How much of SF can you see in 4 days? A lot.

Talk about planned, full of energy, and ready to walk all over San Francisco. Our cousins, Jill and Jerry were prepared to maximize their time in the Bay Area. And their preparation not only gave us the chance to expand our exploration radius, but also to add to our list of places to visit and restaurants to try. Now, I may miss something in the list of what they did while here because they did SO much, but here’s the short:

An evening walk through Stanford’s campus to explore downtown Palo Alto and enjoy Cream (ice cream sandwiches made with warm cookies)…

Memorial Church in the main quad.

Waiting in line for delicious, warm, ice cream sandwiches.

A trip to the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market…

California Ave Sunday morning farmer’s market.

Half Moon Bay and playing in the ocean…

It was a bit chilly at Half Moon Bay, but that didn’t keep Jill out of the water.

More views of Half Moon Bay and the ocean.

Visiting the sea lions at Pier 39 while enjoying lunch from Boudin Bakery (famous for their sourdough), then a tour of Alcatraz…

Taking the ferry to Alcatraz Island.

Views of Alcatraz.

Views of Alcatraz.

Views of and from Alcatraz.

Uh oh.

Chocolate at Ghirardelli Square, seafood dinner along the water, Chinatown, Ferry Building, Coupa Cafe, Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin Highlands, hiking in Muir Woods, Pier 23, The Stinking Rose (everything on the menu includes garlic), American Cupcake (as seen on the Food Network and in our kitchen, thanks to Jill & Jerry and a special cupcake takeaway order), trips on CalTrain and Bart, Golden Gate Park, Dutch Windmill and Tulip Garden, and dinner at Google Headquarters…

Wanna be a Googler!

What incredible guests and what a fantastic visit! We’re ready for you to come back.

 

(Photo credits to Nick L. and Dan S.)

Speakeasy Surprise Birthday Party

My husband, Dan, turned 30 this year. So what’s the best way to celebrate? With recruitment weekend for Stanford’s 2014-15 entering PhD students and massive final academic assignments. Granted that the recruitment weekend included a dessert tour, kayaking in Monterrey Bay, and several department-sponsored meals, it wasn’t exactly how we had planned to celebrate this milestone.

Because we couldn’t celebrate on his actual birthday, I planned a surprise party two weeks after the day with sneaky help from friends. Shout out to Katie & Leo for the brewery suggestions!

Speakeasy Brewery offers free brewery tours (book ahead!) and a tasting menu to compliment its standard beer menu. I arranged the tour about a month in advance and coordinated with friends to get the group together. The week of the surprise party, though, I had no idea how I was actually going to lure Dan to the brewery without his knowledge. I considered just flat out telling him because I couldn’t come up with a good idea.

That’s when I started crowdsourcing for ideas. My brother’s won…and made me a bit unsettled in his complex and very well planned decietfulness that covers all possible bases. His idea even psychologically planted the idea of “beer” in the pitch. It’s a good thing he uses his powers for good and not evil! My brother sent Dan and me an e-mail that said:

“I was going to see if I could ask you guys a favor: I found an incredible bookshelf+curio thing on craigslist, but I need help getting it home — the seller has a narrow window of availability on Saturday afternoon before leaving for a long trip, and everyone I know in SF with a car is unavailable for different reasons. (I guess there are some regulations for zipcar in CA that I have to work though before I can transfer my membership out here, huh.) It’ll disassemble into units (part of why it’s cool), so it shouldn’t take too long. I’d make it up to you with a few solid beers and some chill time before y’all pick up our cousins at SFO. Andrea, I can text you with the time and address.”

And he DID even send a text with the time and an address near the brewery, but not actually at the brewery so that if Dan had looked up the address it would have looked like we were going to a neighborhood.

When we got to Speakeasy that Saturday afternoon and Dan saw his friends, it took him several minutes to figure out what was going on. The theme of the day became, “I can’t believe you all did this! This is fantastic!”

