I’ve been to SF a number of times before, so after showing Nick the sights and sounds of the city (Fisherman’s Warf walking tour, clam chowder at Boudin’s, cable cars and trolleys – which we somehow managed to get for free, wandering around the city and checking out the architecture, good Thai food, brunch in Haight-Ashbury, steep streets, plus meeting up with my Mom and Tom who randomly happened to be in SF at the same time), we headed out to Santa Clara to hang out with Ellie, 1/3 of the brainshare (i.e. best friend from college) from whom I’d been separated for far too long.

We happened to arrive on an auspicious (I guess) weekend. Ellie and her friends had just finished their last day of school – they are teachers at a San Jose school and after school program. Plus, Ellie is leaving the Bay area in August, so this was her last last day of real work before she heads back to grad school. We are lucky enough to have taken part in the annual ‘Ding-Dong’ party (don’t ask), which involved a lot of margaritas, tequila shots (ouch, haven’t done those in a long time) and and egg timer. Needless to say we had a raucous Saturday, a greasy hangover brunch the next morning, and a day of recuperating in the prone position in front of the TV. But it was so much fun to be able to just hang out, meet Ellie’s friends in CA and catch up a little – it was far too short as always!

Another friend from several lives (DAI, Liberia, etc), Kaitlin, met up with us on Sunday. She is a PhD student at Stanford, and brought us to a party at the Stanford community farms/grand opening of the farm’s pizza oven. Pretty cool – I didn’t know people were doing that in Palo Alto.

We really wish we could have stayed another few days – we didn’t have a chance to play Guitar Hero! I guess that means there will have to be a next time 🙂

Oh, and Nick also got a taste of the joys (and annoyances) of the bottomless cup of coffee phenomenon. He loves that he can get as much coffee as he wants at brunch, but when the waiters are too attentive it drives him a bit crazy. ‘They’re messing with the ratio!’. Hmm, how to cope? I think it was my Dad who tried to tell the waitress no more by putting his hand over his cup…and it only landed him with a scalded hand. Guess Nick will just have to deal! Yes, there are times when I’m happy I’m not a coffee drinker, with one more thing to worry about…