the bay (cont.)

The suspense has been killing you, hasn't it? My mission this morning is to break down the rest of our bay area trip.

DAY FOUR

I was so glad to leave our Holiday Inn motel. Housekeeping moves at break neck speeds over there. Every day they came early, but on Monday they were there before 9:30. Ummmm, I'm still in the shower? lol. As soon as we closed our room door she was in there takin care of business. I aint mad at cha, but can I get the rest of my stuff? haha.

And off they go...2nd McDonald's breakfast in one week? Check. We went there =] Dang, I've been missing that top 'o the mornin goodness since I've been working the night shift. This was definitely a welcomed vacation treat.

Our best memories of Great Mall? The massage chairs, lol. We're not marathon shoppers when it involves actual physical contact with the merchandise. We're big online consumers, but it was nice to get into a few stores and check out what Northern California malls have to offer.

PIER 39 - There are some cool stores and hecka expensive food, but the view of the San Francisco Bay is the true draw for me. There were other fans of the view, but a certain Indian couple had me chuckling under my breath. They have these boat tie downs all over the pier. Me and Nahdia kept walking by them wondering what they heck they were. There were some pretty close to the street too. Anyway, I was doing my tourist thing, taking a million shots of the same scenery, and I see this couple walk up to the boat tie downs near me.

The guy tells his girl to pose for a picture and she assumes the position. This *ahem* aspiring photographer was unhappy with her first few attempts and everyone around them could hear ... or maybe I'm just "far-eared" lol, okay so my eavesdropping skills are pretty impressive.

Him: no not like that ... you already did that, do something different.

Her: how about this? ... is this okay?

Oh my gosh, I was super laughing at them. Then they switch places and he starts vogue-ing...well, not really, but he posed and she shot. I wonder if she was imagining a gun instead of a camera, lol. jk jk.

Another interesting find...LEFTY'S, a store dedicated to left-handed people. Nahdia is left-handed so we decided to check it out. Apparently lefty's like poopoo paper? lol. JK, but we did find this ode to going green. This is reduce, reuse, recycle to the extreeeeeeme. We didn't buy it.

Nahdia's gonna take care of the Alcatraz details so, on to...

DAY FIVE

Oh no, it's almost over!! Did I mention I enjoy sightseeing? In editing the video all I've been hearing is me gasping, whispering in awe, and I can't forget about my many outbursts of appreciation for the wonder of God's beautiful creations. Oh I didn't mention the subject of such adoration?

Meet today's bay area wonder...the Tongan Mustang. We laughed forever about this one. He couldn't get away from us, we were on the Golden Gate Bridge so his options were limited. We weren't stalking or anything, but we were able to get several angles of his unique automobile.

Okay, but on the real, I was actually talking about the Redwood trees five hours north of San Francisco (two hours south of Oregon). Kitty worked hard that day, we drove through some winding roads, highs and lows aaaaaand through the base of a live tree!! I have a deep appreciation for the miracle of this world. It's not a coincidence, this is all intelligent/divine design. Nahdia and I had fun running through our "my size" playground. We climbed *cough cough* Nahdia climbed, on top of tree stumps, through fallen trees and got up close and personal with nature. The pics in the teaser post are some of the many we took that day, but they are typical of what you can find there. I absolutely recommend this drive to people who enjoy pretending to be professional drivers and to nature-lovers. I don't recommend the drive to people who get car sick. The twists and turns are no joke and you will start to hate yourself for making the trip before you even get to the 31-mile Avenue of the Giants drive. Also, the drive thru tree is kinda small and Kitty only had a few inches of empty space on each side. Don't try to do it with an SUV or truck.

"You better get some napkins, wipe the blood off yo' face sucka. - Walmart Shopper"

We made a trip to Walmart before calling it a night and as we're standing in line a man behind us interrupts the convo of a few employees emptying cash registers. At one point he told one of the workers, "if my wife tells me to whip you I will". His wife was not with him. We laughed and decided we needed to be tucked into our hotel room as soon as possible.

DAY SIX

Zachyboy! We spent time with one of our favorite Bay Area people --the only one we know-- Zach. After picking this guy up we headed over to his hook-up spot, HOMETOWN, but Blanca hadn't opened the restaurant yet, so we DUN DUN DUN ate breakfast at McDonalds...lol, 3rd time, same meal, still delish, hahaha. Hey, I don't get McDonald's breakfast at home, remember? I'm asleep til 11:30 am. Was it the third time? I think so, *information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed* lol.

We took a scenic drive through Concord, saw some hybrid horse/cows hows? lol and then went to a dog park...and had no dog. After following the ducks around the pond we took a house tour of Zach's digs. Awesome apartmento!!

