California Continued

Seeing Mike for the first time since last year.

Reuniting with Lieselotte.

Lunch with Mike, Eric, me and Lies in Berkeley.

Lies and me at Halloween.

View of the Golden Gate from Coit Tower.

With Jaja in Coit Tower.

On Pier 39 with Alcatraz behind me.

I can't believe I haven't written in so long when so much has happened.  Berkeley and San Fran were amazing.  I hung out with Mike a few times while Lies was in class, and the three of us hung out one night and had a really great time. We went to Indian Rock to see the sunset from Berkeley overlooking SF - the same place I went with Mike last year.  He hadn't been back since then, and Lies had never been.  We had a really great time and Lies was blown away by how beautiful it was. She said she plans to go back with friends and bring a picnic. After that, we ate dinner at a Peruvian place called Brasa and it was delicious.  There was a long mirror in the restaurant that had mustaches painted on it and we took pictures in the mirror, looking like we were wearing the mustaches.  It was really funny and we laughed and laughed. From there we went back to Lies' place and played Klaverjassen (the Dutch card game Lies' family taught me a year or so ago).  We played a three-handed version which isn't quite as fun as the four-handed one, but we still really enjoyed it.  Mike laughed at the scores after we played 9 rounds and I was killing both of them.  He said it was interesting how the woman working on her PhD had the lowest score, the guy working on his MBA had the middle score, and the woman with a BA was kicking butt. ;) 

With Lies on her front steps.

I also went into SF one day and spent the day with a CouchSurfer named Jaja.  She was from the Phillipines but has been living in the US since 2010.  She spoke excellent English - I couldn't believe it. We walked a long way that day.  We walked from the Powell St. Bart stop all the way to Coit Tower, went to the top and had great views of the city (though the bridge was pretty much shrouded in clouds), and then walked all the way to Fisherman's Wharf/Pier 39.  I bought a couple gifts and then we walked back through Little Italy and China Town before I went back to Berkeley to meet Lies after she got out of lab.  That night, we had dinner at Jupiter's pizza and it was delicious.  We sat outside but a little fire and even though it was rather cool, we had a great time.

View from Indian Rock with sunset over the Golden Gate.

For Halloween, Lies and some of her friends and I went into the city.  We went to the Castro district (known for its population of gay people and a lot of really odd characters - including random naked people).  It was definitely a sight to behold.  Despite the drizzle and people everywhere, I did enjoy myself.  Lies' friends who came with us were great, and I'd even met one before in Amsterdam.  They are all very smart (most are in her PhD program), so it was always good conversation.  For example, I learned a good bit about color blindness as well as random anatomy facts.  Four of us left around 1 a.m. and took a taxi back to Berkeley.  Lies and her other two friends didn't end up making it home until 5 a.m., as they'd had to take a bus and it only ran every hour and they couldn't find the stop.  It was a whole big fiasco, and she said next time, she'll just stay in Berkeley for Halloween.  

With Lies on Indian Rock.

Another afternoon I met my cousin Kelly in the city (she was in town for work from Jacksonville, FL) and we went shopping.  I got some great deals at H&M and Marshalls.  Then, when Erin (Kelly's step-sister) got off work in the city, she picked us up and we went to this street that looks like it was transported straight out of Europe.  It's not known very well by tourists.  It has white lights strung across the narrow ally and the restaurants are all on a row on the right with outside seating in the ally.  They are French, Spanish, Italian and maybe a couple others.  Last time I was in town we went to a French restaurant.  This time, we went to the Spanish one and shared a bunch of tapas.  It was so yummy!  From there, Erin drove Kelly and me to the hotel Kelly had gotten, and the three of us chatted for a while until Kelly (who'd gotten up at 4 a.m. the previous two days) was practically asleep at 9:15.  Erin left, and I stayed in the hotel that night with Kelly.  She worke up at 4 a.m. again and left before I work up.  After I did, I got ready and took the BART back to Berkeley to meet up with Lieselotte.  It was a really beautiful day, so we walked to campus and enjoyed how pretty it was.  She had to do some lab work where she had to check on an experiment every hour, so we hung out until about 4 and then hung out with Mike the rest of the evening.

Lies, Mike and me at Indian Rock.

The day I left, I hung out with Lies in the morning - it was a beautiful day and we sat in the front lawn for a while enjoying it.  Then Mike picked me up and we went to church in the afternoon (in which we were practically the only 2 non-Asians in the joint - but it was a good service), then we went to a coffee shop to hang out until he brought me to the BART.  At the coffee shop, I made friends with the people sitting on either side of us, when my giant laptop incited laughter all around when I propped it up next to Mike's tiny little iPad.  Turns out, the girl on one side of us was soon moving to Charlotte for a job at Ernst and Young. So I chatted with her and we became facebook friends.  Then the guy on the other side of us started talking to me about video game addiction, and I told him how I'd written an article on it, so we became facebook friends and I sent him the link to my article.   Meanwhile, poor Mike was trying to get homework done and was probably none too pleased with my social butterfly-ness.  But he didn't complain.  He then drove me to BART and I took it to Millbrae where Erin and Kerri met me on the other end and took me to dinner before bringing me to the airport to catch my red eye.

It was a really fun trip overall, and seemed both long and short simultaneously.  It's always hard to leave a place when you have parts of your heart there, and it seems like I have parts of my heart in so many places now. 

I'm now back in Charlotte and it is the second week of my new job.  I'm a blood drive recruiter - basically go to the drives and get people to donate.  Most of the time, I'm out and about and not stuck behind my desk in the office.  This is good, but also a little exhausting.  I'm hoping once I buy more comfortable shoes, my feet will be a bit happier about the situation. lol  I really enjoy talking to people and knowing that for every person who says "yes," I'm helping in the process of saving lives.  Today I went to CMC main and to the Siskey YMCA recruiting, working 9 hours straight without a lunch break.  Tomorrow, I had to Gaston County for a college campus recruitment.  Thank goodness they reimburse for mileage! 


Well, I'm beyond exhausted so I'm off.  Stay tuned for updates. :)