beach trip ‘15

I broke my two-month break from fast food with breakfast from Taco Bell on our drive to the Outer Banks. And I liked it.

from Twiddy’s website

Last week we headed to Corolla, N.C. to spend the week with my family — my parents, my older sister Katie and her husband Todd, and my older brother John-Michael and his wife Sky. JM and Sky live in South Korea and we usually only see them once a year. I loved chatting on the beach with Sky and screaming “it’s a big one!” with my brother as we ducked under waves like we did when we were kids.

We also had the pups with us — our dog, Casey, and my parent’s dog, Ellie. They happily spent the week chasing sand crabs, kissing squealing children, running into the water and flopping down under the umbrella for a snooze.

My little companion. I love her so!

I re-discovered my love for tennis last week. I don’t remember playing legit tennis since I took lessons when I was twelve. Our house was steps away from a tennis court, and we all had a blast hitting around and playing doubles. We laughed over how one of our rackets is so old it was made in West Germany!

Andy told me on the drive down that he was going to take me out one evening for a date. We went to The Crafty Cow for dinner (Jeopardy was on!) and played mini golf afterwards. I’m still thinking about the loaded tots we had... they had grits on them, of all things! But they were fabulous.

I was pregnant with Jane when we were at the beach last year, and the week after our vacation was when she died. I was understandably a little nervous about how I’d do on vacation this year, considering. I set as much of my grief aside as I could and chose to focus on the many blessings I do have. Now that I’m home, much of what I pushed deep down has come up and I know I have to let myself process these feelings, as painful as they are. There really isn’t an easy time of year anymore, because every season is tied up with different emotions and memories, but summer is especially hard.

God has answered and continues to answer my prayers for moments of relief from my sorrow. I’m grateful our beach trip was one I truly enjoyed, and that the following months hold cookouts, reunions with dear friends, new design projects and lots of summer reading.

Innsbruck and Munich

HEY-O, I’m finally re-capping the rest of my trip from two months ago! Better late than never, right? We started in Vienna, made our way to Salzburg, on to Innsbruck, and finally, Munich! I wrote about our first two stops here.

A few highlights from Innsbruck:

We had a beautiful train ride to the city center of Innsbruck, where a taxi picked us up and drove us across the river to our bed and breakfast. Our room had a lovely view of the city below. Unfortunately, we only got glimpses of the Alps because of the overcast skies. (Those glimpses were spectacular, though!) We went from staying in the Presidential Suite of our hotel in Salzburg to cozying up in a one room, cabin-like space, but I actually loved it!

On our first night we walked toward the city center in pursuit of dinner, and landed on a tucked-away restaurant called “Piano Bar.” The three of us shared a bowl of goulash, a potato cake topped with spinach and a fried egg, and wiener schnitzel that was served with a side of shredded potatoes and cooked cranberries. The restaurant’s walls were covered in art and there were candles glowing and flowers on every table. The manager came by and chatted with us for a long time and made us feel like family. I would have stayed inside the restaurant for hours gazing at all of the art, but there were markets to explore outside!

After dinner we walked through a few Christmas markets and saw more Krampus. (Here’s a video of them in Innsbruck.) They were doing some crazy drum circle dance thing and everyone was crowded around and taking videos. I was hoping I’d find a video from that night on YouTube, but just trust me that it was INSANE. It was also freezing, and we had to stop in a café for hot chocolate. You know how if you travel to Italy you have free pass to eat your weight in gelato? That’s how we felt about hot drinks in Austria.

The next day we went into town to buy tickets for the funicular, which takes you up the Nordkette mountain range. This is a MUST DO in Innsbruck! We stopped at Seegrube, where we were handed free sleds! Somebody pinch me. We kept saying we’re in the Alps! We had lunch (a cheese-filled hot dog for me, thank you very much) and then continued up the mountain. We stopped at a zoo on our way back down before going back to the city center to shop around and eat dinner. We couldn’t not go back to Piano Bar after our incredible meal there the night before. My family is in strong agreement over the idea of going to the same restaurant more than once on vacation. It makes you feel less like a tourist.

