What Makes You Happy?

Several months ago a few of us bought a Groupon for "Bite San Diego." It's a company that runs culinary tours of various areas of San Diego. For $22 we booked the Downtown/Little Italy Tour. Months went by and we were not able to find a date that everyone could agree on, and so the coupon was expiring and we booked a Friday tour just after the New Year. A fine time. Everyone was getting ready to start their diets, but we couldn't pass up the food tour, so four of us spent an afternoon eating way too much. Although the food tour was great, the best part was being together with friends. Most of us had not seen each other in a few months, due to end of the year festivities, obligations, etc., so we were happy just to be together. As Regina said, it doesn't matter what we're doing, we always have a good time. How can parking your car or moving your car from one parking lot to another be so much fun? I don't know, but it was. We were parked at Horton Plaza, with only a three hour window before we had to pay, so we decided to move the car. We found the car just fine, drove to the exit, then realized we had forgotten to get a validation. So we sent Regina back inside the mall to get the validation, then tried to exit. Debbie put the ticket in the machine, and it said we owed $22. After a long explanation to a voice, the arm went up and we were out of there. Now we had to find another place to park closer to Little Italy. We found a perfect meter, then had to watch poor Debbie struggle to paralell park. She's got lots of talents, but parallel parking is not one of them. Regina and I couldn't keep from laughing. All this to save ourselves a few bucks. So what will I take away from our tour with Bite San Diego? I will remember how full I was when the 3 1/2 hour tour was complete. We started with an Indian buffet at Royal India (very good), then cheese samples at Venissimo (delicious), then on to Berkeley Pizza for three slices of deep dish pizza. I'm not a fan of deep dish, so other than pick the ingredients off the top of the pizza, I skipped this stop. Then it was on to Karl Strauss for beer tasting (also something I skipped), and reparking the car in a better location. Finally, our last two stops were in Little Italy. One restaurant served us a kind of dessert pizza. It was flaky crust on top, nutella in the middle, and crust on top, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Yummy. Finally, we stopped at Davanti Enoteca, one of my favorite restaurants. They served us a thin crust flaky dough, filled with cheese, topped with dough, and served with honeycomb drizzled on top. It was wonderful. I will remember our tour guide Eddie, who was knowledgable and entertaining. I will remember Lynda, Debbie, and Regina, and how we laughed our way through these restaurants, how we talked about everything and everyone, and how we had a damn good time. As Regina said so well, it doesn't matter what we're doing or where we're going, we always have a good time together. That makes me happy.