The San Francisco Creamery Co. is actually in Walnut Creek, but they have the creamiest, amazingest, wonderfulest ice cream. Nahdia got this humongous brownie thing and I had the best mango ice cream I've ever tasted.

This is considered a "small". I am an ice cream fiend. I love it, I eat it when it's cold, when I'm not even hungry *but that happens with all kindsa food so idk if it applies here, lol*, but I couldn't finish this. I had about 65-70% of it and a few bites of Nahdia's, half a basket of french fries and I was done. Okay, that sounds like a lot, and ding ding ding, it was.

Yayayayaya CHINATOWN! JAPANTOWN! Cheap stuff!

I bugged Nahdia about going to Chinatown pretty much since we landed. We had so much fun checking out the souvenirs in the first store, but started to lose interest when we realized that just like the swap meet, everyone pretty much had the same merchandise. After scouring Chinatown for the perfect postcards, lol, we hiked back to our car, and I do mean hiked. Driving up and down the hills of San Francisco was fun, but walking up and down (cuz we only did one hill) was a workout. It would've been a great time to have a Lark, lol. Awesome things we saw in Chinatown? Alley dining. There's something about people living on top of each other that inspires the human mind to use every inch of space. Enter restaurants located in the middle of an alley. It's definitely a new concept. We stepped into another alley way and got to see windows of different apartments filled with hanging laundry, plants, dirt, etc. [steady creeping on the world]

*phew* We were exhausted after our drive through Japantown so we fought traffic to SFO and then recharged all our electronics and ate the best airport pizza ever while we waited for our plane.

Our family was excited to have us back and appreciative of the goods we brought home. It was nice to hang out with everybody here and share a few laughs and stories from our travels. I hope you've enjoyed this brief recap Uila. I can't wait to see ya in Lithuania!!

Need to paint my room...

The similarity to the Alcatraz prison cells is toooooooo much, lol.

 

the bay 2011

Our timing couldn't be better. We bought these tickets months ago, but never really sat down to plan it. September (WA), October (LV) and now November (SF) have been big vacation months for me and Nahdia. In the excitement of the other two trips we neglected the itinerary of this last trip, but thanks to recommendations from friends and internet bloggers we were able to fill our days and nights with some interesting sights.

Day One

Our Alaska Airlines flight was assigned seating so we dutifully found our 5D and 5E seats and tried to make the most of a tight situation...bucket list Life #1 or flying first class should be one of my immediate future goals (lol, immediate & future...that's how committed I am). Anyway, we squeeze in and this palagi lady strolls up talking about how Nahdia's in her seat and where's her bag.

Nahdia: This is my seat

Old Lady: Well then you're in my seat (pointing to the palagi lady in front of us)

Seat Swiper: Oh.

Old Lady: Where's my bag? It was on the seat? 

(Me and Nahdia stare at each other....)

Nahdia: There was no bag here.

(The Old Lady looks at the Seat Swiper, then she looks back at us.)

Old Lady: Is it under the chair?

I'm pretty irritated by now. This lady is acting like we're all inconveniencing her. Excuuuuse me, I'm on vacation. I thought I left all the loud, obnoxious people behind me.

Me: IS IT BLUE?

Old Lady: Yes

Nahdia: Is it an Adidas bag?

Old Lady: Yes. Can you girls move your legs so I can get it.

(We both look at each other. There is no way we're moving so this rude old lady can get into our air-tight row. We did a little/lot of maneuvering to get that cursed bag outta our floor space.)

(Old Lady sits down in her spot and proceeds to gripe at Seat Swiper. Seat Swiper realizes me and my traveling companion are not too happy and tries to smooth things over by saying it looks like we're all having a bad morning. Nope, nope, we weren't and although we were bothered, we didn't let it ruin our morning.)

Dun dun DUUUUUN

How much is the rental car? OMG, I have never spent so much. The insurance was more than the daily rate. Since we spent an outrageous amount on "Kitty" we decided to make the most of our investment.

Meet Kitty...

We logged almost 1300 miles in our six-day trip. Thank you Dollar Rental for your unlimited package, we took about four road trips while we were there. 

So when I read the reviews about our San Jose motel I chalked it up to champagne taste on a beer budget. As we near our Holiday Inn we pass a huge cemetery and ding! ding! ding! I remember one of the complaints was about a cemetery located across the street, that was pretty creepy. Our motel was old and could use some renovations, but hey, it was cheap. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, checking out the local Walmart and generally bumming it in the hotel.

Day Two

It's Saturday!! Time to hit up the San Jose Swap Meet and check out all the great buys!! We joked about how some of the merchandise looked a little like the stuff you see on Storage Wars. A lot of the venders had the same stuff...excuse me, who's your supplier? Nope? Not gonna share? We still walked away with some super nice stuff.