The next morning we had a few hours to kill before hopping on the train to Munich. We went back up the funicular as far as we could go (our passes ran out while we were there!) and got into a snowball fight. My sister hit me smack in the face! That’s what happens when you travel with someone for eleven days... just kidding! :)

The photo above was taken outside of the Seegrube Restaurant. Notice how foggy it is and how you can’t see any view (despite the fact that we were up in the Alps). If you have 15 seconds, click here and go to 1:45 to see what we were missing. CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THAT? We are going back, for sure!

A few highlights from Munich:

We dropped our bags off at our hotel and headed toward the pedestrian shopping area between Stachus and Marienplatz. After mostly cloudy weather, we were delighted to have sunshine and gorgeous blue skies. In most of my Austria pictures you can’t even really see sky... you just see white!

The best part of our first day in Munich was our dinner. We were browsing one of the many Christmas markets and decided to make a meal of two huge pieces of buttery, piping hot garlic bread (okay, we essentially ate an entire loaf), some type of pork on a skewer and a massive cup of french fries smothered in “special sauce.” Then Katie and I topped off our carb-a-licious dinner with a mug of weihnachtspunsch (hot booze), which held us over for a little while until we spotted a Kürtőskalács stand. (Hungarian chimney cake — sweet dough wrapped around a heated rod and rolled in various toppings.)

The next morning we walked back to the same area and had breakfast at Café Rischart. I declared I was going to stop eating SO MUCH BREAD and then my breakfast arrived with five pieces of bread. I ate four of them. :-/ I had ordered the “American” breakfast because it came with bacon and eggs. It also came with a stick of gum. ??? After breakfast we explored the Christmas market in front of the Rathaus (Town Hall) and viewed the famous Munich glockenspiel.

Our main purpose in visiting Munich was to visit an old friend of ours. Philipp came to the U.S. as a high school exchange student and stayed with a family in our neighborhood. We got to know him well and he’s stayed in touch over the years and has visited us every now and then. This was our first time meeting Philipp in his home country! He insisted we try traditional Bavarian fare for lunch at Hofbräuhaus, a three-story beer hall founded in 1589. I had sauerbraten, which sounded gross but was actually very tasty.

It was an absolutely amazing trip. The Christmas markets were magical!

Also, I ate goulash at least six times.


some more pics, if you’d like to see... most are on Facebook

my favorite meal of our trip - at Piano Bar

our first night at Piano Bar

sledders on the Alps

enjoying the view of the Alps at the highest viewpoint on Nordkette... :-/

the view from our room

Munich’s Rathaus, site of the glockenspiel

HOT DRINKS

reunited with Philipp! 

heading to lunch at Hofbräuhaus

Vienna and Salzburg

I had a heated discussion with Andy about the meaning of continental Europe before I left. I’ve been to Europe before (I studied abroad in Ireland and went on a family vacation in London), but I said something about it being my first time in continental Europe and Andy nearly choked on his coffee. It’s all continental Europe, he said, laughing at me. I’m right, though! Hear that, babe? I’M RIGHT.

Back in August my parents told us we wouldn’t be doing a big family trip in 2015 like we had all hoped. Miss “I’ve got the travel bug” over here was really disappointed. Then, one day in October, my sister called and told me knew how bummed I was that we weren’t doing a trip. She mentioned the Christmas markets in Austria and how mom thought it would be fun to do that for her 60th birthday and take us girls, so... did I want to go? I burst into tears. Wait, what? THIS Christmas? A few days later, our tickets were purchased. It was crazy, I tell ya! I was so overwhelmed by it all that I kept the news mostly to myself for a while. 

Anyway, on to the trip! There is so much to share, but I’ll stick to things that stand out in my memory and share more little details in personal conversation.

Our first stop was Vienna. We arrived the morning of Dec. 2nd and stayed until midday Dec. 4th. We then stayed in Salzburg for three nights before heading to Innsbruck on Sunday, the 7th.

A few highlights from Vienna:



If you stand on any street and spin around slowly, you’ll take in at least one incredibly ornate building or beautiful park or crazy statue. OR all three. Vienna was simply glorious. Walking down each street felt like a new adventure! There were lots of skinny alleyways with shops tucked inside and cafes everywhere. 

