A Little More San Fran

Monday July 11^th –

With J&J off work for the day, we split up guys and girls with the guys on a fishing expedition and the girls off to shopping and massages.  John and Nate drove to a (supposedly) stocked lake near Dublin, but were unable to hook a single fish after 3 hours of casting.  Later, they came back for lunch and more Stratego before heading to a tiny creek minutes from their apartment.  It was there, after about 10 minutes that they were finally able to catch some fish, and return with their pride intact.  Jackie and I enjoyed sleeping in, and having girl time for the rest of the day.  We browsed through the Livermore mall and had delicious salads for lunch before our massages.  Neither one of us had had a massage in a very long time, so they felt heavenly. 

For the evening, we all had a date with Nate’s friend from high school, Kyle Knutson, at Google.  It was great to see Kyle again and he seems to be enjoying his work at Google while living in the best climate in the world, in Palo Alto, CA.  Surprising that he would be enjoying that, right?

Kyle and Nate

Google has an impressive campus, or rather, several campuses, where they keep their employees well fed with snack stations on every floor and three full meals a day if they choose.  Nate also enjoyed riding the weird Google bikes, parked throughout the campus for employees to ride between buildings. After Google, Kyle took us on a quick tour of downtown Palo Alto before we had to say goodbye.  The 4 of us then headed down the road to Stanford’s campus to walk around and enjoy the beautiful quiet campus.  We loved being silly and laughing with J&J just like we did on our own Illinois campus a few years ago. 

With J&J heading back to work on Tuesday morning, we headed back out to Dublin to drop them off before we drove back into the city to pick up Brian, my brother, from the airport!
 

Tuesday July 12 –

Near the San Francisco Wharf

I loved the wood wall they had at the restaurant!

With only one day left in San Fran and J&J back to work, Nate, Brian and I took BART (we were scolded for calling it “The BART” and won’t make that mistake again J), the train, into the city.  We walked down the piers to enjoy some of the best strawberries we’ve ever had from the farmer’s market. The Clam Chowder at No. 8  on The Wharf was also incredible!  The Wharf is a crazy mix of tourism, homeless  people, street performers and delicious seafood smells.   One of the street performers we saw was dressed in a clown outfit and playing the trumpet while his pet bunny ate garbage off the street around him.  Quite comical.  J&J said there’s a homeless man called Bush Man who frequents the Wharf.  He simply hides behind some branches he tied together and jumps out at unsuspecting tourists to scare them.  His scares can be found on YouTube as he’s become quite famous now. Unfortunately, we didn’t see him.   

After the wharf and some free chocolate from Ghiradelli Square again, this time with Brian, we took the trolley cars to Union Square.  John, who had been working in the city, was supposed to pick us up there and told us that he’d meet us at Union Square to take us back to Dublin.



 Apparently while we were waiting in the long line for the trolley car, he snuck into the area and ended up following us in the trolley car all the way to Union Square.  We were completely oblivious to his presence, though, as we were transfixed on the views and holding on tightly to stay on the trolley.  He had a good laugh when he picked us up! 

We spent our last night at Jackie and John’s with Brian, eating a mishmash meal of spaghetti, hummus and chips, pizza, and wine, of course.  All very yummy! 

Nate and I were so glad to spend such a long visit with J&J to catch up and hear about their lives since they’ve moved to Cali.  We’ve missed their friendship and hope that we’ll be able to stay close friends, 
especially if they move back to the Midwest in the next couple of years!