Upon arriving into San Francisco, we decided to check out Fisherman's Wharf. It was, how you say, cold. I had no idea that the city would be that chilly. We wandered around aimlessly without really an idea of where we were going to stay. There was an old game place we checked out...a submarine...and then we drove around for awhile looking for the perfect coffee shop, which in the end turned out to be Starbucks. Damn you Starbucks. There was literally two within the block from one another. That's just _________. While relaxing at this lovely little place, Auren received a call from his cousin and we had a place to stay...ahhhhh! So, it was off to Albany, which is right outside of Berkeley. They were super nice and welcomed us in and we all had a place to sleep (couch, air mattress, and pull out bed!) So, we set our things done, got cleaned up and went out on the town...this was fun. The first bar we went to didn't serve liquor, which isn't really our type of going out vibe, so naturally we had to make our way to a new bar. The kind of bar that serves long islands that seriously only have a splash of Coke. All it took was one of these and we were feeling good...Also, we may or may not have -we most definitely did- shotgun beers before evening going to the first bar. Janssen and I helped to introduce Auren to this wonderful experience. It was even better since it was warm! This concluded our first night in San Francisco.
When we woke up the next morning-we had predicted it would be 7 am, but ended up being more like 1130- and had no real plans. This turned into us exploring Berkeley and enjoying People's Park. What a wonderful place that is. Go read up on it and you'll see why it is so cool.
While we were there we talked with some people who help manage the park and helped a local guy with a puzzle he was working on. It's funny to work on puzzles with people, because you end up learning different organizational skills of people. The way their brain works when they are forced to take a cluster of objects and make them form something complete. It was just an interesting thing to observe as everyone tried to help. After this we made our way to Peet's coffee shop. Here we spent hours upon hours reading, writing, updating and just hanging around. Upon leaving the store we made a mistake. Not the biggest mistake, well actually, in retrospect, it was a great thing. We entered a book store. Now, the funny thing about books is that all four of us are completely in love with them. To the point that it's getting a little sick and wrong. Auren has a small library in the trunk of the car. I'm not kidding. So, you can see why us entering a bookstore (not just any bookstore, but a used one!) would be a little bit unneccesary. We didn't go overboard, but we did buy books. I got a personality book, which has been a long discussion ever since. Janssen bought a book called Cunt and that has really opened her eyes/mouth/brain. I'm about to read it next, so I'll let you know how that goes. Auren bought like four books and I'm still not sure if he's made it around to reading any of them...I shall ask when he awakens from his manly slumber. Okay, that covers the book aspect, now on to dinner.
Dinner was so fabulous it gets its own paragraph and you know how I feel about paragraphs. Auren has an Uncle Mark living in SanFran who invited us over for dinner. Lovely in general, but Mark and Norma were awesome. They were the nonjudgemental type...guiders..advice givers...like they've been there and this is what they have to say about it, but not like they are trying to sway how you live our life. Really awesome adults :) We talked with them for a bit before dinner and had a discussion about how hot it really is in Death Valley. They pulled out some maps and showed us where it is and the surrounding places such as, but not limited to Devil's Hole and Funeral Mountains. How exquisite? After this we were off to a place called Chow's. It was a great local spot. There was no corking fee for the wine and the food was moderately priced. The food was amazing...there was....calamari, potstickers (wooo!), ribs, pasta, and thai food. Very diverse and well done. We all had a fabulous dinner and great wine with even better conversation. We learned about wine and how the couple met, which was fairytale-eque. After becoming buzzed and bloated we went back to their place for an after dinner drink and smoke. Mark and Norma were incredibly hospitable, sweet, and seemed like the positive type of mentor anyone can use in their life. I'm grateful I was given the opportunity to meet them and share time with one another.
The next day we went out the Muir woods, which has redwood trees, which are huge. Very large trees. Very old, large trees. It was interesting and cool to see. The next place we went to was Mount Tamalpais. It was at this mountain that Auren's mother went years earlier and it told her to go and meet up with his dad and make a baby. Thus, Auren. After our adventure here, we went back to SanFran and to Haight and Ashbury. Here we just walked around and looked at some stores. The boys had some amazing crepes at a store...Mmmmm so gooood. Also, we got stopped by some guy who was on drugs, but really fun. He was from Ann Arbor, which is where the boys are from so he was telling them all sorts of things...Just an interesting conversation and at the end of it, he asked if we wanted some LSD...we didn't. Then we traveled around to the Castro district and then couldn't find a store so we ended up at a coffee shop, which was a nice little place. We spent more hours at a coffee shop. Our adventure out ended with us getting food at a pizza place (auren had a sandwich) and then back to cousin tommy's for some discussion before bed.
Our next day would be marked by driving...lots of driving...Here we come Vegas!
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