San Fran baby!

John and I went to San Francisco this weekend for Emily's 30th birthday. It was a surprise, which is why I haven't mentioned yet that we were planning the trip. It was a great weekend, and she was very surprised. Reena was also there as well as another college roommate of ours, Tracy. We got there on Friday. Neither of us had been there before so we went on a three hour walking tour. We learned some cool stories about the city and got some exercise up those monsterous hills. There were three older women on the tour as well, and one of them was quite an old dear who was from San Francisco. She was lovely, but also kind of a pain in the ass as she had her own things to tell to compete a little with the tour guide and even wanted the thing to go backwards so she could end up near where her dinner reservations were. But she was just excited I guess, bless her.

That night we went to Emily's birthday dinner. She knew Reena was coming and thought originally that I was coming, but I had a chat with her over IM last week and told her I was really sorry I couldn't make it, yaddy yaddy yaddy. She fell for it hook, line, and sinker and was pretty surprised when she got there and we were at the bar! So that was really fun. The dinner was great, catching up with her, Reena, Tracy, and Carter, and also meeting her friends and catching up with the ones I met at the wedding. Afterwards we went dancing at a bar that smelled like puke. Needless to say, that place only lasted one beer.

The next morning we went to Emily's house. They have a beautiful apartment overlooking the bay and Alcatraz. Amazing view. Carter had hired a bus to take about 10 of us to Napa for wine tasting. We went to three vineyards. They had been warning me that it's easy to get carried away with tasting in Napa because you're drinking small amount so it hits you before you're expecting it. Of course, I like to think of myself as gifted so I figured this would not apply to me. Let's just say that looking back on some of the pictures today, I only had vague remembrances of some events and others I don't know how I even got into the picture because I'm fairly sure I wasn't even there when it was being taken. Good times. Anyway, it was a really wonderful day. And there was like 90% chance of rain and it ended up being lovely weather!

Sunday we met Emily and Reena for breakfast, then went to an exhibit of Titanic artifacts. That was pretty cool. I think it is a traveling exhibit. Afterwards we went to Fisherman's Wharf, then to Alcatraz for a night tour. That was very cool.
They did a really great job with the different tours through the prison as well as the guide on the boat ride on the way to the island.

That was pretty much it really. We left on Monday. I flew back to Indy for Monday night, then back to Chicago early Tuesday morning. So I’ve only have two nights away from home this week! I leave tomorrow night, then get all next week off! I have some internal IBM work to do, but we’ve got a project shutdown so I won’t have too much work stuff I need to worry about. Good timing as well since we are moving into the new house on Friday! We completed last week as I mentioned in my last post, but because of the SF trip we haven’t actually moved in yet. Friday we get loads of deliveries like the couch and bedroom furniture, so we can start staying there. Then Saturday our stuff gets moved. So I will be spending a lot of next week looking around for other furniture that we need like tables, chairs, etc. We popped in to see the house Monday after our flight which was very exciting for me since I haven’t seen it since we first viewed it. I still love it! So that’s good news! :-) I will try to get some new pics of it up next week. But until then, here is a link to some pics from this weekend’s trip. (There are three albums in the link.)