A San Francisco Helicopter Tour

This Saturday, we got to go on a helicopter tour of the San Francisco Bay. Some of our friends gave it to us as a wedding present, and on a recent day of life organization, we finally booked it. We started out in Sausalito, and we didn't really know what to expect. The other people in the group were foreign tourists, which, in San Francisco, is usually a bad sign. Once we got there and got up in the helicopter, though, it was seriously cool. We were snapping pictures like crazy the whole time because there was so much to see, but unfortunately the pictures don't do the sights justice. 

When we boarded, it was so loud, and I was hunched over even though I knew the propellers were several feet above the door. 

We had to wear the ear gear - I don't know the technical names for anything having to do with helicopters, so please forgive me. The pilot would talk to us about what we were passing, and when he wasn't talking to us, there were old school San Francisco songs playing like "San Franciscan Nights" by Eric Burdon and the Animals.

You can barely see it from this photo, but this is a point with a little lighthouse on it in Marin. The point overlooks the Golden Gate and San Francisco, and I saw really dreamy pictures taken from right by the lighthouse once. I had completely forgotten about it until we flew over it, but now I've got a visit to that lighthouse on my to-do list. 

We flew over Ocean Beach and came past the Outer Sunset, an area of the city that I often forget about since I rarely go out that far. It was neat to see from the sky, though, and I was amazed by how perfectly straight all the streets were. 

I was shocked to see the roof of the Cal Academy of Sciences looked like this. Makes me wanna visit that sometime. 

A view of the city you don't see much from just over the edge of Golden Gate Park.

I've driven past the graveyard in the Presidio before, but I didn't really realize how vast it was until Saturday.

My absolute favorite part of the tour was flying under and then over the Golden Gate Bridge! The pilot hardly gave us any warning, and suddenly we were swooping down toward the water and looking up at the bridge from below. 

We were loving having our new iPhone 4s's (4ses?) with cameras that were 1000 times better than our old school iPhone 3's. 

We came back toward the financial district and circled the Transamerica building and Coit tower.

 This picture, which I think is of Tiburon, looks like an old timey postcard to me. I love it. 

We left Sausalito both agreeing that these views were some of the most beautiful we'd ever seen. If you're a San Francisco resident, or if you're just visiting the city, I would recommend this a hundred times over!

Cookhouse

Cookhouse is this super cool space in North Beach - it's basically a fully-equipped dream kitchen that can be used for events, cooking classes, and dinners with friends. You rent the space, cook using all of their state-of-the-art appliances, and when you're done, they clean up. My friend Sri is hosting a cooking class here next week, so I'll get to see the space in person while also learning how to make Indian curries. I'll be sure to report back, hopefully with lots of pictures. 

Flour + Water

 

Meeting up with some dear friends at Flour + Water tonight! I'm excited to try it - it's only two blocks from my office and I've always heard great things, but I haven't ever gotten my act together to get a reservation and come back to this side of town at dinnertime. I'm getting hungry just browsing their menu...

San Francisco bikes

San Francisco is a really cool city for bikes. There are lots of bike lanes, lots of pretty sights to see, and the weather is generally never too hot and never too cold to bike. I've written about our tandem that my grandmother gave us for our wedding that we ride around the Mission and the Castro (as long as we don't leave our neighborhood, we can avoid the hills!). I loved seeing this graphic representation of San Francisco neighborhoods based on what bikes you'll see there. I think it's pretty true to life - my personal bike is a mix between Mission and Presidio, and our tandem is probably the only tandem you'll see in the Mission (I guess the rest are in the Marina?). 

Eight.

Last night, Jonny and I rode our tandem through the Mission stopping at our favorite places to celebrate what we thought was our nine month anniversary. About midway through the night, we realized it had actually only been eight months since we got married. Luckily, that realization only encouraged our celebration, and we decided to make sure we hit eight different places for drinks and food and treats.

