San Franciso - 3 Days

This is the San Franciso portion of my trip up north to Canada.

TUESDAY
woke up ridiculouslyyy early at 5:30am after like four hours of sleep. ate some waffles and veggie bacon, thennn everyone got over and we shoved ourselves and our luggage in my dad's minivan and off to the train station. we printed out like 30+ train tickets (cause of the various transfers and stuff XD) and then managed to get to the right place pretty quickly. sat next to sami on the bus to bakersfield and i played a lil bit of ds then listened to music while sami used my pillow to sleep on my lap then i used my pillow to sleep on hers. then we were basically there. it wasn't a long stopover and then we were on a more comfy train (same type as the amtrak i take from irvine to chatsworth a lot). i read a little bit, wrote like one post for souls and worked on nominating people for souls yearbook superlatives. then i slept a couple hours i think, listened to music or w/e, i don't remember too much of it so i must have been unconscious. XD. then we made it to oakland!

got our checked baggage, thenn walked some blocks through oakland to get to the BART (bay area rapid transit) which is like a subway thing. we were such noobs figuring out how to buy / use the tickets, but eventually we worked it out and even got on the right line. i think it went like, under the bay, which was weeeird. we took it from oakland to downtown san francisco, got off and started walking to the hotel. i'm not sure why anyone thought it was a good idea, but i was the one telling us which way we were supposed to go. so there was this amazing thing where we walked down one block and i was like "wait we should have been going the other way lol." so we turn around, walk back, and i'm like "wait i was j/k we want to go the other way" >_>. so we walked down this block like three times carrying luggage, i'm lucky they didn't kill me rofl.

but yeah we found the hotel, it was sooo tiny in terms of like.. horizontal space. o_O. sami and i stayed outside with the luggage while ryan and alex went to check us in (we said we only had three people with us). thenn we shoved ryan sami and i into the fucking SCARY tiny elevator (the door to it was like.. literally a wooden door with a handle, not like some fancy metal sliding thing) and made it up to our room on the fourth floor. our room was waaay cool, from our window you could see down the entire stretch of block downtown that we had walked down. and like, the place is called "hotel des artes" so there were funky things painted everywhere, super cool looking.

after getting settled (and of course, checking out the free wireless internet that the place offered) we tried to find a place to eat. ryan suggested indulging ourself with fancy expensive dinner because san fran is renowned for tasty tasty things, so i searched online and found out a hotel literally across the street had a good-sounding restaurant called "the roots" with some vegetarian and peanut-allergy-friendly stuff. it had very charming decorations and the food sounded rlly good. sami had an argula + goat cheese salad, ryan had a steak thing and alex and i split a cheese tasting platter, truffle oil + parmesan + garlic french fries and a fettucine dish with a crushed red pepper and tomato sauce. considering how picky i am, i was ridiculously and pleasantly surprised that i thoroughly enjoyed every part of that meal. it was SO GOOD. the waiter was really cute and amusing and we chatted with him a lot, and at the end he totally gave us an employee discount on the meal which saved us like $20. o_O. so we tipped him super nicely, haha.

after that we were going to walk to taco bell to get sami some more food because her salad while good wasn't amazingly filling, butttt the taco bell i totally swore was down this one street wasn't there, so we didn't find one and gave up. it was cold but dry, i wore my new warm weather jacket which has THUMBHOLES omg i love jackets with thumbholes, i was so excited when i realized it. but yeah so we just sort of wandered around the financial district of sacramento, looking at the awesome christmas decorations that were all over the place and taking lots of pictures. i got a gingerbread latte from starbucks, which was pleasing. XD. we got back around 10 or 11, i wandered around online a bit then showered and straightened my hair then went to sleep around 1130 or 12.

WEDNESDAY
alarms were set for 730, i didn't get up until like 810 after sami and alex had been awake and talking for a bit. it was rainy outside which was sorta disappointing for all the walking around we had planned, but we were like "eh whatever~" and i checked the weather and it was supposed to dry up by the end of the day. ryan went down to scout out free breakfast and brought back some stuff, i took a toasted bagel and cream cheese and got dressed + did makeup. decided to wear silly new beanie which is very blue. considered wearing scarf, but eh it wasn't cold enough to warrant it. checked out of the hotel but we left most of our luggage there behind the desk, very nice of them to let us.

we walked over to market street and caught a bus to haight and ashbury, where ryan really wanted to visit. it's basically this really hippy street corner that was huge in the 70s and where like the grateful dead, janis joplin, jimmy hendrix used to live. most things were closed when we got there at like 10:30ish but we walked around trying to find the grateful dead house first and by then more things were opened. we entered this one shop because it had like an amusing stoner's chess set with like pot leaves in the window and ryan wanted to know how much it was, and once we were inside we browsed a little. before we left ryan was like "o where is grateful dead's house btw?" and they told us and then also told us the store we were browsing actually was where jimmy hendrix used to live, lol. there were a few things ryan wanted to get but we went to another store first to shop comparatively. in this other store ryan got a t-shirt for his cousin. we stopped nextdoor briefly because it was a hat store! and there were some SEXY hats buttt they were waaay expensive, so i didn't get any.

