Vacation
Okay, so I'm updating a tad late for the news I'm posting, but I've been catching up on things since I took my break. So, I went to San Francisco/Santa Rosa the thursday before last to visit Omar. Northern California is sooooooo pretty. My flight in the morning left at 7:30, so the sun was just rising. All of the water bodies for the next hour or so just had this amazing mist or fog rising from it. It looked almost like cotton balls had fallen on them, or spiders had woven these totally awesome webs all over Atlanta. Also, the Rocky Mountains are retardedly pretty. I wanted to climb some of the mountain just to have snowball fights on a field that looks like nobody has touched.
So, arrived at SFO, and they have a really stupid labeling system for their transport systems up there. Looking at the map, I was told I am taking a charter bus to Santa Rosa. I found it in the Airporter section of waiting locations. This is on the far end away from everything else. It isn't in the Charter bus location. It also isn't in the Hotel bus location, taxi stops, parking shuttles, or the San Francisco(BART, I think) bus system. Les sigh. After getting on the bus, i gawked all the way to the Santa Rosa end of the line stop. I loved the trees and the hills. Amazing rolling hills. I always thought paintings of that kind of hill were just exaggerations, but shows what I know.
I'll leave out the regularness of the other days except to state I met some of Omar's friends at dinners, and also went to Bodega Bay, where the classic movie "The Birds" was filmed. Also, this is a reminder to Omar to rent "Rear Window." Saturday was the real day to talk about. Omar and I got up, and we played a game of smash(gamecube) or two to kill some time. Then we rode out to the Redwood forest. So pretty. All of these pictures are up on facebook, by the way. The trees are astoundingly sturdy, pictures don't do them justice. I was able to step inside a living tree that had a little bit been harmed by fire. Also, the ground was sparsely covered by clovers every few inches. I don't mean huge clumps like we get out here, but every few inches there is one or two clovers.
We then rode to San Francisco, picked up Omar's friend Haley, who is totally cool, and went to eat at an amazing Cajun low country boil-esque restaurant. Some awfully spicy amazing seafood. So many crustaceans died for us that day, but they understood. After that, directly to the Golden gate bridge, which Omar informed me is often shortened to the, I feel sad whenever I think about it, GG bridge. Every time I think of that abbreviation I pitcure the scene where Magneto lifts the entire Golden Gate bridge and flies it over to Alkatraz. But, more importantly, we caught the sunset and the cityscape of San Francisco. Both are wonderful. We then went to Ghiradhelli square, where we found an amazing woodcarving shop and a store devoted entirely to making cupcakes. Only in the land of decadence that is California will you find a store made for only selling cupcakes. We then got a tad lost heading to the Palace of fine arts, but it's okay because we passed by two red light districts, the curviest street in San Francisco, and where Haley works.
I could revel for hours at the Palace of Fine arts, but that's another sotry. I would suggest to all of you to add this to your list of amazing things to go see. Carved stonework of amazing quality as tall as many of the GA State and GA Tech classroom buildings with a lovely reflecting pond to look at it from. The next morning, Sunday, I was lucky enough to catch the standby flight back home because either the booking agency or myself had accidentaly gotten my flight on monday. I got one of the three spots, there were also only three people waiting for standby. The plane was entirely full. My carry on luggage, all I brought with me, was about halfway up the plane from me. Also, thanks to Anne for both driving and picking me up from the airport.
So, arrived at SFO, and they have a really stupid labeling system for their transport systems up there. Looking at the map, I was told I am taking a charter bus to Santa Rosa. I found it in the Airporter section of waiting locations. This is on the far end away from everything else. It isn't in the Charter bus location. It also isn't in the Hotel bus location, taxi stops, parking shuttles, or the San Francisco(BART, I think) bus system. Les sigh. After getting on the bus, i gawked all the way to the Santa Rosa end of the line stop. I loved the trees and the hills. Amazing rolling hills. I always thought paintings of that kind of hill were just exaggerations, but shows what I know.
I'll leave out the regularness of the other days except to state I met some of Omar's friends at dinners, and also went to Bodega Bay, where the classic movie "The Birds" was filmed. Also, this is a reminder to Omar to rent "Rear Window." Saturday was the real day to talk about. Omar and I got up, and we played a game of smash(gamecube) or two to kill some time. Then we rode out to the Redwood forest. So pretty. All of these pictures are up on facebook, by the way. The trees are astoundingly sturdy, pictures don't do them justice. I was able to step inside a living tree that had a little bit been harmed by fire. Also, the ground was sparsely covered by clovers every few inches. I don't mean huge clumps like we get out here, but every few inches there is one or two clovers.
We then rode to San Francisco, picked up Omar's friend Haley, who is totally cool, and went to eat at an amazing Cajun low country boil-esque restaurant. Some awfully spicy amazing seafood. So many crustaceans died for us that day, but they understood. After that, directly to the Golden gate bridge, which Omar informed me is often shortened to the, I feel sad whenever I think about it, GG bridge. Every time I think of that abbreviation I pitcure the scene where Magneto lifts the entire Golden Gate bridge and flies it over to Alkatraz. But, more importantly, we caught the sunset and the cityscape of San Francisco. Both are wonderful. We then went to Ghiradhelli square, where we found an amazing woodcarving shop and a store devoted entirely to making cupcakes. Only in the land of decadence that is California will you find a store made for only selling cupcakes. We then got a tad lost heading to the Palace of fine arts, but it's okay because we passed by two red light districts, the curviest street in San Francisco, and where Haley works.
I could revel for hours at the Palace of Fine arts, but that's another sotry. I would suggest to all of you to add this to your list of amazing things to go see. Carved stonework of amazing quality as tall as many of the GA State and GA Tech classroom buildings with a lovely reflecting pond to look at it from. The next morning, Sunday, I was lucky enough to catch the standby flight back home because either the booking agency or myself had accidentaly gotten my flight on monday. I got one of the three spots, there were also only three people waiting for standby. The plane was entirely full. My carry on luggage, all I brought with me, was about halfway up the plane from me. Also, thanks to Anne for both driving and picking me up from the airport.