Flowers in My Hair

So yesterday I finally edited the rest of my photos from our babymoon to San Francisco last February. Don't ask me what took so long. But I'm glad I waited, because looking through the photos was like being in the center of the magic again.

A few favorites:


























And then yesterday evening, I came across this wonderful post celebrating SF, and it all just felt like fate or something.

For those of you who have never been to San Francisco, get thee a plane ticket and GO! It's an amazing city, one of my favorites. I'd love to spend a month or two there, just exploring and writing and taking photos. And while I'm not really a city girl at heart, I think it'd be fun to live there for a year or two, and then retreat to a farm house somewhere in northern California or Oregon.

Babymoon, Day 2: Lost on the Island, Lost in the Streets

This post has been a loooooong time coming....

Please click here if you'd like to read about the first day of our babymoon adventure.

I had reserved tickets for the Alcatraz tour for Sunday (February 15), and we got up fairly early and went next door to Lori's Diner for breakfast. It was already raining. I liked watching the cooks make our food. The Canadian man sitting next to us struck up a conversation, and we enjoyed his company as we ate our breakfast.




Our intention was to catch a bus to Pier 33, where we would board the ferry for Alcatraz, but we couldn't find the bus stop and ended up running around trying to get a taxi. For awhile there, I really thought we were going to miss the ferry, but we found a cab and pretty much flew to Pier 33.

(You might be wondering why we just didn't take our rental car. Well, by that time we'd learned our lesson - it was just better to take public transportation. We left the car parked for the remainder of our stay.)

We stood near the end of a very long line and eventually got onto the ferry. There was nowhere for us to sit so we huddled outside, where it was freezing ass cold and rainy. Luckily, the ride to Alcatraz was pretty short. I realized on the ferry that my DSLR's battery was dead, which was a complete bummer. I decided to make do with the trusty point and shoot instead - I didn't have much choice about that anyway.

Once on the island, we watched an orientation video, which was interesting - however, I still fell asleep during it. We went into the gift shop and ended up throwing down a ton of money, mostly for stuff to keep us warmer than we currently were. (Did I mention it was really cold and rainy?) And then we set off on our private exploration of the island. I really enjoyed myself, but I hated that I couldn't get closer to the old buildings and structures. I also hated that my stupid camera battery was dead, but I still got some good photos with my point and shoot:










I am a little ashamed to admit this, but Roy and I took the "mobility challenged" tram to the top of the island. Why? Because my uterus is the size of a soccer ball and it's making things harder to do, like breathing. I decided I didn't want to huff and puff up the hill. So we took the little tram and started the audio tour of the actual prison building.






It was really interesting, but we didn't make it all the way through. I was really hungry (don't deny a pregnant woman her food), and my feet and back hurt from standing so much. So we went back down and caught the ferry back. The plan was to take the cable car back to Union Square, but yeah, things got complicated.

For starters, we got on the wrong cable car and ended up at the big ferry building. We had no choice but to get off the cable car because it was the last stop. At this point, Roy realized we no longer had our umbrella - we figured we forgot it at the cable car stop. So we bought a new one and continued on our way. We headed back down toward the financial district on foot and were looking for a place to eat, but it seemed like every single place was closed. That part of the city felt deserted: no one was walking around or even driving around.

When we came up to Nob Hill, I took one look at the steepest hill in the world and told Roy, "I am not climbing that fucking hill." So we caught a cable car instead. The guy who got on ahead of me hit me in the face with his backpack (accidentally) when he swung it off his shoulders to sit down. I was too stunned to say anything. Instead, I climbed up and went to go sit down when the cable car driver (or whatever they call them) told me to watch my backpack so I didn't hit people in the face. Uh, what?! I just got hit in the face! Moron.

A few minutes later, we were getting off the cable car and headed towards our hotel. All in all, it took us an hour and a half to get back to our hotel, which was completely ridiculous. We were soaking wet: our shoes and socks were soaked through, the bottom half of our pant legs were soaked, and all our stuff was soaked as well. We hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning, and it was about 3 PM. We hightailed it into our hotel room, quickly changed clothes, and went next door to Cafe Mason for lunch.



This little tidbit on the menu cracked us both up.



We ate our lunch and then went back to our room. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching My Best Friend's Girl (it was okay) and sleeping. I was flippin' exhausted.

When we woke up, it was dark out (just like our first day), and we decided to take a walk to the nearby Cafe Claude, a cute little French cafe with awesome photography on the walls.

(The two photos below were not on the walls of the cafe, of course. I took them on the way.)





The food was good. Not the best I've ever had, but good.

Orangina:



French onion soup:



Seared tuna ahi:



Potatoes (which really should have been better than they were):



After dinner, we found ourselves back at our hotel.



Love, love, love the below picture of Roy - it's very Albert Camus (hottest philosopher ever). And I even kind of like the one he took of me.





And then we called it a night.

Babymoon, Day 1: Lost in the City, Lost in Beauty

Before I start recapping our babymoon trip to San Francisco, I'd like to make note of a few things:

1) These posts will probably be very photo-intensive. I used my new point and shoot as my primary camera during this trip and was very pleased with the results. My only real complaint is that it just can't handle having its ISO cranked up like my DSLRs can - which means that some of my pictures came out pretty noisy (grainy). That's what I get for refusing to use flash, yo.

Also, you may notice that many of my pictures from this trip are tilted. I think the fact that I took a lot of them from a moving vehicle had something to do with that.

2) Where's everyone been? I've noticed a really big decrease in the amount of comments I've been getting lately. Don't you love me anymore? Don't tell me you actually have lives!