we were a bit hungry afterwards so alex and ryan got paninis, sami stopped by grocery store and got stuff to make a sammich and I had a tomato/mozerella crepe. after that we proceeded to walk towards golden gate park, we had to walk through that to catch the bus up north to golden gate bridge. it's a GIGANTIC park. on the way from haight & ashbury we were literally offered pot like four times, it was highly amusing. the park was amazing, we stopped at this children's playground with this badass rope thing and spent some time climbing on that it was just way too much fun. mostly the rain had stopped by now, so just everything except the sky was getting us wet. walk through park might have even taken an hour or so, and we didn't even get through half of it it's that huge.

caught the bus and made it to the golden gate bridge. it was super foggy so we couldn't really see the bridge that clearly but it gave it a really cool atmosphere, and we could see it well enough to enjoy it. ryan had been there before, so he took us down this path towards the ocean where we could see it better and from there we went through this pretty garden to this concrete tunnel. eventually we ended up at this pier where a bunch of people were fishing and walked out there and chilled for a bit. we didn't stay long, it was prty cold and we were getting hungry again but it was nice to see. after that we had to walk to this other bus line. this was a LOT MORE of a challenge than the map we had made it look to be. cause see, there's this dotted line on the map. on the left side, one inch = 1.87 miles, on the right side, one inch = like .7 miles. up until golden gate bridge we were hanging out on the right side, but now we were on the left. we walked somewhere around 2 miles, much of it uphill and through paths through randomy brushy areas. it was actually really difficult because by this point our feet / legs were killing us (especially sami's.. she was wearing some not very comfortable boots D: ) and we were starving. and then at the end, to top it all off we had to run to catch the bus because it just pulled up to the stop a block or so in front of us. SO HARD. but yeah we caught it lol.

from there we went east to fisherman's wharf. ryan wanted clam chowder in a breadbowl so we went to this place his parents said had the best clam chowder and alex and him got breadbowls of it. it was right next to a boudin SF which was great cause i got some tomato soup from there in a breadbowl too. ryan, for the sake of science, got a cup of clam chowder from boudin as well but thought his first bowl was tastier. after that we browsed shops and i got little trinkets for my bro, dad, and mom. we stopped at in-and-out to get sami some dinner, thenn to ghiradelli square! i got myself some tasty chocolate covered raisins and got a couple presents for other people~ it was very pretty. we were sorta exhausted, so we decided to start heading back even if it was a bit earlier than we had to. took bus back, stopped at starbucks (got a gingerbread latte!), wells fargo (withdrew some $$), and got our luggage out from hotel des arts. thenn we made it out to the ferry building and found the little amtrak bus station. sami wanted to grab some food for the train, so ryan and alex watched our stuff and we walked to 7-11 and taco bell and got some snacks.

bus ride was short, it went over the bay bridge which made me antsy because long bridges over the ocean are sorta scary. train was a few minutes late but nothing major, we got on and got our seats and then most of us tried to sleep right away. i stayed up a bit eating crackers then tried to sleep, but it's really fucking hard when the person behind you is playing some sort of crime drama with lots of sirens and screaming and cursing on their laptop really loudly.. a conductor told him to put on headphones, but he just turned it down for a bit then turned it back up when the conductor was gone. :/. it was really annoying and kept waking me up, it bugged ryan (who i was sitting next to) too but neither of us wanted to say anything to him.

THURSDAY
my sleep was fairly interrupted by lots of things, but i still ended up doing best out of alex sami ryan and i. they weren't able to sleep like at all relatively. i probably got between 8-10 hours if you add up all the chunks. at some point i guess around 4:30am ryan went to go walk and look at the lounge car and he saw people sleeping there so he tried to sleep and did a little bit, but came back around 7:30 cos it was too cold. but during that time i stretched out over two seats and slept pretty solidly except for one point when sami left because there was a baby crying a few rows back and i was awake for like five minutes just listening to that, blah. that woke me up at one point around 10-11am too i think. but yeah, i did get a fair amount of sleep. at about 1pm i woke up for real and moved to the lounge car with big windows to snack and listen to music and write this journal thing. also so ryan could have the opportunity to sleep for a few hours with two seats to stretch out in, poor guy looked so exhausted. D:

but yeah, that is where i will end this part of the journal, it's about 2:15 now (yes i take forever to write these) and the train just pulled out of salem, oregon. we're gonna be in portland in less than two hours. ^^. i'm gonna eat some yogurt and maybe read or nap a bit more~

Salt Lake City - 4 Days

So Friday we left at 5am. I slept from there til 10am when we stopped in some random town Glendale, Nevada. Woke up cos we stopped and I stayed awake from then til like 3pm alternatively reading, listening to music, and writing a post for Souls. Then dozed a while more then we were theree at like 5 or so. Got everything into the hotel, we called my aunt Alice and she dropped by after she got out of work. She took us to her house and then out to this neat pizza place called The Pie (decorated with math pi symbols XD). It was rather tasty. Afterwards she went swimming with most of my family I stayed in the room though cos I didn't feel like swimming, I wrote one more Souls post. Thennn we went to bed pretty early. Had sort of bad cramps all day which sucked.

