Bay Area Adventures: The Painted Ladies

As anyone who has been recently unemployed can attest, mid-day reruns of the deliciously cheesy 90's time capsule that is Full House are the bomb.  When I first moved up to the Bay Area and was job hunting, I especially loved that the opening credits (complete with fantastic 90's fashion and hair styles) showcased my new surroundings.  

Along with panoramic shots of the Golden Gate Bridge and trolley cars, the opening credits also show the family tucking in for a lovely picnic in front of their amazingly picturesque San Francisco home.  That row of houses so prominently featured is known collectively as "The Painted Ladies" and, though they could serve as San Francisco's Cultural Museum, are actually private residences.  While in San Francisco a while ago, I made it a point to take a walk and see these Painted Ladies.

The Ladies are located adjacent to Alamo Square Park, and the whole area looks basically the same as it did in the mid-90s Full House montage.  Except, in 2013 there were more Asian girls taking selfies, and less families in bright colors enjoying picnics. 

We took a quick walk through Alamo Square (it was a really lovely day) and then around the block to see some other, just as impressive, houses in the neighborhood.  It was a nice 30-minute adventure, and mostly served as a real-life introduction for me to some of the beautiful home architecture San Francisco has to offer.

Full House Season 5 opening credits, circa 1992

I appreciate that the owners have kept the houses the same colors throughout the years

Bay Area Adventures: Muir Woods State Park

Back in March when I learned my international friend Bernadette was coming to visit, I was determined to show her something she'd never seen before.  Yes, we took her to the Golden Gate Bridge, but we had three more days and I wanted to do something new for both of us.  I decided to take her to Muir Woods State Park, located over the GGB in Marin County, north of San Francisco.  Besides being a beautiful nature area full of hiking trails and even beaches, Muir Woods is also home to the southernmost forest of Redwood trees in the US.  And since Redwood trees only grow on the coast of California, this is the southernmost Redwood forest in the world.

As someone who was born and raised in Germany and had just spent the last few years of her life in New Zealand, I was sure Bernadette had never seen a Redwood before, and was excited to show her these incredibly amazing trees. Now, I'm not really a "nature freak" per se, but something about the Redwoods just totally fascinates me.  As my Grannie would say, some Redwoods are "older than Christ," and you have to respect and admire anything that can literally live over 2,000 years.  Not to mention grow as tall as 30 stories high while also smelling amazing.

In high school a friend of mine sent me a postcard from the actual Redwood National Forest (located about 8 hours north of SF).  The postcard itself was made out of a very very thin piece of Redwood bark, and to this day, more than 10 years later, it still smells faintly like Redwoods. I was not disappointed to be greeted by that exact smell when we got out of the car and entered Muir Woods.   

We walked through the grove of trees on a raised deck-like path.   Bernadette and I both took a million pictures of the gargantuan trees, and took several deep deep breaths of the deliciously fresh air.  After we turned back, we happened upon a group of tourists and a guide, who was leading a "tree talk." We listened for a few minutes and my nerdy self was loving it.  We learned some really awesome trivia, most notably 1) Redwood bark can grow up to 2 feet thick, thus being a natural defense against predators and 2) The bark secretes tannin, which is a natural bug repellant.  So while many trees will secrete sap, and thus attract insects like termites and even birds, all those little pests leave Redwoods alone.

After we got back to the car, we drove down to Sausalito and spent the afternoon walking on the boardwalk, and treated ourselves to some fresh seafood.  It was a lovely day, and San Francisco did not disappoint with another sunny day for my visitor!

We entered through this gate, but it turns out we should have gone through the gift shop to pay an entrance fee.  Whoops.

Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, and even these pale in comparison to some of the bigger ones found at Redwood National Park

Me and Bernadette on one of the many bridges along the path

My pup Sunny exploring Sausalito

Sausalito beach sculptures with the San Franciso skyline in the background

30 Before 30: Buy a Mini Cooper

The other day, I fulfilled a huge goal in my life thus far, and bought a car.  And not just any car - my dream car, a Mini Cooper hardtop.

I have been lusting after Minis for years.  Every time I saw one on the street, my inner voice would squeal "miniiiiii!!!" and I even test drove them several times over the years.  I was smitten.  As every male close to me in life kept reminding me, it certainly would have been more "practical" to get an economy car like a Honda or a Toyota, or really any Japanese car with 4 doors and a large trunk, etc.  