We had great goulash and wiener schnitzel in Vienna, but my favorite meal was at a tiny Italian restaurant called Cantinetta La Norma. A friend of ours had been there and recommended it, and we weren’t let down. I also loved the hot dog we had outside of St. Stephens. The vendor took a baguette, skewered it with a rod, squirted mustard and ketchup inside the middle and then shoved a long skinny hot dog down into hot, sauce-y bread. (Is it just me or does that sound like a violent way to make a hot dog?) Well, it was fabulous. My sister ate at that same hot dog stand five years ago and had been dreaming of it ever since. I can see why!

Part of the fun of being in Europe in the winter was seeing everyone all bundled up and sporting cute boots. People were out and about at all times of day and night and every glühwein stand was PACKED.  ’Twas all very cozy. :)

A quick rundown of what we did (not in chronological order): walked in, around and on top of St. Stephens, explored multiple Christmas markets, listened to a opera soloist accompanied by a harpist at the beautiful Vienna State Opera, viewed training of the famous Lipizzaner stallions and walked through the grounds at Belvedere palace.

A few highlights from Salzburg:



The coolest thing about Salzburg is seeing the fortress/castle everywhere you go. Unless of course, you’re inside the fortress, and then you have an incredible view of the city and surrounding countryside. We were in Salzburg for three nights and we went up to the fortress three times. On our first night we took the funicular up and we practically had the whole place to ourselves. The next day we walked through the city and up to the castle. It was a steep walk. We spent a good chunk of time walking through the various rooms, checking out the little Christmas market inside the castle and doing an audio tour (which was actually really good). On our last day we walked to the castle by crossing the river and taking a path over the Mönchsberg mountain. I would definitely recommend making that hike if you’re in Salzburg!

As if being in picturesque Salzburg wasn’t dreamy enough, we were upgraded from our perfectly lovely and large junior-King suite to THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE. It had a doorbell. And a huge flatscreen in the master bathroom. And a dining room table. We also had access to the hotel’s VIP lounge, where we could eat and drink whenever we so pleased. Free beer on tap. Champagne at the ready. THE best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. Plus, we were served by a really sweet girl who snuck us snacks out of the kitchen just to make our stay even more delightful. My mom asked her where the hotel bought their stollen and she brought out a box for us to take home, on the house. She also introduced us to Nic-Nacs, crispy-coated peanuts that quickly became my new snack obsession. It’s embarrassing how many bags of peanuts I stuffed into my suitcase...

One night we ran into a group of TERRIFYING costumed creatures that we later found out were Krampus. (The server I mentioned told us she was afraid to walk home after work because the Krampus scare her so much. Kind of like this.) Thankfully, none of us were whipped!

Other than exploring the castle, we also walked up and down the streets of the Old City and did a bit of shopping, lots of Christmas-marketing, walking inside churches with our heads back and mouths open, checking out Mirabell Gardens and devouring the best apple strudel at Café Tomaselli (the oldest operating coffee house in Austria). We also took a bus to the Christmas Market in Hellbrunn, just outside of Salzburg. (Notice the Advent markings on the windows.)

Oh, and WE WENT ICE SKATING! In SALZBURG! Somebody pinch me.

a few more pics...

Boston: round 3

I fell in love with Boston when I first visited my friend Becca there in September of 2011. It’s been quite a year for big-city traveling: New York, San Francisco, Boston, and next month, Atlanta! 

Boston - 2011 (we look like babies!)

Boston - 2012

Boston - 2014

Saturday: We had our traditional breakfast in Somerville, but this time I suggested we try Ball Square Cafe, the restaurant next door to the one we’ve eaten at in the past. Our breakfast came with a grilled blueberry muffin. YUM. A blueberry muffin is pretty much perfection as is, but grilled? Even better! After breakfast we drove to Concord to read on the “beach” at Walden Pond and explore the downtown area. We popped by Louisa May Alcott’s childhood home and I made all of my Little Women-loving friends jealous by posting this picture of Orchard House on Instagram. Walden Pond was gorgeous, and I envy Becca’s ability to see it in the fall! There were a fair amount of people hanging out on the beach and taking a swim in the pond. We had good intentions to read our books, but we ended up chatting and people watching the whole time. :)

We sipped on delicious coffee at Haute Coffee (sitting on this adorable settee, of course) and popped in a few shops before heading back to Becca’s apartment to make dinner and unwind. She made panko-crusted salmon, cous cous and roasted brussel sprouts. I ate like there was no tomorrow! After dinner we ate brownies in bed (so girly!) and read.

