San Francisco #1

Because James and I must be slightly insane, we went to Roswell and Carlsbad on the weekend, came home for Sunday and then flew out Monday morning for San Francisco, CA. I felt slightly unprepared to leave even though we spent some good time cleaning our house so that our friends could stay while their air conditioner was repaired and we were gone. Actually, our house was probably the cleanest it has been in a while... so maybe we're not slightly insane.

In any case, here are some fun pictures:

There are several pictures from San Francisco that I tried to get in at the last moment - I think it was a challenge for myself. Well, this one turned out great! Check out my hair! I had to jump to get in this one and he barely caught me.

We started out in Chinatown since we were craving genuine Chinese food, but FYI, the chinatown culture is more Hong Kong or Southern China than the North stuff that we knew better. The food was still good but James was looking forward to speaking Mandarin but it didn't work. We walked to up to one young guy and started in English and he just shrugged his shoulders at us and so James spoke in Mandarin and the guy went off in Chinese and pointed somewhere so we left. I asked James what the guy said and he didn't know either. Apparently it was Cantonese. Haha! Poor James and poor Chinese guy. They so badly want to communicate but they can't!


This courtyard reminds us a lot of the ones in real China, except for a few things... They play Mahjong in China and not the gambling card games they were playing here. And there are usually a few people playing instruments spread out around and that was missing, too. We also missed the ping pong tables and old people doing Tai Chi. Ok, so they're pretty different apparently, but the idea of gathering in a courtyard in mid-day to enjoy each other's company was the same and that's the part we like the most - regardless of what you do to enjoy that company.


Here are some cool pictures in front of this famous building that I can't remember the name...


But, remember how I said I appreciate when ordinary buildings put the extra decorations up to spice up the scenery? Here is what could have been a very ordinary bush, but they cut it in the shape of the building-whose-name-I-can't-remember-and-am-too-lazy-to-google. There were lots of these bushes. I love the extra touches. That makes or breaks a company for me - especially restaurants and hotels.

Here is a shout-out to all those from small towns who go to college not knowing how to cross a road that has a real street light on it... Here are instructions.

These kids were way too cool. I believe they are playing electric ukeleles. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure. And check out their sign! I am so much more inclined to donate to honest kids like these who just want to buy surfboards than I am to the other people who may or may not really be in need and offer no skills in return for my donation. I love their ambition!
We lived in the San Francisco area for a summer during college while James did a summer-sales internship. And we came to San Francisco on July 4th that summer just like we did this year. And for the life of us, we cannot remember some very important details. Like why we didn't stay for the fireworks... how we got there... who was with us... So, everything seemed a bit familiar and surreal but not familiar enough to jog our memories. See why blogging or journaling is so important? (I keep learning this lesson...)


Here is this very famous pier of which I don't remember the number... I guess I'm not a great tourist because I can't remember most of the famous things we saw. Sad. However, we did find the coolest parking garage close to Chinatown and the bay. No, I don't remember it's name or the exact location but every parking spot had a fortune (like you'd find in your fortune cookie) painted on it. So wherever you parked, that was your fortune. One said, "Someday you won't be here." I liked that one. Very true.

I didn't know this existed last time I lived in San Fran and so we had to stop there this time to try the things out. Sadly, since I've been raised in a right-handed world, I'm pretty used to right handed things, and most of the left-handed gadgets in this store felt way too weird to actually use in real life, but it was fun to try it all out.

We stopped and watched a magician of sorts on the street for a while. He was pretty entertaining so we donated five dollars after his show which meant I "earned" a magic trick and so here I am on stage learning how to do the magic card trick with the rest of the kids. Haha!

I bought the coolest finger nail polish at a store called Del Sol. They have t-shirts, hair things, pencils, and more cool stuff and all of their products start out white and change colors in the sun. So I bought a few finger nail polishes of which will come up in future posts but the sales guy made James carry my purchases in the nice white bag that turned pink-purple in the sun! Haha! Poor James! Also, here he is standing in front of Alcatraz.

And here I am again on that pier-of-unknown-number. By the way, I was freezing! These are all pictures from the Monday we flew in and my cousin had told me how unusually hot it has been all summer so I didn't pack any pants or long sleeved shirts. I forgot that one, San Francisco heat is not the same as New Mexico heat, and two, on the bay like this, it's never hot. So I was being very cat-like and soaking up the sun at every possible minute until we finally broke down and bought a sweatshirt for me as a souvenir.

Here's a performer on the street much like they had in Spain when I was there in Barcelona. I'm not sure if I'm biased or not but the Spain performers were better although the costumes were much the same. Still pretty fun to see people dressed up so entirely and doing something crazy in public...

Ok, another story from our previous stay in San Fran. We rode a trolley car that first summer and San Francisco has something like 43 hills or some other ridiculous number so the trolley goes up and down hills often. Well, on a downhill portion, James said to me, "Eeza! Put your hands in the air!" and we happened to be standing right behind the trolley guy. He turned around with the most angry mad-dog face we've seen and hollered, "You hang on!" ...or something with that same message... Haha! Apparently he hasn't seen the movie. So, we took pictures with the trolley rules and James since he got in trouble last time.

Here I am being artistic, sort of. I just really liked how the lighting was reflected in my sun glasses to look like eyes. Fun, huh? This would make a fun chalk or pastel drawing if I were still in art classes.


This is me hopping in another picture before James knew what I was doing. The picture was supposed to be of these great parkers who know how to correctly park their car on hills. James' brother happened to be taking driver's ed at the time we were here so we took this one for him. I got in it thinking that only my head was in the picture... Guess not.

I do remember the name of Lombard street! We walked down it instead of driving - we did that last time already and there's a several-hour wait just to drive down Lombard street on July 4th. We talked to a police officer on our way down though and he was way nice! To be honest, I don't know if we ever talked to anyone not nice in San Fran at any point of our being there. They're just nice people. He told us there was an accident on Lombard Street earlier that day where a guy hit the gas instead of the brake and hit a toddler who was walking down Lombard. At that point, we decided to not linger on the road at the turning points... Just seemed like a bad idea.
I can't imagine living on Lombard Street. They pay probably millions of dollars for their tiny townhouses and then have people walking and driving through their front yards constantly almost year round. How would that be, really?
Um, are these amazing flowers or what? This is more color than Rio Rancho has in the whole town. I love it!

As James and I were walking back towards the bay, I saw this random tower and so we walked to it and it turned out to be part of an art school and this is their courtyard. We wandered through the property like secret agents because we weren't sure if we were allowed or not. But it was a beautiful school!

Here is another building that has the extra added touch, but this one is amazing! Check out the painted window sills and murals on these buildings!

It's not a real vacation without a picture of some inanimate smiling object, and a pirate is perfect!

And here is my art history class coming out, but check out this very cool church! I wanted to go in but it was closed. Sad. Next time I guess! By the end of this day, James' step counter said 18,000-something steps. My feet were SO tired!
We did get to tour Stanford University later in the week and guess what we found? Check out the buildings James is standing in front of. Fun, huh?


He did enjoy this part. We had walked all over campus already though and my feet were killing me so instead of walking back to these buildings, we parked illegally to get these pictures for about five minutes and then ran back to the car in hopes that they hadn't ticketed, booted, or towed it yet. (Colleges do this we've learned.) But, all was well.