15 April 2009

Bow Wow Wow Yippie Yo Yippie Yay

So, this past weekend we traveled to my aunt's house in Pittsburgh for the Easter holiday weekend, home of my furry cousins and the Labrador horse next door. Holly and Rusty had never accompanied us to Pittsburgh before, because Rusty did not play nicely with others (particularly not his cousins Lily and Molly). However, between Rusty dying last month and the fact that my parents are having their kitchen redone, Holly is having quite the traumatic couple of weeks, so she came with us. However, her trauma wasn't over. First, she had to suffer the indignities of the seatbelt I bought her for the car ride:
She was also rather confused when we left her in the car to go into the souvenir shop in the very exciting town of Breezewood, which has more Steeler merchandise than I've ever seen in one place outside of Pittsburgh. Of course, this errand was the reason that my mother wanted me to leave my office as early as I did, work be damned.
We also stopped at the world's most awesome candy store, which, in addition to frightening Holly when we left her in the car, also made her angry when we wouldn't give her any chocolate.
Once we arrived in Pittsburgh, Holly was still rather confused. She spent a bit of time exploring her new surroundings:
and then spent the rest of the evening moving from lap to lap so as to avoid altercations with her furry cousins.
By Saturday, she had gotten more used to her new situation. Not completely, though...just to Hunter the Beast, who is easily five times her size. Apparently, she likes them tall, dark, and stupid. She spent the better part of the day glued to his side:
before trying to entice him to play with flirtatious tail-wagging (apologies for the strange camera angles at the end).
Clearly the tail-wagging worked - he was soon chasing her too, although I'm not entirely convinced that it wasn't because he hoped she'd throw a ball for him to fetch.

She did eventually warm up to her furry cousins as well - she and Kiley took a nap together,

and while she and Lily were never exactly friends, they did sit close to each other by the end of the weekend.
Despite the fun she had, and the new gentleman friend she made, she was ready to go home on Sunday (despite the seatbelt hatred).
Oh, and on the way out of town, we drove past a house who had put bunny ears on the reindeer figurines in their front yard, which had been there since Christmas. Niiiiiice.

08 April 2009

If You're Going To San Francisco...

As many of you know, I traveled to San Francisco last week to attend a conference with Nikki, and then spend the weekend with Niki and Derek. I've gotten a lot of fun out of talking about what I did with Nikki, and what I did with Niki, to random people who get confused easily.

The flight out was fairly uneventful - we flew through Denver, which rather bumpy while landing but otherwise OK. The Denver airport is rather nice - good food, mailboxes inside the terminal which made Netflix DVD-returning easy, and easy to navigate. Except for one thing - this:
Yeah. Ew.
So, we arrived in San Francisco safely, and had a cab driver who didn't try to kill us on the way to the hotel, which was a nice change from the last time we went.
On the way into the city, we saw what appeared to be a big accident, but was just people filming something for a show called Trauma. Keep an eye out for it, and for an accident scene that looks like this:
We arrived at the hotel, which was absolutely gorgeous:
In addition to the gigantic room, the rooms had gorgeous bathrooms, including a toilet phone, which reminds me of when Joey Tribbiani had a phone in his new apartment and Monica requested that he never call her from there.
This was the view of Nob Hill from my hotel room window:
And the view of the hotel terrace garden from Nikki's window:
That night, we walked down a very steep hill to this dining establishment:
Neither of us had the "Little Pancakes," but we did have very good Kobe beef cheeseburgers. After dinner, we were exhausted, so we trekked up the mountain back to our hotel and went to bed.
Wednesday, the first day of the conference, was pretty uneventful during the day. I did manage to lock myself outside trying to mail something at this corner - Nikki had to rescue me.
That evening, Niki and Derek picked us up and drove to this restaurant in Little Italy. Derek and I found it in a guidebook while we were waiting for Niki. Everything in it was made with garlic. I like garlic.
The inside was decorated with two of my favorite things - chianti and garlic. Seen here is the chianti.
They even had garlic ice cream, which Derek and I ordered and Nikki bravely tasted, and then took pictures of me eating.
Thursday we took a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf.
The view from the cable car as we approached the pier:
Once we got off the cable car, we headed toward Pier 39. We stopped by In-N-Out Burger to take pictures, just as we'd done the last time we came to this area:
and Nikki made friends with a pirate:
We made it to Fisherman's Wharf, and saw the pretty sign there.
Since we didn't visit Alcatraz this time, I took a picture of it from the Wharf.
It was very, very windy, too, as evidenced by these trees.
I posed with some fake sea lions...
...and saw a real one too. I wanted to take this one home with me, but he was too big.
We ate dinner at the Pier Market at Pier 39. I had steak and shrimp, and while the shrimp was great, the steak disproved my theory that seafood restaurants always have good steak. It wasn't bad, but it was nothing to write home about. But the shrimp was definitely good, and the waiter was very friendly and helpful. I would recommend it...just avoid land creatures.
We also saw this awning leading to my own personal hell - a shark touch pool.On our way back to the cable car, Nikki met a crab:
I made friends with a frog statue who looked like he was trying to punch me.
Finally, we retired to our hotel for the evening.

