Why San Diego is California’s Happiest Place to Be
Shaping Cultural Experiences
Travel has been an integral part of my life since I was a young child. I grew up in a multicultural, bilingual home in the Netherlands with a Polish mother and a Dutch father. My
Update & BBC News Link
A brief update: One interview video will be uploaded tomorrow evening. I believe the BBC News One-Minute World News provides well-balanced reporting of news, hence why I wanted to share it. Top stories on May
From Nigeria to Boston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VNkCazT_T4&feature=youtu.be
When you first meet Oluwagbeminiyi Osidipe, you encounter a very vibrant, friendly, and unique personality. Oluwagbeminiyi or Niyi – as she shortened her name for simplicity – was named by her mother, who had a “very personal experience” when she had her, Niyi explained. Niyi is a Yoruba Nigerian transplant who arrived in the U.S. in 2006. As one of the most densely populated (West) African countries, Nigeria derives its name from the river that spans its land. To the South, it borders the Gulf of Guinea to the Atlantic Ocean. Originally colonized by the British, Nigeria gained independence in 1960. Its main ethnic groups are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, who speak English and their own respective languages, while major religions include Islam, Christianity and indigenous beliefs. Niyi shares her story, her views on politics, cultural differences she’s embraced with humor, and what we can learn from each other by expressing curiosity. Her message is simple: travel enriches us through its exposure to new cultures, and enables us to grow.
Mark Twain on Travel
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” (American author Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad).
Have you had the opportunity to travel (extensively, within your country, or even once abroad)? Can you relate to Twain’s sentiments? How does travel enrich us?
Pleasing The Taste Palate
Food has the wonderful quality of uniting us no matter where we are. There is nothing partisan or narrow-minded about food. It simply invites us to indulge, create recipes, and share with others. Two of my favorite Polish dishes (included in collage) are pierogies and barszcz czerwony – a beetroot soup – served on Christmas Eve in Poland. How does food bring us together? What are some of your favorite dishes and why? Can food trigger memories?
Stereotypes: Truth or Fiction?
DEFINING STEREOTYPES: “An idea or statement about all of the members of a group or all the instances of a situation.” (Merriam-Webster). Stereotypes enable bias and preconceived notions to perpetuate, but can also reveal valid
Annual Human Rights Report
“The world changed immeasurably over the course of 2011. Across the Middle East, North Africa, and far beyond, citizens stood up to demand respect for human dignity, more promising economic opportunities, greater political liberties, and
Euro Crisis & Emerging Stereotypes
Brief Crisis Breakdown Since the onset of the global financial crisis, or Great Recession, in 2007, the Eurozone has feared impending growing global debt levels, as well as sovereign debt within European countries themselves. In
Remembering Tiananmen
Today marks the 23rd anniversary of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, China. Inflation, a lack of career prospects, the fall of Eastern European communism, and political corruption, are all said to have fueled anger
Coffee's Uniting Power
A cup of coffee can bridge cultural gaps. At least, that’s what Gizem Salgicil White, founder of Turkayfe.org, believes. Her organization aims to create awareness of Turkish culture, particularly within America. Gizem is a Turkish native,
By Kevin Wilkerson, Culture With Travel California Correspondent
Disneyland may call itself “The Happiest Place On Earth,” but San Diego is the happiest place in California.
And what’s not to be happy about in San Diego? The sun is out everyday, the temperature always seems to be 70 degrees (and there’s no humidity or bugs) and the people might be the friendliest in all the USA. At the very least, they smile more than people in any other city in the USA.
Why would they not be smiling? They live in San Diego, a place that has it all, so much so that is seems as if it’s unfair to all the other cities.
San Diego has the Gaslamp Quarter, a clean and modern almost European-style downtown area with restaurants featuring outside café seating, bars and did I mention bars? More on that in a minute.
It also has a harbor, San Diego Bay. The centerpiece of this is the massive USS Midway aircraft carrier. There’s also a gleaming downtown baseball park where people can sit on the grass beyond the outfield fence and have a picnic.
San Diego also has beaches, miles and miles of them, each with a distinctive character culture. Ocean Beach is where the 60s hippies reside, Mission Beach has a small but lively rollercoaster and is where the tourists go, Pacific Beach is where the locals party and La Jolla is where waves crash into giant cliffs. La Jolla is only about three miles from Pacific Beach but with that sudden change in scenery it seems like you’ve traveled to another country.
Behind it all is Mission Bay, a network of waterway playgrounds that can make you forget about any responsibility you might have in this world.
A little further up the coast there’s Del Mar, home of the Del Mar Race Track, once the summertime hangout of Jimmy Durante, Marlyn Monroe and other movie stars, and which boasts the nickname of “where the turf meets the surf.” This same area has Torrey Pines, home to the annual PGA Tour event with holes above cliffs the size of small mountains.
Heck, San Diego even has an island. Coronado. It’s where the famous Hotel del Coronado sits right on the beach with its derby-ish architecture (the waiting list to hold a wedding there is so long I’m certain people book it while they are still single hoping to find someone to marry by the time it becomes available).
Okay, now back to those bars in the Gaslamp. This is – without a doubt – the best nightlife in the state of California. From the dive in Top Gun bar to the “Alice In Wonderland” Vin de Syrah in which you enter through a secret door covered in ivy, to Irish bars with great live bands, to packed sports bars that become nightclubs to restaurant/cafes that transform into techno-thumping mini-clubs like something in the Greek Isles, it has everything you need within a six-block radius.
Not only that, but there’s more than meets the eye, for you may see an innocent-looking drinking bar on the ground level but go down the steps and there’s a pumping nightclub in the basement.
With all this, a few days in San Diego will leave your head spinning because you won’t know what hit you, like the wall of a huge wave. While you’re there, you’re too busy enjoying it to think about it. It’s only once you return home when things start to settle down that you’ll say “good grief, San Diego is one awesome place!”
Kevin Wilkerson lived briefly – too briefly – in the Gaslamp. He now resides in another pretty good Southern California town, Hermosa Beach, where he publishes the travel and nightlife website PubClub.com and posts blogs about beach lifestyle on SurfsideSam.com.
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