Life With The Mace's: February 2009

Well after our wonderful trip to San Francisco it was back to the old grind. I started my spring semester last Tuesday and have my work cut out for me. I also received my grade for winter session and am extremely excited to let everyone know that I got an A! Over the weekend Greg and I went bowling with a group of grad students he works with. We had a blast and I came in third…Greg came in second to last, but in his defense in the seven years since I have been with Greg he has never been bowling and I used to bowl quite a bit. After bowling all of us walked down Main Street and got some Mexican food. Today the repair man came to fix the stove in the kitchen. For a while now the front two burners were not working but neither Greg nor I had enough time to wait around for the repair man. However my new schedule gives me a little more time so I let the manager know it needed to be fixed. The manager thought that he would be able to replace it but I guess they decided to pay for repairs instead. That surprised me only because the guy was here for over two hours and had to replace almost everything. Oh well all the burners are now working and that means that I will be able to cook a little bit easier now. Till next time!

We are back after a very wet Valentines weekend. I picked Greg up after his class on Friday morning and we set off for San Francisco! We drove through rain and snow for seven and a half hours until we reached our hotel. It was a beautiful drive and we got to see a lot of California that we have never seen before. The bridge into San Francisco has the most beautiful view but the lines to cross the bridge are crazy! It takes about an hour just to reach the toll booth, ( Greg and I got through in 15 minutes we thought that two people was considered car pooling, turns out it is three. This lack of knowledge got us through pretty quick though!) Once we got through the toll booth we took a quick detour to Treasure Island where we took some pictures and then we set off across the bridge. Our hotel was in down town San Francisco and it was raining when we arrived but after we got into our room we grabbed our umbrellas and headed out to walk around town. We found a great little Thai food place where we ate a wonderful dinner and then we headed out to window shop. I had a blast walking in front of Tiffany’s and looking at all of the gorgeous jewelry. Once we were done window shopping we walked back to the hotel and went to bed so we could get up early for an exciting Valentines Day! On Valentines Day we woke up at 6:00am so that we could make it to a popular restaurant; Dottie’s and then have enough time to walk to the Castro Theatre in time for a silent movie festival that we had bought tickets for. On the way to the Castro Theatre we walked past the “Painted Ladies”, the San Francisco city hall, the La Mision San Francisco De Asis (this Mision was built in 1791), we also walked by some amazing artwork. Once we got to the Castro we waited outside for an hour and then enjoyed the day seeing four silent films including several short silent films and a vocal performance. They also had live musical accompaniment which was just amazing. We had a small dinner break between films and Greg and I went and got some more Thai food. The movie festival ended around 11:30pm and we hailed a cab and got home and went to bed knowing that we had another busy day ahead of us. We woke up at 7:00am the following day thanks to some wonderful children shrieking and running around in the halls of our hotel not to mention the incredible rain storm going on outside our hotel! Once we were ready we walked down the street and had breakfast at a small 50’s style café. Then it was on to Chinatown, we had a lot of fun there taking in all the sites and we even went to a local fortune cookie factory. Then we walked over to Fisherman’s Wharf on the way we passed by the old Ghirardelli Chocolate factory which is now Ghirardelli square. The air smelled like chocolate and Greg and I decided to stop in for an ice cream sundae (even though it was freezing and we were both soaked how can you pass up a Ghirardelli sundae?!) Once we were finished there we went and toured some of the old boats at Hyde St. Pier. After we were finished touring the boats we walked to an arcade game museum which was really fun they had games that were hundreds of years old we paid a quarter and watched some wooden figurines hang a woman, this game was extremely old and only cost a quarter, we watched a similar game except it was called “What happens in an opium den.” We enjoyed these rare games and being able to get out of the rain. Once we were done we walked down to Pier 33 where we waited for an hour in a coffee shop to take our trip over to Alcatraz for the night tour. Once we got over to Alcatraz we had a blast! I absolutely love all of the history there and really enjoyed hearing everything the tour guide had to say. Once we were done with the tour and back on dry land we hailed another cab back to the hotel so Greg could change his wet socks and then we headed out once more to have dinner. Guess where we went? If you guessed Thai food you are correct! So to break that down we had Thai food for every dinner we ate in San Francisco. Once we were done with dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Due to the weather we were having we had to leave early the next day because we had to take the Pacific Coast Highway back in order to avoid the snow. It took us twelve hours to get home but we did it! I have to give props to Greg he drove the entire way, my job was to keep him entertained with singing etc…he loved that! Anyway we had an amazing trip and really enjoyed having a mini vacation. I have posted a few of the pictures we took below. Enjoy!