San Francisco

So, I am in San Francisco. Well, technically, I’m in Mill Valley but I’ll just say San Fran for right now. 

So my journey across the country started very, very early. I woke up at 3:45 am because we—my mom, my two sisters and I, my dad was already there for work—had to be at the airport at 5 to catch the 6 am flight. Now, you are wondering, why are waking up at 3:45 is you need to leave the house at 4:30? Well, between my and my older sister, it sometimes takes us a little while. And it was early. 

So, yawning and wanting caffeine, we got to RDU and thankfully, the plane was not delayed and we were in the air quickly. 

It was a two-ish hour flight to Detroit, where I has slept for most of the way. I read, listened to music, slept, read, slept, music, slept. There was a lot of sleeping. Very enjoyable. 

Then, in Detroit, we had another nice and not delayed flight that took about 5.5 hours. By this point, all of us were awake and just wanted to get there all ready. 

So we get in to San Francisco. It’s about 2 ET, so it’s about 11 in SF. We are all tired, hungry and glad to be in San Fran. We rent a maroon Ford Fusion, which is not a bad car just the color is throwing us all off. 

We then drive through a pretty part of San Fran, the houses are bright colors and there is a mix of nice house, some that look a little Victorian and there are a couple that are really run down. 

Also, there are palm trees everywhere. We are driving and there are palm trees scattered all over the place. It’s really cool.

So, we drive over the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE!!! It was soooooo cool. You see all these pictures and you hear about it and then you are actually driving over the Golden Gate Bridge! You could see the ocean and Alcatraz, the city of San Fran and Muir Woods.  It’s kinda monumental and I was in a daze the first and second time we drove over it because I was like, “Wow, the Golden Gate Bridge.”

So when we get to the little house that we are renting for the week, we are exhausted and really wanting to go exploring. The house is really nice, its small but it is simple and just the way I like it. There are green sofas and the carpet is squashing and soft. The beds are fluffy and the blue towels are soft.

We are staying in Mill Valley, which is like 5-10 minutes away from San Francisco. It is a cute, small town.

So, my mom, my two sisters and I are walking around Mill Valley and we stroll around, walking in to different boutiques and looking at different coffee shops. There is this movie theater there that is still in reasonable shape and they are showing Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and we decided, why not? We had no idea what the movie was about or who was in it but it was an adventure we were willing to take.

The movie was really good. I definitely recommend seeing it.

After the movie, we went back to the house and went to bed. The sun was setting over the green trees and the air was cold. The first day was definitely eventful and a great way to start the trip.

The second day, I woke up at 6:51. It was depressing because I had woken up before 7 and I wasn’t tired. But it was jetlag, one of the many wonders of the world. We got up and the 4 of us went to Union Square. We walked all over Chinatown, which was crazy cool. We ate really good Dim Sum, there were great stores filled with Buddha’s, school supplies, Chinese wonders and postcards and there was street art covering the walls. There were red lanterns strung on wires over the town. Fruit stands spilled over on the sidewalks and the smell of different foods wafted from restaurants.

We walked form Chinatown to about 32 blocks of shopping! A thing that I noticed about San Fran was that it was full of hills. The hills were basically vertical. OK, maybe not vertical but they were serious steep.

We hit 32 blocks of shopping. We walked all over almost. My mom’s cousin is getting married in May and it’s a black tie wedding. Meaning that the dress I was going to wear is not there yet.  But I got two dresses, one for the black tie and the other for any other occasion that might arise. They are both very pretty.

My sister got a really pretty purple one for the black tie and same for my mom. But my little sister, we are still looking for one.

That was basically Monday, we shopped and ate. My dad’s flight arrived that evening and he came and we had a really nice dinner at this Indonesian restaurant. San Fran is really pretty; there are tall buildings that over looks the bay.

So that was Monday, shopping and Chinatown.

Tuesday was when we went to Castro, -- the gay distract --, we went to my mom’s high school friends house, we went to the de Young to see Jean Paul Gautier Sidewalk to Catwalk exhibit and we walked around the park the surrounded the museum.  For dinner, we went to some other friend’s house and that was nice to see them for the first time. The Jean Paul Gautier exhibit was insane. The clothes that he had designed were really cool, there were some that were swoopy, cloth-y and long but there were others that were tight, ill-fitting and the different fabrics seemed to have been molded together. Some outfits, you could see what Jean Paul Gautier was trying to model after. There were cool suits and dresses and there were some hats that were based off of sailor hats but most of the outfits were crazy, they were interesting colors and weird fabrics. So Tuesday was interesting because we walked around a lot and we got to see a lot of San Fran.

On Wednesday, we toured Berkley, or Cal. Berkley was interesting because there are a lot of students and they are interconnected. The big street that was there was packed with students at booths, walking around, and since it was election week, they were campaigning for their vote. It was a friendly environment that I really liked. It’s a beautiful campus and it’s not that far from San Fran.

On Thursday, we toured Stanford. I felt that Stanford was more about the academics but you know I could be wrong. At Cal, I felt like it was a friendlier environment and people stopped to talk to each other but at Stanford, people hopped on bikes and went to their next class. At Stanford, I got to see more of the sport teams and they looked really good. They did not have as much school spirit as Cal. The buildings at Stanford were really pretty.

On Friday, we went with some friends of my dad’s to the Ferry Building and ate egg salad, bread, gelato and Vietnamese food as we watched the bay, the boats and the water. Inside, there were shops that were filled with people and really good food. There was a gelato shop and a bakery that sold really good bread. The Blue Bottle had really good drip coffee. After lunch, we went to a science museum that had some good parts but after a little while… You could go up to the Living Roof and you could see parts of the bay and the sun on the water. It wasn’t high enough to see over the city but it was high enough to see bits and pieces. After the museum, we went to the House of Air, which is basically a big room and the front of the rooms in practice mats but the back of the room is where there is maybe 15 or so trampolines. It was so cool. You are jumping on a trampoline for an hour, which gets really tiring after a while. I flipped for like 20 minutes and that was fun. I haven’t got the landing yet but that’s ok. We jumped a lot but I hurt my back, again. That’s fine because I had a lot of fun. After House of Air, we went to a great pizza/Italian restaurant that we had to wait in line for awhile but the pasta was really good.

Meanwhile, I am trying to get as many photos as I can on to my iTouch but the camera app on my iTouch is acting funky so…

Also, I have been blowing off my home work and now my pile is slowing building up. I might go to the beach on Wednesday and I’m getting home on Monday so I have Tuesday to do the pile. Crap.

Ok, so on Saturday, which is today, we went on a nice little hike to the beach with the same friends that we had dinner with on Tuesday. We hiked, oh maybe 20-30 minutes to the beach and hung out there for about 2 hours before heading back. Then, we got back to the car and drove back to Mill Valley.

That is what our vacation is so far in San Francisco. We still have tomorrow, Easter Sunday, and that is going to be interesting. We might go to church, maybe have a nice dinner. I have no idea.

But, this week has been great and I can’t wait to come back again. I don’t really want to go back to Chapel Hill because there is nothing really happening there and my friends are going to be just fine without me.

So, that is all I have to report for now.

The song for today is: Big Bang -- Wings