About a month ago we took a little holiday back to where this blog began, San Francisco. IAC was heading back for the UBI Conference and I just went along. Who knows, the next UBI conference is at UIUC so we could make this an annual event.
Our flights to SFO were largely uneventful but it is getting harder to adjust to the time change, I must be getting old. We planned our holiday around all the food and restaurants we wanted to eat and visit and so we were met at the airport by D&D with garlic fries, Beard Papa cream puffs, and a trip to In-N-Out for some animal style burgers. It was a good start to the trip.
We stayed with S&G for a couple of nights while we adjusted to the time change and caught up with old friends P&S (at La Morenita, recommend the chips/salsa and the burrito supreme). The seven of us then went south to Cupertino for dinner at A&J (recommend the beef noodle soup and scallion pancakes). Somewhere in the day we reconnected with Stanford and saw all the new buildings including the small village that suddenly appeared. In the words of Ox, “Everything is different, but the same… things are more moderner than before… bigger, and yet smaller… it’s computers…”
Thursday was the day jet lag or the American diet hit me. I wasn’t feeling that well as I packed our things up from S&G’s and picked IAC up after her meetings at Stanford. I struggled on, there were calories to ingest and saturated fats to consume. From Stanford we drove north to San Francisco to chat with A about his job at a startup in the city. As we looked for metered parking I got a little nostalgic for the parking “chaos” of Aberystwyth. Things I learned from A: it is hard to share 1 male and 1 female bathroom among 60-80 employees, people actually own Segways, and NDAs have got a little out of hand.
Dinner that night was at Osha Thai (recommend the Thai ice tea that you can’t get in the UK) with my cousin and her family. We missed seeing them earlier in the Autumn in Toronto, so we are glad we caught up here. Things are well with the girls and the after dinner stroll brought us to the outdoor ice rink and Occupy San Francisco.
After saying goodbye we crossed the bridge to stay with our newly married friends F&C and their new dog P. On Friday I dropped IAC off at the conference but not before stopping at Great Harvest Bread Co. (recommend the oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies) for some breakfast and snacks. Lunch turned into a late lunch/mid afternoon meal at La Note in Berkeley (IAC recommends the omelette) and a great opportunity to catch up with my old co-worker S. A also made the journey in from Davis just to see us too. Too bad a grant deadline kept her from sticking around longer. Also, my plans to say hi to people back at UCB were foiled by the Veteran’s Day holiday on campus.
IAC booked us into the National Holistic Institute for massages. My guy was fantastic and I felt so great afterward. From the bliss of a massage to the bliss of a happy tummy we, F&C and our friend from South Bay P, braved the rain for dinner at Burma Superstar (highly recommend the tea leaf salad and samosa soup). Watching the salad prep and tasting the first spoonful of the soup brought back many happy memories and made me tear up just a little.
Our last full day in the Bay Area found us back in the South Bay (thanks for the room P) and the morning was spent shopping. We raided Trader Joe’s (recommend the TJ’s red salsa), Ross for a new suitcase after I broke the handle on one of other ones the day before the trip, Safeway, and Costco. Ah, the American dream…buying 6 lbs. of Ghirardelli brownie mix.
For lunch we met back up with D&D for our last burrito at Pancho Villa (recommend any burrito) in San Mateo. It wasn’t the Mission one, but considering my last burritos were eaten in Oxford and Copenhagen, I am not going to complain.
Our last big event, one could even say grand finale, was getting IAC, me and 28 of our closest SF friends together for dinner at Little Sichuan (recommend anything with ma la in the name). We had a great time seeing everyone and catching up after being away for three years.
It was and seemed like a very short trip but we are grateful to still have so many friends who care about us and were willing to see us. To all of you, thank you.