Sunday: I woke up before Becca and snuck into her kitchen to make coffee and cookie butter on toast. Her apartment was deliciously chilly from having the windows open, and I found a spot of sunshine on the couch that was just begging for my attention. It was the most perfect start to the day! We eventually got ourselves ready for the day and headed into Boston for brunch with Bilal (a mutual friend from high school), Becca’s boyfriend Mario and Mario’s brother. If you ever find yourself at Zocalo for brunch, I highly recommend the huevos divorciados.

I met Becca and Bilal in biology class our freshman year of high school, and we’ve been friends ever since. (Anyone reading this from that bio class? Such a great group of people!) Laughing with them was good for my soul. After brunch, the three of us strolled through the Public Garden, got our butts wet on Boston Common and chatted over fries at Trident Booksellers & Cafe. Then us gals got pedicures and headed to the North End to Becca’s favorite restaurant—Pomodoro. It’s a tiny, romantic little restaurant right across the street from Mike’s Pastry shop. Becca had the seafood fra diavolo and I had the baked cod. The owner gave us complimentary calamari and tiramisu. AH, TAKE ME BACK! And, of course, I picked up a lobster tail pastry at Modern Pastry.

There were only two of these printed-name necklaces on display at a shop on Charles Street.
How crazy/cool is it that the two names happened to be Rebecca and Laura?!

Monday: Becca took me to Charles Street, where we explored some stores before resting and admiring our toes in the park. Then we lunched on some fabulous pizza at OTTO in Coolidge Corner before meeting Bilal in Harvard Square. We hung out on Harvard Yard and I reminded them about “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, a book we all read in 12th grade that is set in Cambridge. We chatted the afternoon away until it was time for me to pack up and head to the airport.

Honestly, I was really worried about going to Boston. My current struggles with social anxiety and feeling overwhelmed easily makes having plans a bit risky, emotionally. Also, I’ve been very clingy with Andy since losing Jane. I was the same way after John died. I wasn’t sure how I’d do spending four nights away from home (two in Northern Virginia before and after my flights, and two in Boston.) BUT, at the same time, I was desperate to get away from this house of tears! I e-mailed Becca ahead of time and requested a low-key weekend, and thankfully it all went well and I was able to have fun. Unfortunately, all of the sad emotions I pushed aside over the weekend came tumbling out the minute I got home, and the rest of the week was a crying blur. I wasn’t surprised, though—the same thing happened after San Francisco. I’m glad I went, and I’m especially glad for the friends I have in Becca and Bilal! Also, I’m glad for cookie butter.

notes on traveling

Number one: talk to strangers. Maybe you’ll wind up sitting next to a middle-aged woman who is on her way to Berkeley to film a cooking show. She looks and talks just like Catherine Keener, but she’s not Catherine Keener. She’ll tell you about her fiancé, who she knew in college and eventually reunited with after both of their first marriages ended. “He proposed on our second date,” she’ll say, laughing. You’ll talk about food and cooking shows and the Virgin Islands (because of course, her fiancé lives on a private island in the VI) and eventually you’ll stammer out that you just lost a baby and are on your would-be babymoon.

Maybe she’ll say, “We had one of those, too…a babymoon after losing a baby. We went to London.”
Maybe she’ll say, “It never stops hurting.”

And maybe, just maybe, when you turn back to your book or movie or whatever you were doing before, you’ll feel a bit goosebump-y, and you’ll think, we were meant to meet. 

bus stop snuggles

On a lighter note, two: treat yo self. I smiled over my new bag dozens of times during our flight to/from San Francisco, and right now anything that makes me smile is a winner. Extra points if your splurge can hold two books (this and this), a wallet, a makeup bag, a sweater, a BOX of tissues, a bottle of water, multiple receipts and random pieces of paper, several tea bags, a bag of nuts, a bag of chocolates and a full-size bag of white cheddar popcorn.

