Single, Catholic and All Grown Up: Days In The Sun

So, Monterey has been amazing. Thank you Athena for your invitation to crash at your place and wander around freely!

A few tips if you plan to travel solo:

1. Bring an iPod to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You can drown out the shrieks of children excited at the sharks, and manta rays, and jellyfish, and their friends, and their feet and the plushies in the gift shop... Dang, children shriek a lot. Bliss out to the jellies listening to Ziggy Marley, cause Love IS My Religion. (Thank you to Athena for that little gem of a tip!)

2. Get out and walk around. It is a gorgeous place full of lovely surprises that you'll only see if you're on foot. Don't just stick to Cannery Row!

3. Catch the sunset at Asilomar State Beach. Stunning. All gold and purple and just what an ocean sunset ought to be.

4. For adventurous types, if you want to score a deal on a place to sleep, my friend Athena rents out bunk beds in her apartment for $75/night. It's a steal when you do price comparisons for anything else at such an awesome location. Five minute walk to the Aquarium and Cannery Row! You can hardly pay park closer!

5. Depending on where you are headed, be mentally prepared for San Francisco-esque hills and get your cardio on.

6. Save money and eat healthier by buying much of your food at the grocery store. There are TONS of excellent restaurants (my favs so far are the somewhat pricey The Fish Hopper www.fishhopper.com which has food you'd renounce your homeland for, and the not pricey at all First Awakenings, www.firstawakenings.net because I'm all about breakfast food!) and the state-required-calorie counts will remind you how fast bowls of clam chowder add up!

Now, some lovely photos... I could not get the videos I took of the jellyfish to upload, so, suffice to say, it was awesome and I'm sorry you're missing it!