3) How am I already exhausted? It's only Monday!

Okay, carrying on...

Roy and I woke up at the asscrack of dawn on Valentine's Day, and I was a total brat and took a picture of Roy's morning hair, which I am always so jealous of. My hair does boring things, like just laying there.

But Roy's... well, it's magnificent.



We did our last minute things and then picked up my mother-in-law, who dropped us off at the airport. I took pictures from the plane window. The flight attendant had to tell me to turn off my camera once the cabin door was closed. I had no idea "camera signals" interfered with all those airplane things going on.





At 8:30 AM, we landed in Oakland and took the shuttle to the rental car place. We spent awhile there because the rental car people kept insisting that we had to pay a $250 deposit since we were using a debit card to pay. Whatever. We climbed into our rental and took off. After paying the $250 deposit, of course.

I took a picture of myself, looking better than ragged and surprisingly well put together. This never happens, so I'm glad I documented it.



I had a pretty sad looking printed map that indicated we needed to take the 80 into San Francisco, but we didn't really know where the 80 was. We spent awhile driving around and trying to guess which way we should go, but it soon became clear to us that we didn't have an effing clue. So we stopped at a gas station, grabbed a map, and ate cheeseburgers at the adjoining Burger King. (Yes, cheeseburgers at 9:30 AM. It's a good life.)

With the help of the map, we made our way over the Bay Bridge and into the lovely and bustling city of San Francisco.



It was way too early for us to be able to check into our hotel, so we drove around some and then decided to head over the Golden Gate Bridge. It took us quite a long time to find the damn thing. We were following signs that eventually took us off the freeway and through some crazy street route that made absolutely no sense. I kept remarking how it shouldn't be so difficult to find a huge-ass bridge.

But it was. However, eventually we found it.





And we drove over it. (I didn't get a good picture of it. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of it during the whole trip. So here, look at some street art instead.)





We drove right into Sausalito, where we had a forgettable lunch at a restaurant with an excellent view.

Lobster bisque (very bland and boring):



Crab cakes (okay, but the sauce was weird):



But the graffiti in the bathroom was cool:



We took a walk after lunch; it was gorgeous there. We loved the houseboats.






We headed back into the city and decided to go in the direction of Union Square, where our hotel was. And I kid you not, it took us an hour and a half to get there. We ran into all kinds of issues (traffic, not being able to make left turns, etc.). I was one grouchy mofo by that point because I had to pee and was extremely uncomfortable from sitting in the car for so long. I wasn't a very good navigator either, because I kept dropping the map but couldn't pick it up from the floor of the car due to giant tummy issues. I ended up using my toes to pick it up. We finally parked our car in a lot down the street, and I begged the parking lot attendants to let me use their bathroom. While I was engaging in the Longest Piss Ever, Roy grabbed our bags. Bladder empty, we made the short hike to the King George.

We checked in and then found our room, otherwise known as the Smallest Room Ever. Seriously. (I had read about the small size of the rooms when I booked the hotel, but I guess it was just one of those things that I had to see to believe.) But the Smallest Room Ever didn't stop me from stripping naked and crawling happily into bed, where I crashed for several hours. (There I go with the TMI again. But honestly, if there's one thing I love more than sleeping, it's sleeping naked.)

By the time we ventured out again, it was dark, and we had a couple of hours to kill before our dinner reservation. We decided to walk around the financial district.



It was really embarrassing to be so out of breath while walking around. Roy literally had to push me up a few hills. Once we found flat land again, we came upon a couple of really cool art galleries. One of them featured the work of Robert Deyber. His pieces were a whole lot of fun with obvious Surrealist influences.

Ass Hole:



Rock, Paper, Scissors:



The Fire Ant:



There were some very striking paintings upstairs as well:





While I really enjoyed Deyber's work, I wasn't completely in love with it. I reserved falling in love for the second (and last) gallery we visited. We were walking by, and I saw this piece in the window:



I was immediately intrigued. The colors were so bright, so primary, and the characters were so simple - yet I was mesmerized by this painting. We went in and inquired about the artist.

His name is Coplu, and he has done some magnificent work. Roy and I definitely overstayed our welcome, sitting on the couch in the back room and looking at the Coplu pieces:




The pictures here just don't do the paintings justice; they were absolutely beautiful and perfect in person - so perfect that Roy and I were seriously considering paying $3000 for the piece we saw in the window. The girl who was helping us was really pushing us to buy it (naturally) - she kept calling it the most perfect Valentine's Day gift, and you know, she was probably right. But I just couldn't justify spending that kind of money, no matter how damn beautiful the painting was or how much I wanted it. So we left - reluctantly.

And we went to Cafe Andree for dinner.



I took some pictures of our food, but they didn't turn out very well due to everything being so dimly lit. So here, have some (really grainy) pictures of us instead:





Dinner was good - not stellar, but very good. We enjoyed ourselves, and then we went back to the hotel. Of course, I kept thinking about the painting all night. All $3000 of it. I realized that I would have accepted it if Roy had bought it for me without my knowing about it, but that I would never be able to spend $3000 on something "nonfunctional" for myself. (I put nonfunctional in quotes, because I do feel that art and beauty do serve a purpose.)

I'm still not sure if we made the "right" decision in not buying it. We certainly can't afford a $3000 painting, but it sure was beautiful. I won't forget the way I felt while looking at it. And I suppose that's what art and beauty are all about; no amount of money you spend can harness the feeling you get when you see something truly beautiful.

(I'm still hoping Coplu will do children's books as his next project. I think his style would be perfect.)

Day 2 recap coming soon!