Three: do something relaxing and preferably non-tourist-y. I can’t recommend this one enough! Even doing something that you would normally do at home can be a refreshing change of pace, especially if you’re in a place that is often crowded with visitors. We've played mini-golf in Chicago, shopped at a farmers market in Waimea, Hawaii and taken in a movie at an independent theater in San Francisco. Some friends of ours say their favorite thing to do when they travel is to simply sit in a coffee shop and relish having alone time. (Can you tell they have kids?)

Four: set aside small amounts of time to be on your phone/laptop. Andy and I only took our phones out a few times each day during our trip in San Francisco, and we’d do so at the same time. We would spend anywhere from five to twenty minutes editing pics, scrolling through Twitter, checking emails, etc. I used my phone a lot for taking pictures and checking GPS, but I’d put it right back in my purse when I was done. We never made an agreement beforehand to do this…it just happened! It was brilliant, though. We both appreciated that the majority of our trip was spent giving one another our full attention.

Five: if you’re into lots of coffee and snacks, maybe stick to only two big meals a day. This has worked well for us both in Chicago and San Francisco. Otherwise, you won’t be hungry enough to enjoy multiple scoops of ice cream that you waited half an hour in line for, or a ginormous hot dog smothered in relish and hot peppers that called your name from a stand outside of a museum! And if you’re lucky, all the walking you do on your trip will make up for the constant eating. :)

For five MORE traveling tips, check out the guest post I wrote for my friend Amber’s blog back in April ’12. Apparently I cared just as much about relaxing back then as I do now!

Saturday and Sunday in San Francisco/Marin County

**Some of these links will take you to pictures on my Instagram account. :)

Picking up where I left off yesterday…

Saturday
We had a late breakfast on Saturday morning at Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles, which was a short walk from our hotel and the perfect halfway point between our hotel and Alamo Square Park. We both got chicken and waffles, because, duh. Also, eggs scrambled with cheese and green onions, and an appetizer of cheesy grit cakes with jalapeño and artichoke sauce. Are your arteries clogging up as you read? The grit cakes were good but not great. The eggs, chicken and waffles, though…I mean, come on. This meal is going to haunt my dreams.

On to Alamo Square Park, home to the fabulous “Painted Ladies." Even if you could care less about the houses, the park is absolutely worth going to if you’re nearby. (Unless you’re scared of dogs.) Plus, The Mill coffee shop is only a couple blocks away. If you’re into gorgeous spaces and hipster coffee, GO. Andy had to practically drag me out of the place! (BTW, Andy whistled the song from “Full House” all morning. I adore him.)

not Postcard Row, but equally (in my opinion) stunning houses on Alamo Square

We took our coffees on the bus and headed to Golden Gate Park to check out the California Academy of Sciences, which I have to say was a bit disappointing. Now, I say this as someone who has been to the Smithsonian museums multiple times, as well as the aquarium in Baltimore and Chicago. I did think that the building itself was spectacular, and a few of the exhibits were really cool. One thing we accidentally missed was the planetarium. I bet we would have enjoyed that.

We could have gone to the DeYoung museum with our pass, but the day was passing quickly and I wanted to see the Japanese Tea Garden before we left the park. We didn’t realize you have to pay to go into the gardens! Tickets aren’t expensive, but I knew we would have to walk through quickly and I didn’t want to pay and not be able to fully enjoy the area. Plus, the line for admission was long. Oh well!

It took us a while to get to our next destination (the Mission neighborhood), but the bus ride gave us amazing views of the city. We drove through several colorful neighborhoods, including Upper Haight, which is where you see a lot of tie-dye and record shops. I loved getting a driving tour of the various areas of the city that I knew we didn’t have time to explore. 

Getting ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery was a must for me. The line is long, but so worth it! I have major FOMO when it comes to food, and it was torture trying to only pick three flavors. I eventually settled on salted caramel, roasted banana and ricanelas (cinnamon with snickerdoodle pieces). Andy had salted caramel, brown sugar with ginger caramel swirl, and malted vanilla with peanut brittle and chocolate. OH MY WORD. Can we go back, please? 