I like to think of myself as a bargain shopper and there are plenty of bargains to be had at the swap meet, but as far as haggling goes...I'm definitely a novice. 

We decided to head out to San Francisco to see what all the hullabaloo is all about. Baloo balooo balooooo =] It is stunning. 

"It's like a roller coaster" "Look at that house! I loooove the architecture." "There's the bridge!!" "Fire Escape...and another one. Fire Escape!!" "Awesome" "Amazing"

These are some of the things we said upon meeting San Francisco, "The city that knows how"

This city knows how to take my breath away, how to be consistently foggy, how to maintain ethnic neighborhoods with distinct smells, sights and flavors. This city knows how to do many things and I feel like we've only gotten to the tip of the iceberg here. We definitely have a repeat trip in mind.

49-mile scenic drive

The views from the Marina are beautiful, but my favorite part of this yet-to-be-completed drive was the Palace of Fine Arts. The detail and majesty of the structure paired with the bordering pond is truly incredible...took my breath away, lol.

I was literally running in and out of the columns trying to video tape and snap pictures of this awe-inspiring tribute to ancient architecture.

 

I cannot neglect to mention the ingenuity of my co-pilot in rigging the gorilla pod to the sun visor and rear view mirror. Those videos are upside down =) but when they're righted, watching them almost feels like a ride simulation. Woot woot! We's gettin' high tech! lol.

Pay the lady! We paid $5 for our first crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge. I honestly don't think the bay bridge gets enough love. It's much longer and it has a tunnel, people! It's cooler than the GGB in my book. *steps off soap box*

We were pooped after completing half of the scenic drive and after a quick bite to eat we hauled it back to San Jose to rest up before a trip to King's Egg Rolls...YUM...and the local stores for some Black Friday madness. Did you know it's about 50 miles from SF to SJ? We probably put almost 200 miles on Kitty that day...way to stretch that dollar! lol.

Day Three

The Lord's day =] We went to church, check! But we left right after they passed the sacrament. We were joking about how our Sunday worship gets shorter and shorter with each vacation. In Washington we stayed for all 3 hours, Vegas was sacrament only and SJ was the actual sacrament only. Okay, maybe that's not a joking matter. The building was pretty interesting. We weren't sure what the engraving on the outside was all about and the actual sacrament hall was humongous, with these weird side cut outs. 

[One thing I absolutely loved about this trip was the opportunity to see a different era and style of architecture than I'm used to seeing in Southern California. I told Nahdia that I love the outside architecture of the buildings, it has character; but I'm not into the "charm" of that old stuff on the inside of a home. Old houses could be haunted, but a new home with an outside patterned after a Victorian home and a modern inside seems like the perfect balance between my desire for character & convenience and my aversion to fantasmas, eek.]

The Lord's day, right? AAAAh, but we went back to the Swap Meet because there were some things we couldn't find anywhere else. We found the Tonga booth! I found the perfect gift for my momma and I'm hoping she can play it off if my idea of perfection doesn't match hers...she's notorious for speaking her mind, lol.

(My family draws names every year so that everyone can get at least one present and so we don't break the bank at Christmas time. When I was 12 or 13 I pulled my mom's name. Armed with my Christmas cash I scoured the store shelves for an appropriate gift. I remembered her saying something about needing a stapler and where is her stapler and why don't we put anything back where we find it? I decided to buy her a stapler. It's exactly what she needed and she wouldn't have to use her own money. This was my idea of the perfect gift and I was excited for her to open it. Imagine my surprise when she opens it and asks me why did I buy this and blah blah blah she doesn't want it. I don't think I have pulled her name since that year, phew...until now. If she doesn't like what I got her this year then I guess I'll try a gift card in the future.)

Oakland Temple!! I have always said that the Oakland temple is my favorite temple because it's the prettiest. It did not disappoint, especially all lit up with Christmas lights =))))) We met some awesome sister missionaries who shared the message of Heavenly Father's Plan for us and took heaps and heaps of photos of the Lord's House.

We also drove out to Sacramento to see Capitol Hill. The impressive building is huge and with a layer of fog it's quite intimidating and creepy.

ONE WAY STREETS - they're confusing and I don't like 'em, just thought I'd share. One way streets and psycho taxi drivers were two of the major dangers of this trip...that and sightseeing instead of paying attention to the road, oops. I didn't realize how much I enjoy sightseeing until I visited Washington--I loved the natural beauty of that state.

Sunday was a pretty long day...church, swap meet, Oakland temple, downtown Oakland, Sacramento, Oakland temple for the lights, Oakland Oracle stadium area and back to SJ. Many many millas that day.

The last half of our trip details to follow...my afternoon power nap is starting to wear off. 

xoxo from the golden state =]

N.California 2011 - Teaser =)