Here's where we went and what we had (clockwise from left): 

1. A cheese flight, macaroni, and beers at Mission Cheese

2. A savory pie at Mission Pie

3. A margarita to share at Latin American Club

4. A "Sexy Beast" cocktail at Foreign Cinema to share

-- chalkboard drawing done at Monk's Kettle --

5. Market shots at Frances

6. An ice cream sandwich at BiRite Creamery (we didn't want to wait in line!)

7. An Affligem split into two glasses at Monk's Kettle

8. Chicken Tikka at Pakwan

If this is just eight months, I can't wait for nine! 

Ferrying across the Bay

I know it's been oh so long since I've touched this blog, and for all 13 of my readers, I'm sorry! The Prices have been in town for the past two weeks, so we've been focusing most of our free time on spending it with them. We had a great visit, and I'll be sharing more pictures soon. 

For now, I'll share some pictures from the ferry to Sausalito. One of my favorite things to do with friends from out of town is to take them on a ferry ride across the bay. The ferry boasts of being "the second most beautiful ferry ride in the world" which, for one, is a weird thing to brag about, but also, I don't know what ferry ride is more beautiful. My iPhone photos don't do it justice. 

I love that I can walk to work from where we live now, but riding the ferry and seeing people commuting home on it made me think I wouldn't mind a commute if it were a ferry commute!

Glimpses from our Weekend

This weekend flew by, and I didn't take many pictures. These pictures don't tell the full story of our action-packed weekend, but here are a few glimpses:

{1} Natalie was in town for one night after a vet conference in Davis, and she insisted that we get a stranger to take our picture while I was driving her down Lombard Street. Pretty sure we could be anywhere in this photo, though. {2} I wanted to go to Birite Creamery all weekend, but when we finally went on Sunday afternoon there was way too long a line. Jonny and I ended up getting a Sunday Sundae from Birite soft-serve instead, which was a-w-e-s-o-m-e salted caramel and chocolate with pistachios and hot fudge. {3} I made a seriously great olive oil orange cake off of Smitten Kitchen. No surprise - everything I've made from there has been amazing. I also made the lemon, sausage, and chard lasagna that Joanna recommended, and it was a hit too. {4} Zack and Laura sang "Let's Give Them Something to Talk About" at Zack's birthday at the Mint. It was Laura's first ever time to sing karaoke, and they put on a great show.

Hope you had a lovely weekend. Countdown to Jonny being done with Toronto: 5 days!

Half Moon Bay

One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco is how easy it is to hop in the car (now that we have a car!) and take a fun day or afternoon trip outside of the city. On Sunday afternoon, Jonny and I dropped our friend Elizabeth off at the airport and headed down to Half Moon Bay. Blue skies, sunshine, and long stretches of beach... it was beautiful. We walked on the beach, explored the woods nearby, and shopped around the town a little bit. Such a perfect way to spend an afternoon!

Weekend Snapshot

This weekend was really nice. Sometimes I feel like weekends are packed out or that we're pressed for time or that we need to fill the days with everything that we weren't able to do or talk about while Jonny was gone during the week, but this weekend was just great. We got a lot done, had tons of time with friends, and ate really well. Here's a little snapshot, going clockwise from the top left:

{1} An impromptu dinner for ten on Friday night at Thirsty Bear.

{2} Alec showed up late for Sunday brunch at Tartine, and we had all already waited in line and ordered so we just shared everything with him. Here he is surrounded by the multitude of plates he finished off.

{3} Lydia and Elizabeth, who was in town from Dallas for the weekend.

{4} Elizabeth loving life at the corner of Dolores Park overlooking the rest of San Francisco.

{5} There was a BIRD in Tartine! I think it had waddled in by accident, but it was flying around and swooping past heads and croissants for a little while trying to figure out how to get out.

{6} The boys hanging out in Dolores Park.

Jonny left this morning for Toronto. Only TWO more weeks of this travel! Woohoo!

California, I love you

Yes, I do. 

Serious Catchup

So I've been MIA for a little while. I seriously don't understand how all this cute people on the interwebs can live fun and busy lives and also find time to document said lives with amazing photographs and post them on blogs. I struggle. That said, here's a little catchup from the past two weeks:

{1&2} We had a fast food dinner at a nice restaurant in the Mission, Farina. Probably a restaurant where you should have a leisurely two hour dinner and a bottle of wine. We were in and out in less than 30 minutes!

