I took a field trip to Cardiff-by-the-Sea on Saturday with two friends. "A trip to Wales?" you might be asking yourself. Not quite. Cardiff is a small surfer town located 100 miles south of Los Angeles, tucked between Encinitas, Calif., and a new community called Solano Beach. My friends came along to keep me company on the drive and to help me take advantage of the commuter lane that required at least two people in the car. Unfortunately, the commuter lane was just as slow as the regular lanes, and it took us three hours to make our way from Los Angeles to Cardiff. I had to check out a store for my job. Before I could do so, I needed some lunch and a frozen girly cocktail. Sitting on the second floor deck overlooking the beach, I slurped on a pina colada topped with a slice of orange (or "oranjevo" in Bulgarian as my field trip mate Alex taught me) through a straw. Eileen helped me pick at crab cakes, lobster egg rolls, fried calamari and sweet potato fries. I also had a salad with bay shrimp and hearts of palm, which was the healthy but unphotogenic part of the meal. Cardiff was really cool with lots of baby waves. It was perfect for learning how to surf, Eileen said. But the water was a little stinky because of some oil spill north of the state beach around Camp Pendleton. So I didn't even dare to dip a toe in the water.
I saved dessert for after my interview. Am I glad I did. At Surfside Creamery, I got a giant scoop of malted ube macapuno, which is a lavender-tinted mix of baby coconut and taro. The malt balls gave the smooth globe of ice cream a little crunch. Eileen said she had ube macapuno in the Philippines. Alex, who is 6'4", decided to emphasize even more the silliness of me, wearing a forest green romper, eating a cartoon-like ice cream cone. He stood on top of a bench to snap the photo.
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