Spanish Influence

Todd and I had a very nice Sunday, where we actually got out into our fair city and enjoyed the sights. In the morning we went to church, then we had lunch at home. Then we had to get ourselves together and drive down to Balboa Park for a photo shoot with photographers Joe+Kathrina. We were supposed to have a photo shoot with Kate Williams, but she switched on us. It's a long unhappy story... if the photos turn out bad, then you will hear the long unhappy story!

Anyways, we met up with photographers Joe and Kathrina at the big fountain by the Ruben H Fleet Science Center. Then we walked across the bridge to a flower garden and desert cactus garden to shoot some photos. I could kind of tell they were not very experienced professional photographers, because they didn't really have good ideas about how to pose us and what we should do with each other. We've had our photos taken by two very good photographers before, so this was a little disappointing. After 45-50 minutes, we were done. Joe and Kathrina had another photo shoot in Balboa Park, so they went on their way. Todd and I stayed behind a little bit to take in the sights and take our own photos.

Balboa Park is actually the largest urban cultural park in the United States, bigger than Central Park in NYC even. The whole San Diego Zoo is inside Balboa Park, as well as a bunch of museums, theaters, and gardens.

All the buildings off the main street, El Prado, are of Spanish influence.








Todd likes to tell me to pose for goofy photos, and I always oblige.


In front of the large fountain between the Science Center and Natural History Museum.


After Balboa Park, we left to go downtown for dinner at Cafe Sevilla, so we can continue with the Spanish influence. :p

Trolley crossing.


Suit of armor in front of Cafe Sevilla.


We've never had dinner at Cafe Sevilla before. We purchased a $25 off coupon on Restaurant.com for $2, so we decided to make use of it. The restaurant serves Spanish tapas, which we've only sampled a little before. We were excited to try it out!

The restaurant was a little dark inside, but it had very warm and inviting ambiance.




This was Alioli with fresh baked French bread. Really yummy!


Chicken Croquetas


Wild Mushroom Empanada


And then our Platter of Four Tapas came. We ordered too much food, because we thought each tapas was going to be much smaller in portion than they actually were.

There was Grilled Chicken Skewers, Shrimp Ajillo, Sevilla Fried Calamari, and Brava Sauteed Potatoes. On the right there was also some grilled Spanish sausages.

Todd surrounded by Spanish tapas. :)


We were too stuffed for dessert, obviously. We took a brief walk downtown before getting back into our car and heading home.


We don't go downtown very often, so it was a unique and special experience for us, as well as the Spanish tapas.