To Dallas, with love from San Francisco

Today’s my last day in California; Texas here I come!

I had two full, great days in San Francisco! The majority of day one I spent in Chinatown. It really has it’s own distinct vibe that’s different from the rest of the city. After spending hours walking around the neighborhood, I bought some cute bracelets and a kalimba, which I used to accompany the mood of day two with Puppy. (I did eat at the Hang Ah Tea Room like I’d planned, but don’t recommend it.) Then I visited Golden Gate Park and hit up City Lights bookstore before hoofing it to BART and eating dinner with Puppy at a barbecue place in downtown Livermore. It was pretty good, and I feel as though I have some authority on the subject as a native Texan.

Aquarium and Tea Garden pics (I look like a crazy person in the aquarium pics)

On day two, Puppy took me to the California Academy of Sciences, and got to experience full, unfettered Leners-excitedness about marine life in the Steinhart Aquarium and frogs in the Rainforest exhibit. I took soooo many photos of frogs, my favorite animal, and made him sit with me for a very long time in front of one of the tanks to take the above photo with the huge fish behind us. He was very accommodating, if a bit flabbergasted at my enthusiasm at times. Think a subdued Kristen Bell reaction to sloths. We then ate lunch there, visited the Japanese Tea Gardens and walked around Golden Gate Park before leaving to check into our hotel — where we ran into car trouble. We had a front oil leak that caused the oil to run dry, which is apparently a huge deal?

Now it’s day three, of which I spent the majority in the hotel room sleeping and slothing about because of the lack of transportation and limited time before I had to be at the airport. (The Livermore bus system rivals Dallas buses in inefficiency. It took me about three hours to get to San Francisco from Livermore.) I was a little disappointed that Puppy got so worked up and anxious about the car and remained so all evening; it took a lot of effort on my part to calm him down to try to enjoy the time we had left. Eventually he did calm down and we were able to walk about, snuggle and play the “How well do you know your groom” game Mama C gave me.

I’m going to miss the rainbow flags in downtown S.F., and snuggling… but Puppy’s flying in to Dallas next weekend for a wedding so we’ll be able to continue being snuggle bunnies then.

FROGS! Gotta love ’em.

San Francisco Day 1

I think I’ve gotten public transport in the Bay Area figured out, and in no small part because of 511 Transit, a nice little app that tells you how to get from point a to b via BART.

I’m trying to fit a lot in today since I spent my first two days in San Fran sick in bed. The plan: visit Chinatown, eat lunch at Hang Ah Tea Room, visit the De Young Museum, hit up a bookstore and swing by the Golden Gate recreation area before heading back to Livermore to have dinner with Puppy.

Last night, we ate dinner at Nonni’s in Pleasanton with Puppy’s advisor. It was very pleasant; we ate on the patio and the butter came shaped like a rose.