{3} Flowers on my bedside table.

{4, 5, & 6} Little Mermaid Sing Along at the Castro theater. Lydia and I almost decided not to go to this, which would have been a huge mistake. It was so perfectly San Francisco and so hilarious. And the ceiling in the Castro theater was amazing!

{7} Pretty flowers in the shop by our apartment.

{8} This is our street! And one of my very favorite streets in San Francisco. Love.

{9} I rediscovered this app that I have that allows you to stache your friends. Here's Cait's stache at dinner at CPK. Yes, we went to a chain, and it was glorious. I realized that there are times when I find the familiarity of chain restaurants really comforting. Good thing this blog isn't widely read, or the SF foodies would be hating on me!

In other news, Jonny has three more weeks left on his project in Toronto. I've been refusing to count down the days up to this point, but I think I'm about ready to start. Can't wait for him to be at home all week every week.

A long weekend and a long drive

We planned on spending our Presidents' Day weekend in Tahoe, but due to crazy circumstances, we spent about 4 times more hours in the car than we spent on the slopes.

Jonny's office rented a house for the weekend and we planned to leave work a little early and head up to Tahoe. We actually didn't start heading out of town until 5pm, and it took us an hour sitting in standstill traffic in San Francisco before we got on the interstate. Once we were on the road, though, it was pretty smooth sailing. Until we started to get close to Tahoe, that is. The snow was coming down hard and the roads were getting icier and icier, and all over the place we were seeing warnings that we would need snow chains. We stopped and bought some at a gas station, although neither of us has ever had experience putting on chains before.

When we got to the stopping point where people without 4 wheel drive and snow tires are required to put chains on their cars, and we were going to pay a man to put ours on since we had no clue what we were doing. He looked at our car and said, "You've got an Audi - you don't need chains" and waved us on. You saw a picture of our car - it's an Audi convertible, not exactly a snowmobile. Anyway, we drove on, and the people at the check point said the same thing, "You don't need chains."

We were feeling pretty good about ourselves for a little while, then the roads started getting icier and we started slipping, so we pulled over to the side of the road to try to attach our chains ourselves. We followed the directions that came with the chains and managed to get them attached to both wheels, but as soon as we started driving, one chain fell off. Jonny then decided to park on the side of the road and got out to look for the chain. I sat in the car waiting until a highway patrol officer came up and told me I was in an extremely dangerous spot and needed to either drive on or pull the car completely off the road. I told him that Jonny was out looking for our lost chain, and he started going on and on about how risky that was. And I started to get worried.

Jonny was nowhere in sight, and I sat in the car on the side of the road while other vehicles crawled by us, imagining all of the worst possible things that could have happened to him. Finally, he got back, with no chains, and I was so relieved! We crept on for awhile with one chain on, and we managed to do all right going downhill. Then, we got to a tiny hill and couldn't make it up. We tried reversing and then going forward, getting out and pushing, and laying on the gas, but nothing worked. We started to plan for sleeping there in our car that night when another highway patrol officer came up and gave us a push up the hill. With that momentum, we made it to the next chain check point about a mile up the road. By this point it was about 3:30am.

This chain checkpoint was much stricter, as the next stretch of road was hilly and icy and wind-y (that's wind-y with a long "i", not windy). The man at the checkpoint took a look at our car with our one chain and told us we needed to turn around and drive to the closest town to buy new chains. The nearest town was about 10 miles away, which wouldn't be a problem except that driving that last ten miles had taken us over an hour. We told him we thought we'd be okay and somehow managed to convince him to let us go on our way. By some kind of miracle, we made it through that next stretch of road slowly but surely, and finally crossed over into Nevada. At this point, we were only 3 miles from our house.