We endured a steep walk to the top of Dolores Park to take in yet another stunning view of the city. The people watching in this park is like no other people watching experience! We saw a group of guys playing beer pong on a table they had somehow lugged over. Lots of kites. Lots of picnics. Lots of people making out. Lots of marijuana being smoked. At least one speedo. I was having a great time, but after we left Andy pointed out that all that drinking and drug use was going on at a park, not far from a playground.

:-/ His face says it all here:

We walked around the neighborhood (bought some pretty earrings) and had dinner at La Taqueria. My pork taco was out of control and hands down the best taco I’ve ever had. My one mistake was ordering a watermelon agua fresca. It was delicious, but my stomach doesn’t handle super-sugary drinks very well. (This is um, foreshadowing to what happened later.)

We headed back to our hotel for a few minutes to freshen up before walking to Sundance Kabuki, an indie movie theater. We saw “Boyhood” and let me tell you, that is one spectacular film. We both couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. You know it’s a good movie if you have to vomit the entire time you’re watching but you stay in your seat because you don’t want to miss a thing.

Sunday

We rented a car and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County (while sipping coffee and eating croissants, in case you weren’t jealous enough already) where we hopped on a shuttle to Muir Woods. We hadn’t planned on using a shuttle to get to the park, but the $5 ticket was worth paying considering some visitors have to park over a mile away from the entrance! The drive to the park was beautiful (and a bit scary/thrilling). The park itself was fantastic. Those redwoods! We had a blast.

We spent about an hour and a half in the park before taking the shuttle back to our car and heading to HERE IT IS PEOPLE a chain restaurant! Andy’s one requirement of our weekend was that we hit up In-N-Out, and I’ll admit—I was excited to try it, too. We got our burgers and fries animal style. (I love that Andy’s hand managed to sneak into two of my food pics). I don’t think I would have been impressed if we had gotten plain burgers and fries. The animal sauce was what made both items, in my humble opinion. Hey babe, let’s host an In-N-Out party!

We still had a couple hours before needing to return our rental car, so we drove to both Tiburon and Sausalito. Both towns were incredibly picturesque! I’d recommend Tiburon if you want to relax and Sausalito if you want to shop and take pictures of San Francisco from across the bay. Sausalito was PACKED with people. We had minds blown by mint mojito iced coffees at Philz, so make sure to go there if you’re in the area. It turns out Philz is a chain! I would have never guessed. The one in Sausalito has a very casual, comfortable “local coffee house” vibe.

Tiburon

Sausalito

Both of us were worn out by the time we got back to our hotel around 4. We didn’t have to leave the city until 7:30, but neither one of us was up to doing much. We explored the area around our hotel some, though sadly many places were closed because of the day and time. Andy got to pick dinner (from my list of choices, hehe) and he picked Shanghai Dumpling King. He picked right again! Even though it was WAY out of our way, we figured we might as well go since we had nothing else planned before leaving the city. Unfortunately, In-N-Out and our iced coffees had filled us up so we only got three items. Everything on the menu sounded amazing and it was really hard to pick! FOMO! Andy had his first xiao long bao experience and he talked about those soup dumplings long after left the restaurant. I was sooo relieved that he liked them considering we had gone out of our way. We also had fantastic mongolian beef and THE BEST green beans I’ve ever had in my life. This picture is only showing half of the beef and green beans because I had already put some on both of our plates. Well, we crushed everything. I’ve never eaten so many green beans in one sitting!

We got to the airport with just enough time for me to browse a bookstore, grab some chocolate-coated salted caramel almonds and have a glass of sangria before boarding began. If only every airport experience was that wonderful!

If you ever decide to head to San Francisco, hit me up! I used recommendations from friends and a few bloggers I follow, as well as this SUPER helpful neighborhood map. We definitely didn’t see/do/eat everything, but I’m pleased with what we managed to pack in. Thanks for reading! You all deserve an award for bearing with these longs posts!

Friday in San Francisco

The last time I vacationed alone with my handsome devil of a husband was on our honeymoon six years ago! We’ve made great memories traveling with friends and family since then, but it was wonderful to have Andy all to myself. The weekend felt like one long date!

(One long date in which my nose began to run non-stop and my throat closed up before we even got to the city, I threw up for a solid half hour the next night, slept maybe four hours total over the course of two nights in the hotel and had to go to a pharmacy twice for tissues, medicine, cough drops and vaseline.)