Friday, Nikki left after breakfast to return home, and Niki came to get me after the morning session of the conference. Stay tuned for details in the second installment of the story!

...Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair

After Nikki left after the conference on Friday, Niki picked me up at the hotel and took me to her apartment in Burlingame for the weekend. We spent the afternoon doing work - a thrilling pair we are! - and when Derek got home, he cooked us dinner, which consisted of two of my favorite things:
After dinner, Niki and I went to see a community theater production of Crazy For You at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center. Derek declined our invitation, but we left him with the task of planning Saturday's agenda. He missed a very good play, but he did have an important job to do.
Saturday, we awoke bright and early to start our trek to taste wine. We set off northward out of Burlingame
toward a very cute cheese store in Berkeley. After acquiring sustenance, we continued to Napa Valley,
a beautiful drive that took us past gorgeous mountains with tons of grapevines,
lovely countryside,
and cows that looked like Oreos.
We visited three wineries. First was Peju, our favorite of the day.
A very entertaining guy named Richie served us samples of a number of different wines, as well as providing amusing banter with us and the other four people in the group. I would highly recommend this winery to anyone in the Napa area - in addition to Richie being away and by far the most entertaining person we met all day, the tasting was free if you purchased a bottle of wine. As Michael Scott would say, it was a win-win-win situation! One word of advice, though - if you use the upstairs bathroom, lock the door. This is Niki outside of the bathroom door after a lady walked in on Derek:
Peju had a beautiful courtyard,
and a garden area where we stopped to eat some of the bread and cheese we'd purchased in Berkeley.
Next, we drove to another winery called Trefethen.
Their wines were also very good, and their staff very friendly, although their tasting was not free if you bought a bottle like at Peju. They had a gorgeous courtyard where we enjoyed our last wine sample.
Our third and final winery was a bit further south. Called Madonna Estate, I had requested it specifically for its name. According to the gentleman who served us, it was a family-owned winery that had started at the end of prohibition by making wine for churches (hence the name they chose).
We arrived at the end of a large tour group, so they helpfully sent us to the Reserve Room, which was empty except for us.
They also had a wonderful invention - wine bottle-shaped bubble wrap bags for taking wine home in one's luggage! They worked beautifully, too, as the two bottles I purchased there made it home safely.

After our third winery, we headed back towards the city, with plans to go to Muir Woods. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously crowded by this time in the afternoon, so we decided to save that for Sunday and drive past Stinson Beach instead. We drove on a scary, curvy, cliff-adjacent, guardrail-less road of death to get there:
When we arrived, we were greeted by this cheerful sign:
Now, none of us had Suited Up, despite the name of the beach, and it was also way too cold, so we had no plans of swimming. But if there was any doubt in the matter, that sign decided it. The beach was lovely, though, sharks or not:
On the way back to Burlingame, we stopped by a lookout to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge.
After we got back, we were very tired, but not too tired to make Maple Bacon Cupcakes. Derek and I did, that is - Niki refused to take any part in it. I think she secretly wanted to, though. They certainly made Derek and me happy!
Sunday, we woke up bright and early to get to Muir Woods before the crowds got as big as they were on Saturday. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to get there:
It was pretty cold at Muir Woods, so Niki stopped to get hot chocolate at the temporary concession stand:
The trees in Muir Woods were beautiful, and there was nature everywhere. Look, green nature!
Wet nature!
Slimy nature!
And really tall nature!
I even hugged a tree and let the nature touch me!
They had one tree that had a hollow big enough that Niki and I could stand inside it. If you look closely, you can see the stupid sunburn I gave myself the day before driving through Napa in a convertible.
We were smart to get to Muir Woods early - when we went to leave around 10:30 a.m., there were hordes of crowds outside waiting to enter.
When we got back to Burlingame, we stopped at a restaurant called Crepevine, which was fantastic. I had a crepe with chicken, pesto, mushrooms, and pretty much pure awesome inside it. I think Niki should bring me one when she comes to the East Coast in a few weeks for a wedding.

I had to leave at 1 to catch my plane, so we spent our last few minutes driving around the pretty houses in the area. Niki says I'm supposed to tell people that this one is hers:
But I would have personally preferred to live on this street...I hear they get a lot of owls.
My flight back was pretty uneventful (and on time, so definitely better than the last time I tried to come back from the West Coast!) - although the San Francisco airport does have a wine store, which was a good way to kill time! I made it back safely, albeit rather late, and got a ride home from the car service that my company got for me. The driver looked like Santa Claus, which was rather surreal. I bet he does good business in December. But he lifted my freakishly heavy suitcase for me (which was under 50 pounds - Derek gets a gold star in suitcase weight guessing), so I was pleased.
So yes...that was San Francisco. Thanks to my company for paying for most of it, Nikki for coming along for the work part, and Derek and Niki for housing and entertaining me all weekend!