I was just in California for the last week, flew out for my cousin's wedding. Scandalously, we were the only family on his side to attend besides my cousin's parents and an aunt and uncle. It was expensive, that was likely a factor, and there's some family drama involved I try not to pay much attention to. Still, it seemed rather one sided.

California was absolutely beautiful. I was expecting homeless encampments, junkies passed out on the streets, and more brown people than a Bolivian village.

It was not any of those things. La Jolla in San Diego was a paradise. Perfect weather, bikini babes, men sculpted like Adonis playing beach volleyball. Uncrowded. And it was all very, very white.

I went to a local marijuana dispensary, my first time, but I didn't buy any bud. The prices were crazy stupid and there was a 30% tax on top. I only saw small amounts too, grams and eighths, priced at ~$20 gram straight up.

Everything was expensive. $8 for a pint of cheap beer, $20 entrees whether it was a simple burger or fancy pancakes at The Cottage. The latter was absolutely delicious. Our waiter did get right in my face with a creepy smile. I'm not sure if he was coming onto me or thought my bloodshot eyes meant I was baked out of my mind instead of simply being a casualty of an awful bed.

One of the first stops was at Costco to stock up on snacks for the air bnb. We ended up buying way too much. We even flew back with two giant boxes of Lucky Charms that we never opened, they were a great deal. The 30 pack of high abv beer I had no problem using up, and unfortunately it was the only alcohol besides liquor we stocked the entire trip. I don't know the alcohol buying rules in Cali. Gas stations did not carry six packs as I expected. Costco had liquor which was unusual to me. Every breakfast place sold booze but not at reasonable rates. The last couple days was crazy trying to eat everything up before it got tossed, not just the groceries but the leftovers from eating out.

The house was beautiful, a 3 story 3 million dollar villa with terra cotta tiles, a court yard, a rooftop patio and two propane fireplaces that turned on with a switch. Filled with garbage furniture. The couch was sunken, the beds uncomfortable, and the chairs rickety. Our bed in particular was tortuous to sleep in. For some reason a couple days before the flight I had a vision and I was filled with certainty we would not have a room to sleep in ourselves, but a couch. And indeed, we were relegated to the pull out couch at the top of the stairs with no door. We did what little we could to make it more comfortable, using some of the bedding as padding to sleep on top of, but it was still horrible. In hind sight I should have slept on the patio. I did enjoy a nap out there and while not exactly comfortable, it was leaps and bounds above a pull out couch that had a bar jabbing me in the back and moving like a water bed with every toss and turn.

I had never met my Uncle's sister before, her and her husband were a total trip. I wish we had met them earlier, we could have been partying for years. There weren't really any others of our generation, just older like my parents and younger like the bridegroom's crowd.

The random people in Cali general weren't very friendly. I am particularly reminded of this as my neighbor walked by just smiled & waved for no reason. Cali peeps don't tend to smile & wave and sometimes just ignore a hello or attempts at conversation. The costco cashiers were downright uppity.

We had four smokers in our group, felt like we were almost the only smokers in Cali. It was weird. There's plenty of places you can't smoke, but even when you could few did. There wasn't even much marijuana smoke, only smelt it a few times. It might be too expensive for people to afford weed or cigs. The place we were staying in had a $10k fee for smoking indoors 💀

The wedding itself was on the beach, I posted a pic of the background on s/pics. Short & sweet. Airplane bottles of fireball and apparently rum were passed out. I didn't get one :/. My cousin is a bit of a "bro," and his entire wedding party were stereotypical bros. They could have all been from a frat house. Not really my scene but they seemed like nice kids. We knew pretty much nobody.

We only briefly spoke to my cousin, and even less to his bride. Her just a word at the wedding and again at yoga when we were confused trying to find the group. We had the time wrong and didn't see anyone so we walked the beach for an hour, then ran into them accidentally running late to yoga. We joined them for yoga on the beach.

I thought I'd be better at it than I was. I have done beginner yoga before but the sand made it difficult to balance and this was a smidgen more advanced than I had done. And longer. This felt almost like a workout instead of stretching. The view was really nice and that's all I'll say about that.

There was some drama, a turn of phrase at the wedding reception that rubbed the mother of the groom, my aunt -- who had been drinking shots with the youngins she knew -- the wrong way although it seemed innocent to me. She ended up losing her voice the next day which seemed a bit karmic. One thing about my family I never got was their ability to create drama from thin air. I'm sure there were many perceived slights, I try not to pay attention.

The reception was open bar. I took advantage of that. The wife did too although she kept making the bartenders "surprise her," which made me feel a little bad for them having to come up with novel drink after drink. I had a vodka gimlet, scotch and ice, and a number of margaritas. She basically got variations on rum drinks.

This feels rather long, I'm sure there's more I'm missing out on, maybe I'll make a pt 2 but this seems enough for now.