We had about a half hour to enjoy our first Speakeasy beers before going on the tour into the production facilities. The weekday tours show the brewery in action, but even with the machines quiet, it was an impressive tour.

GOD is the type of brew, but it’s funnier to this of this as God’s beer. So I do.
And during the tour we learned that beer hops do not smell good…

About 45 minutes later (because our group had so many questions), we were on to the beer tasting.

Speakeasy doesn’t have a kitchen, so when the Mexican “food truck” set up shop outside, we took full advantage of the opportunity. If you’re wondering, the quotation marks express the idea that the vendors were licensed to sell food, but it was not the typical food truck model. More of a packed the supplies in a van and set up a folding table model. The somewhat questionable aspect of the food delivery may have made it just that much more delicious.

Beer and tacos and celebrating a 30th birthday. What a great Saturday!

Oakland’s Historic Paramount Theater

We visited the Paramount Theatre in Oakland for a showing of Mary Poppins.

Mary Poppins is a good movie to watch as a child, but I enjoyed it more as an adult, especially in the beautiful restored art deco theater. The energy in the packed theater added to the fun — patrons singing along with parts of the songs, clapping, light-hearted laughter, and “oh isn’t that lovely” sighing at all the right times.

I was surprised at the size of the crowd for the showing, but it didn’t take long to see that the draw was more than the movie. In addition to the movie, the Paramount shows an old newsreel from the time the movie was released, an old-timey cartoon, and brings out the Deco Wheel spin-to-win for audience prizes. And all of this for only $5!

Check out the calendar and go — it’s a great evening and you’ll leave with a smile!

 

(Photo credits to Nick L. Thanks!)

Exploring the non-touristy locations with our visiting tourists

Our second visitors, and first from the other side of the family, made a trip out to visit San Francisco and San Jose. I’m going to stop counting visitors, now, since the docket is booked for the next several months! AKA, that’s more visitors to San Francisco in the first four months that I’ve lived here than the total number of visitors to Stow. (Sorry Stow, I love you heaps, but despite my claim that you had the BEST ice cream in the WORLD, it wasn’t enough to attract more than a handful of visitors…)

Our second visitors are the type that like to see the local places and the off-the-beaten-path locales, which was good for exploring because, again, I’ve only lived here four months and my repertoire is still largely built around the Saturday morning farmers’ market at the Ferry Building and the Pier 39-ish area. Despite our commitment to explore the areas listed at the back of our guidebook (or not listed at all), I did still force everyone to the very touristy, but very delicious, Ghirardelli Square for candy and hot chocolate.

Thanks to my brother, we had great restaurant recommendations. We kicked off the visit with a trip to Hog and Rocks, a Mission neighborhood restaurant that specializes in oysters, ham, and whiskey.

We then headed across that iconic Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands for the classic, “Look! Here’s me/us with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background!” (Visitors be warned: whether you want to go there or not, I will still take you there because I love it. And yes, I take the same photos every time. And yes, family, I will have a collection of me with the same smile and sunglasses in a series of different shirts that will, likely, make it into your next Christmas calendar.)

From there we headed into trendy Sausalito. Although it was our first visit, our guests were old pros. (We went to Sausalito on their suggestion.) It’s a small community, with only about 7000 residents, but is a picturesque seaside town. And it comes with quite the lovely variety of local artists:

Note to family: If you don’t get my bridge series calendar, you’ll likely be getting a male mermaid that I will expect to be displayed proudly and prominently in your home.

After a delicious fish, chips, and clam chowder dinner on a terrace facing the water, we headed back to the city for chocolate.

Our brother-in-law was occupied in San Jose with a conference (thanks, Cisco, for holding your conference in our neck of the woods!), so my sister-in-law was up for exploration and made a trip to Palo Alto complete with chai tea bowls (too large to be considered a cup), a tour of Stanford’s campus, and dinner at a downtown Palo Alto Burmese restaurant.

Come back soon!