The San Fran Trip, more details and a few graphics

Here are some day by day highlights of the trip. Trust me, there's more to tell but you'll just have to ask me.

Saturday, July 1--travel to San Francisco via Vancouver

Had some problems finding customs in the Vancouver airport. Would have missed my connecting flight if not for the fact that one of the flight attendants called in sick and they had to wait for a replacement to show up. I figured the girl was probably feeling pretty icky, but I was quite grateful for whatever bug had invaded her system.

Went out for dinner then drinks and had an early night in. I was pretty tired.

Sunday, July 2--road trip to Carmel and Monterey

Rounded up Adam and Mike and drove to Carmel (where Clint Eastwood was once mayor apparently) and Monterey for the Aquarium. The drive there was beautiful. We had lunch in Carmel. I had the best lemon chicken rice soup ever. We pre-ordered dessert which was a very large warm cookie with ice cream and chocolate sauce. That was a lot of cookie.

I just noticed something as I look more closely at this picture. Going clockwise from the left we have Vince's hand, then Adam's, then Mike's and then Vince's again!

We ended up eventually at the aquarium. Vince is the king of negotiating extra discounts so we got in for student prices plus $5.00 off with my coupon (I thought I was good with finding coupons, but Vince can even go beyond those). I saw penguins! I also saw a lot of big fish.

Monday, July 3--road trip to Napa

This is the day I met Mark. He road in the car with Adam, Vince and I to Napa for wine tasting. At first I thought he was funny because he was tipsy, but no, he's pretty funny all the time. We sampled in total 25 wines (including the bottle we had at dinner). After dinner we headed to the Silverado Golf and Country Club for fireworks. We actually sat on the fairway of the first hole. It felt a bit wrong.

Tuesday, July 4--Trip to the city

Adam, Mark, Vince and I took a trip into the actual city of San Francisco. We started off at the zoo where I saw penguins. I really really wanted to take one home with me. After the zoo we went to the beach so I could collect some sand and put my feet in the very cold ocean water. The beach was not very pretty. After that we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge and walked over. Finally, we found our way to Fisherman's Warf, met up with some other people and watched a fantastic 4th of July fireworks show. I think this day and the Napa day tie for my favourite experience. I'd buy another ticket to California just to live those days over again.

Wednesday, July 5 (I realized this date marked exactly 5 months until my 25th birthday, which I thought would mean it would be a happy lucky day, but it didn't quite feel that way)

Vince dropped me off at the Stanford mall, a posh place with stores such as Abercrombie, Sephora, Victoria's Secret and Nine West. I was having some difficulty in finding things to buy, so finally, with 30 minutes to spare before Vince would pick me up I just grabbed things. Vince took me to Google for a tour and the highly reputed lunch. Adam and Mark guilted Vince into bringing me back for supper too (thanks guys). The best part of that day was watching Mark and Vince skip down a sidewalk with incredible enthusiasm at my request and then playing in the ball pit with them. It was a cool day, but I was also very aware that I was going home soon and not quite ready to leave.

Thursday, July 6--Home time

I was quite anxious about taking the Caltrain and the BART all by myself. Mostly I was concerned about lugging my suitcase around and about getting lost. I made Vince write down explicit instructions for me. Getting onto the Caltrain was difficult with my luggage, but thankfully a large Hispanic man assisted me. I got my BART ticket fine and went to go through the gates but I did it wrong (I tried to go in the wrong side) so then I had to go see the man upstairs (not THE Man Upstairs, just a ticketing agent) who took pity on me and let me go through the emergency exit to get to my platform. That's right, I was an EMERGENCY. The signs said the next ride was for SFO/Dublin, which concerned me a bit because I didn't think I wanted to go to Dublin. I was reassured by a lady on the train and I did in fact make it to the airport.

Sat down on the plane going to Calgary. The first thing I noticed about the guy who sat next to me was that he was carrying a Luna Bar (it's a fancy energy bar that Googlers get for free at work). I sighed. For crying out loud, would I never leave those Googlers behind? Turns out he was a friend of a Googler (we should have an official name like Gpals or something). His name was Nathan. He went to the Oz Fest concert in Mountain View.

After some recalculations I found that I was actually over my spending limit by $30. No matter, customs just wagged their finger at me, told me not to do it again and sent me on my way. No duty charged!

Arrived in Calgary and upon entering the airport lobby I was lassoed and branded (with a stamp, not a real hot iron). Unfortunately the guy with the rope was not a hot cowboy, but I was honored just the same. It is Stampede time there, the whole city is nuts. There were a lot of cowboy hats. A LOT.

I finally got to board my plane and then they announced that we will be delayed because it is thundering out. I looked outside my window and see that my luggage is on the cart getting soaked and NOBODY is going to look after it until the storm passes. To make things more frustrating, there was an empty cart behind this one and it had a plastic cover on it.

We were stuck on the tarmac for almost 2 hours. They tried to soothe us with water and a package of Oreo cookies. Once we finally got going the kids behind me were chatty and constantly kicking my seat. I came home a rather tired and cranky girl. My suitcase isn't too wet, a few random things got the worst of it. The wettest are two pairs of socks. Not bad I suppose. I was very concerned about my post cards.

Sigh. It feels like it was all dream.