Thinking about how insane that all was makes me giggle now.

Despite the sickies and the exhaustion, I truly had a fantastic weekend. My body managed to function on sheer adrenaline, and it didn’t hurt that Andy kept me laughing the whole time. He also held my hand all weekend and made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world instead of a girl with a drippy nose and tired eyes.

There was a time on Friday when I was far from happy, though. We had just arrived downtown and Andy was ready to find a spot to have lunch. We were having a hard time finding our way to the bus that we needed to get on in order to get to our hotel in Japantown. There were people everywhere, it smelled like urine, my nose was running and I only had one tissue in my purse. The horror! Also, my plan was for us to bus to our hotel, drop off our stuff and THEN head to lunch…which was going to be about a half hour bus ride from our hotel. :-/ Yeah, I didn’t plan that out very well. (Oh, and we never ate breakfast. Fools!)

Andy put his foot down and said he needed to eat before his hangry-ness got out of control. He spotted a Super Duper Burgers and made a bee line for it, and I tried not to burst into tears. I mean, I love burgers…but it was a chain! We were in a city with a million jillion restaurants! Not only that, but I had plans for us to have burgers at *cough* a chain restaurant on Sunday! THIS WAS NOT IN MY PLAN!

(“This” including being confused by the map and feeling sick—it wasn’t just the burger thing that made me almost cry. Haha.)

It took a reassuring text from my mom, a lot of deep breaths and a surprisingly fantastic burger for me to realize that holding on to my plans was pointless if it was causing stress. I decided to swap my plans for the afternoon with the ones I had made for Saturday, which ended up being a clutch decision. We headed to the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero after checking into our hotel and loaded up on tissues. We explored one half of the building before picking up iced coffees from Blue Bottle Coffee to sip in between smooching (!!!) on a bench facing the bay. Then we poked around the remaining shops and ended our visit with a basket of beignets from Boulettes Larder. I was still finding cinnamon sugar on my face hours later.

After the Ferry Building we headed to The Exploratorium, which was a lot of fun. (We bought City Passes, since I knew I wanted to do the cable car thang, California Academy of Sciences, Exploratorium and a Bay cruise.) My favorite activities were making our own stop motion video, freaking out over a scary head made out of doll parts and tinkering with an interactive clock. I liked making the people drink coffee. :)

Next—bay cruise! We got a great view of the sea lions on Pier 39 without having to deal with the insane crowds. I loved seeing the city, bridges and Alcatraz from the water. Didn’t love embarrassing myself in front of everyone...I was clicking away and got caught off guard when the wind suddenly blew my dress up MULTIPLE times! I was dyyyying. I couldn’t hold my dress and hold my camera and hold onto the railing! I finally had Andy stand behind me and hold me steady while I knotted my dress against my calves. The knotting ended up being kind of genius, actually. Andy complimented how much he liked the knot multiple times that evening!

Once the boat docked we left the Embarcadero to take a cable car ride up Hyde Street. I wanted to see the famous section of Lombard Street that zig-zags downhill. It took a lot of time to get there between walking, bussing and waiting in line to get on a cable car, but we were both glad we went. The view was phenomenal! Plus, hanging on the sides of the cable car was an experience in its own right.

It occurred to me after we left Lombard that we could have seen the Bay Lights from there if we had waited a little longer, but truthfully we were both starving at that point. I gave Andy a few restaurants to choose from and he picked Pizzeria Delfina in Pacific Heights. I was hoping he would! I had read about the restaurant on my friend Amber’s blog and thought the house-made fennel sausage pizza she ate on her honeymoon sounded amazing. She wrote, "I was eating the pizza and saying I craved it at the same time.” Girl, now I know exactly what you’re talking about!

Dinner ended up being my favorite part of our day—not because I didn’t love everything else, but because something about being there felt so right. Maybe it was the wine? ;) The music, the conversation, the food…it was all perfect. We ordered two pizzas, several drinks and a sundae with vanilla gelato, amarena cherries, pistachios and dark chocolate sauce. Our dishes were practically licked clean! After dinner we walked hand-in-hand from the restaurant to our hotel. It was a lovely way to end the day.

Up next, Saturday and Sunday!
Some more pics, if you’d like to see...