We started up the final hill to get to our house, and suddenly the parking brake light came on. We stopped for a second to see if we'd accidentally pulled the brake up by mistake (not an easy accident!). We hadn't. But once we'd stopped, we couldn't get started up the hill again. Finally we decided we'd have to park the car and call someone to come get us. We saw a stoplight in the distance and thought it would be better to find a parking lot to park in rather than abandoning our car on the side of the road, so we eased over in the direction of the light. We found a gas station that was open at 5am and went in to see if we could get anything that might help us make it up the hill. They had snow chains so we bought another pair, thinking that an additional snow chain would help us out.

We got the chains installed and turned the car on again, and... nothing. We couldn't drive forward or reverse. Jonny was about to go angrily try to return the failing snow chains to the poor night attendant at the gas station when he realized that our back wheels were locked. So much snow had built up around our wheels that the wheels had completely locked up, as if we had pulled the parking brake. We put on our gloves and dug and dug, and finally we got all of the snow out and were able to drive on. At that point, our car was driving like a champion and we made it all the way up to the house. It was 5:30am.

Enough writing, except I'll explain the above pictures, starting clockwise from left:

{1} view of sunset from our house; {2} Jonny with crazy post-snowboarding hair; {3} pretty sky on a stretch of road; {4} In-N-Out!; {5} light traffic, but a little picture of our view for most of the weekend; {6} wine exhibit at SF Moma on Monday.

And in other news, our friends Josh and Ashley got engaged a few weeks ago and it's been so fun to get to celebrate with them! We can't wait for Memorial Day weekend... WOOHOO!

(photo taken at our wedding by Rachel Williamson)

P.S. I will be sharing our wedding photos soon... it's just taken me a few months to get around to putting them together. 

Weekend Update

...on a Thursday. I know. This past weekend, we took Jonny's birthday present up to Napa and spent Friday night there. It was perfect convertible weather and we took full advantage. We also took full advantage of a vegetarian restaurant slash yoga studio in Napa. We were both skeptical of the shots of turnip soup we were served, but it was surprisingly delicious. We also watched sheep graze at Robert Sinskey and enjoyed mimosas and breakfast on our roof. 

And it's nice that I'm just posting this now, because I can get excited that there are only two more days until our next extra-long weekend! 

Friendsday Vday

The incredibly fun and talented Caroline Gilligan hosted an "I heart my friends" Valentine's dinner, complete with red cabbage salad, heart glasses, and root beer floats. It was such a fun day to spend Valentine's night! 

In college, we used to have crazy Friendsday Wednesday celebrations (a tradition that I think and hope my sister still carries on at Wake Forest) and I hadn't done it in a while, but this kinda felt like a Friendsday Monday. I think I always want to make Valentine's about lovers and friends, not just lovers. 

Ignite (Not by Katy Perry)

Tonight Lydia and I went to an event that we knew next to nothing about - Ignite SF. We had heard it was "an indie version of TED Talks" and that did prove to be somewhat true. Basically, the premise was that someone could get up and talk about whatever subject they choose in 5 minutes using 20 slides. 

There were some hits (How I learned to follow my mom on Twitter by Kimra), some misses (Simple steps to a hot body at any age, which was basically just a slide show of one girl's family members and a push to eat Whole Foods), some challenges made (Zero Waste Challenge by Michael LaFemina), and some that were just straight up funny and entertaining while also enlightening (161 Erie Street). 

I'm glad I went and I'd definitely go back. But I need to eat dinner before I go next time. Two beers on an empty stomach meant I was pretty tipsy by the end of it, so I came home and used what little I had in my kitchen to make dinner. (I learned how to poach an egg, too!) All in all a good night!

Our weekend in Instagram

I'm counting the weekend as starting on Thursday night. Jonny's birthday is next Tuesday, and I picked him up from the airport on Thursday night in his birthday surprise....

I had managed to sneak around and buy a car (with lots of help from Josh and Ashley!) and Jonny knew nothing about it until he got to drive it home from the airport. My parents were also in town this week and weekend. My dad had work here, and my mom tagged along to hang out. 

We loved having them here, and my parents really took advantage of everything San Francisco had to offer, including riding our tandem through Golden Gate Park, visiting Kiva, going to Tartine FOUR times, meeting a bunch of our friends at a brunch we hosted at our house, and wine-tasting in Napa. Here's Daddy after a few tastings:

It was kind of a dreary day, but Napa was beautiful even when it was grey.