Saturday woke up at like 8, went downstairs to have breakfast. Drove over to Uncle David's house, and Uncle Charles was there too. I petted David's dog Emmy a while, a pretty red golden retriever, while Charles and David washed the windows of my dad's car. Thenn we drove an hour or so to David's cabin in the mountains. It was neat, I took lots of pics while there. Very pretty views. We drove back, then went to lunch at Pei Wei then back to the hotel. Then we all drove back to Alice's, Dad dropped Mom and I off for my cousin Jenny (6-7 years older than me)'s baby shower. Dad, David and Geoff all went out to do mini golfing or something. Baby shower was okay, there were a lot of people there I knew even less than my relatives and I don't even know my Utah relatives all that much. ): So it was a lil awk but sort of fun doing lil baby games like guessing baby foods and stuff. At one point my Aunt Barbara had a spider on her back and was like "get it off get it off" to me and I was like "O_O I CANT." So she ran inside, tearing off her shirt, and this little girl Mary was there with a camera saying "I'm supposed to take pictures." XDDD.

I gave Jenny's daughter / my first cousin once removed, Valencia, a few gifts from when I was cleaning my room like an iPod dog speaker thing and some bracelets. But I didn't really play much with her until bridal shower was over and Dad & Geoff were back, then I started jumping on the trampoline with her and we became friends again. She's 8, last time I saw her she was 4-5. We hung out she showed me around inside and stuff. And we went out to the back and picked plums and apples from their little orchard. Valencia decided she wanted to cook something with them and I helped her make a "delicious" fruit and vegetable salad with plums, apples, pickles, zucchini, grated parmesan, cheddar, and tomatoes, haha. Then we had tasty spaghetti dinner with one bite of the salad for all of us. Alice put on some little kids movie about a puppy and we all watched that, I wrote a post while it was on. Then back to the hotel and sleepings.

Sunday woke up at 9am to snag breakfast, then back to hotel room and slept until like noon was awesome. Drove out to Uncle Charles & Aunt Barbara's house and we had some pasta / burgers for lunch. They have 10 cats and 4 dogs there o_O. I spent a lot of time cuddling with this one pretty cat Penny and Charles kept trying to get me to take it for my apartment next year, offering $300, free food, a free cage if I took her. XD. They're trying to cut down their number of cats. After being there for a while Cousin Joe (5 years older than me) came upstairs and we talked about comp sci cos he was in the army or something and just came back and is doing his second year of a comp sci major now. Which was cool, I've never really spoken with him before we're facebook friends now. Uncle David, dad, Geoff, mom, Aunt Barbara and I all played some silly board game called Would You Rather. It was amusing enough. Afterward we hung out in backyard while Geoff, Mom, Uncle Charles chilled in the hot tub and everyone except my family sipped on beers. I was offered one multiple times though, haha.

After that we went to Alice's house for dinner again, got there around 6-7. Cousin Mike (6-7 or so years older than me) was there this time which meant his son Kaiden (8 years old) was there along with Jenny + Valencia. =D. He's RIDICULOUSLY cute little blonde kid with glasses. Geoff and I rapidly befriended Kaiden again and we jumped on the trampoline with them a bunch. Dinner was pizza + spaghetti. After dinner Alice got out her scooter (which initially brought to mind the picture of like a Razor Scooter but is actually one of those gas powered motorcycle things). And I spent a tonnn of time riding around her backyard in the scooter and this go-kart it was wayyy too fun. After I was done with that Geoff and I chased Kaiden and Valencia allll over and I got so exhausted. XD. Once again Kaiden was SOOOO cute. Valencia liked to call him a dork and stuff and one time saying he was king of dorks I was like "yeah well I *like* being a dork!" and Kaiden gave me a ridiculously adorable grin. XDD. They had to leave at like 9 or so and so did we, except when we were trying to get out the door Geoff lost his shoes. o_O. We spent like 20 minutes scouring the backyard and finally found them, then went back to hotel. Slept, woke up at like 5 and we drove back. I slept til 10 or something idk. Read for a while, around 12:30 I drove for like an hour from outskirts of Las Vegas to Baker, CA. Mostly going 75 on a freeway, which is good practice for driving considering my whole family was in the car which meant serious yelling and backseat driving and rough-housing between them all. Then I dozed some more. We got back around 3:45pm!