* the entire time I attempted to hold on to my childhood while listening to Disney music.
Community college: Taking a summer class in my little town means running into people from junior high and high school who stayed in the area while also meeting people who live only a few minutes away. As a result of the class, I now know how to sign “Two Worlds” by Phil Collins from Tarzan and know several choice cuss words in ASL.
Other times, I attempted to play video-games with friends I haven’t caught up with in years,
learned to shoot rifles with a friend I only have the opportunity to hang out with once a year,
went on a hike with a fellow Biolan,
found a door in the middle of nowhere with a fellow adventurer,
and had a picnic with a rainbow mermaid.
Had several Skype calls because three months feels like forever and a day when not living in the same building as my friends (four of which are also writers for The Odyssey).
Crafting Things From Scratch (mostly food):
Strawberry ice cream,
Egg salad,
Guacamole,
Three-ingredient banana peanut butter Nutella ice cream,
Three-ingredient Nutella brownies with three-ingredient blackberry ice cream,
Three-ingredient banana cinnamon pancakes,
And almond and cashew chocolate chip cookies.
I sewed a headband out of extra material from a dress
and painted for a friend in which the canvas contained a couple of lesbian references from Friends and The Legend of Korra.
Summers usually bore me and feel like wasted time, but this summer passed quickly because it was so full of fun little experiences rather than just Netflix and sleep. Now that this new school year is about to begin, I still can't believe these three months are gone. Just like that, I am in my third year of college.