Here we are outside of Francis Coppola's estate.

I loved these lights. We had them at our wedding too, and I just think they have an awesome effect. 

All in all, we had such a fun-filled but also somehow relaxing weekend. Now my parents are back in Nashville, Jonny's on his way to Toronto, and I'm getting ready to read some of Delivering Happiness, write some very delayed thank-you notes, and get prepped for this week at work. Hope you all had lovely weekends too!

Monday Monday

I don't know how much I've shared about this on this blog, but Jonny has been traveling to Toronto every Monday through Thursday for the project he's on right now, which means Monday through Thursday, I'm living all alone.

It's been tough for both of us, but especially for me because Jonny's busy from about 8am-12am every day with this project so that serves as a distraction for him, while I work normal hours and then come home to an empty house. I've had a lot of great friends making plans with me and making sure I'm not going crazy by myself, and that has been really wonderful.

I'm really trying not to dwell on my disappointment of not having Jonny home with me and to recognize and appreciate all the blessings in my life. So, here are a few of the blessings I'm counting today:

{1} Jonny got up and left really early this morning, but I woke up to this note propped up on the vase of lilies in the kitchen.

{2} In between #1 and #2, I spent four long hours in the California DMV getting a new California license with my new name: Elizabeth Alig Carroll Price. It's a mouthful, I know, and it's caused trouble so far in both the Social Security office and the DMV. My first SS card issued said "Elizabeth Alig Carol Price" and my first driver's license issued said "Elizabeth AligCarroll Price." I know it's tricky, but I just couldn't give up a name!

Anyways, getting to this picture of my dinner, which reminded me a lot of dinners in Kenya (except the sausage might have been mutton, and Eleanor and I might have been part-time vegetarians.) It was really yummy, and I'm glad I actually cooked something. Sometimes it's hard to cook for one.

(Also, please disregard the empty coke bottle and open bag of powdered sugar in the background. Cute bloggers never have that kind of stuff sitting around when they take pictures of their houses.)

{3} The Narcissus on my bedside table that smell so so good. AND, I'm a late adopter and have a new obsession over the instagram iPhone app that I've finally downloaded that makes it easy to take cool pictures. This setting is called "Nashville" so obviously I love it.

San Francisco Shower

I've got lots to catch up on! Over the past month, I've been gone three out of four weekends, and I'm just about to leave San Francisco for three weeks on Saturday.

There are lots of exciting times both behind me and ahead of me, and I'm so busy running around like a crazy woman that I haven't been documenting any of them. 

I decided that I'm just going to slowly do a little bit of life catch-up on this blog, starting with pictures from a lovely little dinner party shower that my friends threw for me a few weeks ago. 

Caitlyn, Katy, and me before dinner. Please notice Lydia's works of art in the background - portraits of roommates and friends by making their hairstyles with cut out cardstock. 

Becca the amazing chef!

Catching up in the living room turned dining room for the night

Opening lots of fun gifts

Lydia Harter - what a hostess

Some of the girls

Thank you all for such a fun night! I felt so well loved and showered and celebrated.

Bike Basket Pies

There's a lady here in San Francisco who makes mini-pies and peddles around, selling them from her bicycle. At Kiva, we had a little phase where we were ordering pies from her weekly. She would bike over with a delivery, and we would all have pies for breakfast or lunch or dessert. Check out her website here. 

Bastille Day at the DeYoung

Speaking of Paris, last night Caitlyn and I went to a Bastille Day party at the DeYoung. It was amazing! Not only did we meet people in powdered wigs, hoop skirts, and even one old woman wearing nothing but lingerie, but we also got to enjoy endless macaroons, truffles, breads, cheeses, and open bars. We tried absinthe (woof!) and heard about where you can get a Marie Antoinette gown made on short notice. And, on top of all of that, we got to see the Birth of Impressionism exhibit from the Musee d'Orsay. This is most definitely going to be an annual event.

P.S. Unfortunately this picture was taken with my iPhone, but hopefully you can still get the picture of Caitlyn in all her fluted glory.