Surprisingly not as over packed as I imagined, my first stop was San Francisco! I had a nice easy flight to SF where I was picked up by my cousins and was spoiled for the whole trip - with my own private tour guides. I had expected wind and cold nights but didn't need my extra jacket for any of the trip - the weather was unbelievable!
You think after all the traveling I've done I wouldn't be surprised to see how different the other side of the country was, but I hadn't really thought about SF too much. Everything looks different - the colors of the whole city are brighter and the landscape is completely different from Boston - with palm trees and even the occasional cactus - something I imagined in Southern Cali instead. It was great to really feel far from home - and get me into the travel mode.
My first full day there we took a walk to the Golden Gate Park through the botanical gardens and ended at the De Young museum. Cathy and I had planned to take a quick look in the observatory but instead got caught in a Chihuly exhibit - a strange modern art exhibit of colorful hand blown glass. But it didn't take us long to walk through and end up eating lunch and sipping wine in the cafe! We met my aunt Germaine and cousin for dinner at the old ferry terminal downtown and took the night from there. All in all it ended with cable cars, sundaes, seals, and mini bottles of Sutter Home - I don't know if you would consider the last point good or bad :)
The next day I was determined to see the seals at Pier 39 in the sun. We started off at the Golden Gate Bridge which is really amazing to see in real life. When you walk across it you have a great view of the city as well. We headed to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch and then hung out with the seals, who are hilarious (Cathy is probably shaking her head when she reads this). For dinner we went to Germaine's house in Walnut Creek. We moved the table onto the patio (there are no mosquitos!!) and had a perfect night. In the middle of dinner there was a loud crack and the table began to shake back and forth - it was probably no more than 10seconds - I didn't process what had happened even after Germaine had yelled "earthquake!" If it had been any longer I would have been running to hide under door frames like Bostonian's are taught. It was so exciting to have an earthquake, in a twisted way!
The rest of the weekend included more wine, a look at the surfers, hippie parties in the park, the zoo, and free tickets to the SF Symphony! I couldn't have asked for a better way to start of my trip, even getting some fog on my last day!
