Poodle!

So, as many of you know, a month ago (yes, it has now been a month. bad friend, bad friend!) Dana came to visit me. She works in admissions at Ohio Wesleyan, and part of her area to recruit is Washington and Oregon - so once a year, she'll get to take a couple of vacation days and head down the West Coast to visit me...I mean, since she's all the way out here already and all. So, I was pretty darn excited to see her, since the last time I saw her was at her wedding for heavens sake. In JULY. Which isn't that long, July to November, but for two years, I saw her approximately 7 times a day, so this has been a big change.

Anyway, we got up early one fine, ridiculously foggy morning to go pick up our Zipcar to go pick her up from the airport. Let me just insert here that the Zipcar we reserved was somewhat unusual - usually, the cars are in parking garages or lots, and there are usually at least two in each location. Yeah, this one was in someone's garage. A private garage. As in, you walk up to it, have to undo the combination lock and lift up the garage door, get in the car, back out, get back out of the car, close the door, relock the door and then get back in the car and drive away. Strange, to say the least.

So, back to it being really foggy - we had to cross the Bay Bridge to get there (obviously) and it was so foggy that we couldn't even see the bridge towers until we were directly underneath them. I've never seen anything like it. We came to learn the next day that I wasn't the only one who thought so, as a container ship ran into one of the columns supporting the bridge and spilled 50,000+ gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay. Nice. So we picked Dana up from the airport, we went back to Berkeley, I went to one meeting for an hour and then we got the heck out of town to go up to Napa. Of course. Where else would we take someone who was visiting for 2 days?? (San Francisco? Psssh.) We went to a couple of vineyards we really enjoy, and then we went to quite the snooty new place, which specialized in sparkling wine. Not really a winner in terms of what we drank, but we tried a really great Brie, which we remember more than the wine, and the place itself was gorgeous. We tried to give Dana the overall range from really casual places to snooterific wineries, while also seeing some of the scenery. Hopefully we accomplished our goal. She seemed to have a good time, but hey, it could have been all the wine, so who knows.




Snooty winery - Domaine Carneros

The next day, we got up and took our sweet time getting into the city - seriously, it was midafternoon by the time we got there. Ah well. We headed downtown and ended up hopping on the a cable car (because who loves cable cars? Thats right. Me.) and taking it all the way to Lombard Street, which is a nice long ride (nice for the $5 fare). Lots of the obligatory Lombard Street photos, and then we headed down to Ghiradelli Square to see it, and to get some nice views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We had planned on walking out on the pier to see it, but it was closed due to the oil spill, which we hadn't heard about until then. Awkward. Not so cute to see all the sand and rocks covered with a nice skim of oil. Anyway, we walked from Ghiradelli Square up into Fort Mason and then caught a bus back downtown to see the "Painted Ladies" which is a row of very well restored, painted Victorian homes. You may remember them from the opening credits of Full House. Basically the entire way, Dana proceeded to sing the theme song from the show and loudly proclaim her love for the Tanner family and telling us that she thinks that deep down, she in fact is a Tanner. This, my friends, is why I love her. We got to the park and we took many a photo of Dana (and some embarassing video that I will not post here, but will show you upon request) prancing around in front of the homes.

That night, we got back into Bizzerkeley and had to run up to Clark Kerr (which is a little satellite campus of residence halls) because my RAs were putting on a huge program called "Fit For a Queen." Basically, it's a drag show. (Yes, paid for with university money. I love working here!) This is the fifth year in a row that it has been put on, and we hire professional queens from SF to come in, do a bunch of musical numbers and then do a Q&A session, which is fantastic for the students, most of whom are like "What do you mean that's a man?!?!?" Except this year, we also had one queen who is a woman (a "faux queen") and she was SO good. All of them were amazing actually. We had hundreds of students come and the ladies loved Dan - all in all a really good program.








The next morning, we had to take Dana back to the airport - quite the quick visit, I know. But, it was lovely to see her. AND the cats loved her to pieces. Clearly, a good sign.

Posts coming soon: chocolate factory tour, 2008 resolutions, holidays in DC!!!!!

Spare the Air

During days that it gets too hot (by hot, I mean in the 90's - watch out for that heatwave) San Francisco frets about the air quality index, and on those days, encourages everyone to use public transportation instead of private vehicles to reduce the pollutants in the air. They do this by offering free rides on all types of public transportation (cable cars, busses, BART, ferries, etc.) So, Dan got to reap the benefits and ride the cable cars for hours because they were free! Normally they are $5 every time you hop on which is just ridiculous, but the tourists pay it. And you will too when you come visit. Because, as I've said before, I love a cable car ride. Here's some shots from that adventure.

The famous Lombard St.

Incoming fog meets the bridge

And the Cable Cars

Weekend Update

So we decided that we were going to do something cool every weekend to write about on here. Well, not just so we would have something to write about on here, but also to do something cool. Right. Anyway, just to let you know because I know you were on edge about it, my dad's visit was really nice. He seemed to really like the area and the Bay Area feel. We went into SF last Tuesday - my dad and Dan first because I had to work and I met up with them later. They walked most of the Embarcadero and went up to Coit Tower, and we all met up to go to Fisherman's Wharf and eat some touristy clam chowder in a bread bowl. Then we rode a cable car to Chinatown to eat dinner at a slightly sketchy restaurant. It was very San Francisco-tastic. Also, cable cars are pretty sweet. They were built originally because early cars couldn't go up and down the streets in SF because they're so steep. Clearly, that is less of a problem now. Also, cable cars are the only moving national historic landmarks in the country. And they move much faster than one would expect. If you visit me, we're going on a cable car. Just a heads up.

Dad left Wednesday for the mountain climbing and whatnot, and I worked the rest of the week. Friday, however, Dan and I met some of my coworkers for dinner...at Chuck E. Cheese. No really. It was another RD's birthday and we kidnapped her, blindfolded her and went to Chuck E. Cheese. She is older than 30. Anyway, we played a lot of skeeball and whack-a-mole. Dan all of a sudden developed some skill at basketball (weird!) and then we bought a lollipop with all of our tickets. Also - there is no more person dressed up like Chuckie the mouse, or the weird animatronic characters that I remember. There are instead music videos that play over and over of the Chuck E. Cheese characters. One of the songs is "Hot Stuff." As in:

"I want some hot stuff baby this evenin'
gotta have some hot stuff
gotta have some lovin' tonight"

yeah. Inappropriate. But, after we left there we went for a little drinking and dancing (see related sad post in the CC forum) and all was well.

Sunday, we went to the Berkeley Kite Festival. It was pretty nice (and the third largest kite festival in the country). If I haven't mentioned already, the Bay Area is friggin windy as all get out, so it's an appropriate place to fly lots of kites. Many of these kites were bigger than I had ever imagined a kite could be. There was also a man who does kite tricks set to music, and teams of people flying kites in sync. Like syncronized swimming, only with kite flying. I, personally, didn't know this was a thing. But I guess people need hobbies. Also, there was funnel cake and a great view of the entire Bay. All in all, a fun time.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm full of fun facts about this new area I call home - please blame Dan. He bought quite the fun coffee table book about Berkeley and now we're both huge dorks about it. *le sigh*

Also, our comforter arrived today!! We somehow magically forgot to get it from my dad's place to put on the moving truck, so he had to mail it and now it's here. And I'm pleased. We've been sleeping under blankets like college kids on a futon. It's the little things kids.

Enormous flying octopi

Other huge kites

Apparently a team sport. Dan aptly named them "Team Fly A Kite"