Long-awaited San Francisco post

Sorry for keeping that depressing post up for so long. I'm not necessarily unhappy being in Oxford, and it's certainly not the people. I think it's the financial aspect (racking up so many loans), plus being kinda tired of academia. I don't really want to discuss it, but I needed to get it off my chest.

Anyway, I owe you a post about San Francisco, which was amazing. I went for six days and stayed with Chrissie, and got to see Christian and Adam along the way. You can check out all my pics on Flickr, and all my videos on YouTube.

The first day, I got up at 4 am to get to the airport for 5. It turns out that my first flight, which was going to stop in Chicago, was canceled. They put me on a later flight which stopped in Chicago and landed in San Diego, and I was supposed to transfer there. It then turned out that the San Diego flight was late, so I was bumped to a later flight to San Fran. Instead of 11:20 am, I arrived at 5:20 pm, which reeealllly sucked. I was lucky that I had time in San Diego, though, because otherwise I wouldn't have had time to eat (Southwest doesn't do meals on its flights).

Chrissie picked me up, and we picked her dad up along the way. We went to dinner in the Mission District and enjoyed delicious Mexican food at a taquería. Afterwards we went to Twin Peaks and saw San Francisco at night, which was amazing! I couldn't take good pictures - they kept coming out blurry. But it was beautiful. When we got back, Chrissie surprised me with a birthday cake from the Chinese bakery. I was pretty tired after the long day, so I went to bed around 10 pm that night.

The next day we went to Berkeley, where Chrissie went as an undergrad and where Christian and Adam were doing research. We saw a bit of everything - all over the campus - and ate more Mexican food. Berkeley feels very Californian - much more laid back than New England. It was a gorgeous day and we didn't have to wear coats at all. When we got back that night we ate delicious Chinese food in Balboa Park. It was very different from Chinese food that I'm used to, which is probably meant for Westerners.

On Wednesday we hit all the touristy spots in the Fisherman's Wharf area. We rode Cable Cars and Streetcars, walked down Lombard Street, saw Pier 39 and the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building and Alcatraz and the Bridges and sea lions and all that. We ate clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls and then later on we had delicious Dhungess (sp?) crab. Amazing! I bought a lot of souvenirs that day. In addition to seafood, we also ate a lot of chocolate - San Francisco is the home of Ghiradelli and Shaffenberger chocolate. (And who could forget the delicious cupcakes in Ghiradelli Square???) We also went to a mall with curved escalators and a huge Hello Kitty store (apparently the US headquarters are in San Fran). We had a lot of leftovers from our previous night's meals, so we had them for dinner that night. It was a great chance to relax after a long day - it's hard to eat out for every single meal that often!

Thursday was reserved for touristy things outside of the Fisherman's Wharf. We met up with Chrissie's fiancé Collin, who has an amazing panoramic view of the city from his family's apartment. He and his dad joined us for a variety of sights that day: the Painted Ladies (the Full House houses!), Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, the Coit Tower (from a distance), Baker Beach, the Sea Cliff area (where Robin Williams lives!), Chinatown, and Fort Mason - not necessarily in that order, but we got through a lot that day! We had dim sum for lunch in Chinatown and visited a fortune cookie factory, which was really cool because it was the same kind of alleyway where Will Smith dropped off his kid at daycare in the Pursuit of Happyness. For dinner that night we went to Japantown and had shabu shabu (I think that's what it's called) - a sort of Japanese fondue. We walked around the Japanese markets and took pictures with the beautiful cherry blossoms, which reminded me of Washington DC (which I love!).

We had checked off a lot of things on our "to-do" list, so we made a last minute decision to visit Stanford on Friday. Chrissie and I had a huge breakfast in Burlingame that day and then visited the Pez Museum, which was very kitschy but fun. We also visited the See's Candy headquarters, where they make very good toffee (and give out lots of free chocolate samples!). Then we headed to Stanford in Palo Alto, which is about an hour away. It was kinda funny to be there, since Chrissie is from Berkeley (their biggest rival) and I'm from UConn territory, who was about to play Stanford in the Final Four that weekend. But they had an amazingly beautiful church, where we took a lot of pictures. On the way back we ate at In-n-Out, an apparently Californian chain famous for its burgers. We also stopped at the Google campus in Mountain View (we didn't go in), then headed back. For dinner that night, we went to a sushi place that was obviously very good - it had a very long wait. I had never had sushi before, so I was surprised that I liked it. My favorite were the ones with the salmon - probably very boring, but it was good. I also ate seaweed salad, something you would not usually find on the East Coast!

I didn't have to be at the airport until about 10:30ish on Saturday morning (plus they don't live that far away), so Chrissie's dad made breakfast for us that morning: pancakes, eggs and bacon. Chrissie and Collin drove me to the airport, and I headed home.

I had a stopover in Chicago this time around, so I took my time in the airport to linger around and enjoy authentic Chicago hot dogs. I'd like to go back and visit Chicago some day and not just linger in its airports, so if anyone's in the area, let's meet up! ;)

I can't believe how I managed to bring home all my stuff - chocolates, toffees, fortune cookies, postcards, sweatshirts, stuffed animals, crab eating forks, etc. etc. etc...and I only brought one tiny suitcase! I wanted to bring home a sourdough bread, but I had no idea how I'd carry it home. (They had cool ones in the shape of crabs and turtles!)

I had never been that far West before, so it was a fantastic experience. It's cool to see how people live in different parts of the country - it's totally different from Connecticut. I've always felt that it was weird that I've lived in another country, but never seen the other side of my own country...next time I want to go to San Diego (the view from the airport was amazing!) and drive over the border to Mexico. Chrissie says she's done that before, so I think it would be fun.

Back to my Sopranos marathon. Laterz!

xxx