My First Taste of San Jose

Why hello there!

I can’t believe it’s Monday night already. The weekend and today just flew by. My weekend was a bit of a whirlwind and a lot of fun! I kicked off Friday evening meeting my friend Angi, her hubby John, and their baby Zoie with Adam for dinner in Coronado:

Angi lives in Arizona now and I haven’t gotten to see her awhile. I also got to see her baby girl, who is getting big so fast and is absolutely beautiful. I miss my friend and it was great getting to chat face to face a bit!

Saturday morning I awoke bright and early to take Harley to the pet resort (who was not a fan of waking up early or going there!) and get on the road for San Jose. Adam’s job starts up there in just a couple of weeks, so we traveled up there to scope out the area a bit and find a place to live. It was a 7-hour drive, and we went through a lot of mountainous terrain and farmland. The main forms of entertainment during the trip were belting out the Les Miserables soundtrack and checking out all of the cows, sheep, giant tumbleweeds and tons and tons of (what looked like) cherry blossom trees. I’ve never seen that many of them before! My car was bombarded with bees dive bombing into my windshield and the front of my car. They were getting caught in my windshield wipers, and I think they must have been cherry drunk. Ha.

Our hotel was in downtown San Jose, so we got to walk around and experience the city a bit for the first time. We ate dinner at a restaurant called Mezcal Mexican Restaurant and Bar. For an appetizer, we enjoyed some fresh guacamole. The server came over and mashed avocado, cilantro, onion, and salt right in front of us, which I was a big fan of. I love avocado!!

I was hoping dinner would be just as awesome as the guacamole, but we weren’t that impressed. I first ordered a tri colored salad, which lacked flavor and wasn’t anything special. For my main entree, I got veggie quesadillas, which were deep fried and really heavy. Luckily I had only ordered an appetizer portion of them, so I didn’t waste too much food. Adam and I decided that this place was very traditional Mexican, not so much Tex Mex. To be honest, I decided awhile ago that I think I like Americanized Mexican food more!

After dinner, we walked to a wine bar I had read about called Vino Vino. It was located in a really fun area:

The market had live music, was jam packed, and seemed like a hot nightlife spot!

Vino Vino was a cute little wine bar that offers local wines on tap and fun cheese, crackers, & bruschetta type of food. We ordered a bottle from J. Dowd Cellars,  a little winery in the Santa Clara Valley we had never heard of before. We chose this one partly because the wine, Melanie’s Special Blend, sounded tasty, and party because Melanie is my mother-in-law’s name. 😉

I was a fan of the relaxed vibe there, and it just may be a new fun spot for us to frequent!

Around San Jose is super Sound of Music-like: rolling green hills everywhere and very scenic.

I kept seeing signs for everything garlic, and when we stopped at a random farm stand to check it out, I was informed that Gilroy is known as the garlic capital of the world. Apparently they have a big annual garlic festival every summer that they’re famous for.

I’m not sure if garlic ice cream is something I could get behind, but I’m definitely planning on checking out the festival this summer! At the farm stand, I nabbed a couple of things, including avocados and a jar of raspberry cherry cranberry preserves.

Overall, I’m looking forward to moving up to the Bay Area and think it’ll be a new adventure for us. The trip and our house hunting went really well, and hopefully we’ll have a lease locked down in the next few days (fingers crossed)!