But whatever.  I'm not going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a car that someone else wants me to buy.  I know that in just a few short years I will have to buy that practical car (especially if the twin prediction comes true) and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that I didn't take advantage of the one time I could buy what I really wanted.

So I saved for three years, I worked really hard to get my credit score up, and I wrote the biggest check of my life.  And boooyyyy does it feel good to have bought myself exactly what I have wanted for years!  :)

30 Before 30: Donate 100 Things to Goodwill

Clockwise from top: garage mid-clean, perfected closet, SUV full to the roof with donations

As anyone who knows me can attest, I discard clothing almost as quickly as I acquire it.  Of course I hold on to classic (read: expensive) pieces, but I am certainly not one of those sentimental types that holds on to my 8th grade Fun Run shirt for the memory of it being "fun."  So I really don't understand why I thought donating 100 things to Goodwill would take me years to accomplish.  This was by far the easiest item on my list, aided by a recent move and a hunger for spring cleaning.

When I was preparing for my big move up north, I moved out of my apartment in LA months before I actually moved.  I spent the interim at my parents house, with my things in storage.  But while packing up, I filled my dad's 4Runner with things to donate.  Those don't even count in this tally.  When I got around to unpacking said items 6 months later in my new home, I thought I had done a really good purge.  Boy, was I wrong.

While unpacking, I piled up almost 50 pieces of clothing I no longer wanted.  I put them in a box, and put that box in the garage.  When Ronny and I decided we didn't want something that we had duplicates of, we threw it in the garage.  So it comes to no surprise that by the sixth month of this habit, we could barely step foot in our garage.  We decided it was high time for a clean-out.

Of course the weekend we picked to do it was the hottest weekend of the year thus far, so we postponed and I instead did another closet re-org and purge.  I collected up 27 more pieces of clothing to get rid of, and am beyond happy with my newly organized, perfectly clean and functional closet.

When the Garage Takedown Weekend rolled around, we got to work.  At this point, we had both been so lazy with our move-ins that the donations were mixed in with "things we want to keep but don't have a place for," so we spent the whole morning sorting.  We built up a big Ikea shelf unit to store some of the smaller things and sports equipment, and filled plastic bins from my move with all of our seasonal decor, hobby supplies and bulk household items.  Our "donate" pile took up half our carport!

A lot of the donations came from the fact that when 2 people move in together, they both have stuff, and duplicates aren't necessary.  We compared who had the better pots and pans, etc, and the 2nd set got donated.  Here is an almost-total tally of what we donated:

77 items from my closet
12 items from Ronny's closet
4 throw pillows
2 floor lamps
1 DJ mixer
2 metal queen bed frames
1 mattress pad
1 large mirror
2 metal wastebaskets
7 misc Christmas decorations - mini tinsel Christmas tree, strings of lights, window decor
20+ misc kitchen item duplicates - pots, pans, entire silverware set, stove-top cooking utensils, can opener, etc

And I know there was more, Ronny started loading the car before I could finish counting.  So by my record, the overall total came to at least 129 items.  Not to mention the dozen or so items we are donating to Sweet Home Rescue, the shelter from which we adopted our pup.

I am encouraged by how easily I reached my goal.  I hope that the items we donated will help out a family in need somewhere within the Goodwill network.  And from now on, I am definitely going to try to spend my money in a more constructive manner and not buy stuff I will so quickly and happily discard mere months later.

Bay Area Adventures: Baker Beach

When my favorite international friend Bernadette informed me that she was moving from New Zealand to Germany, I immediately realized that this meant one thing: A California stop-over!  So I convinced her to book her flights and come visit me for four days at the end of March. I was just as excited to see her, as I was to use her as an excuse to get a jump-start on my Bay Area Adventures list!

When she had lived in LA previously, Bernadette had taken a whirl-wind weekend trip up to San Francisco and did most of the touristy things - Alcatraz, Lombard Street, Ghiradelli Square, etc.  So when planning our itinerary, I asked her what she hadn't done and would like to do.  She was so polite and European about it, when she said "Well, we did all these things but it was so foggy, we didn't even get to see the Golden Gate Bridge.  So... I guess, if we could maybe see that, that would be really cool."

Luckily for her, I am still obsessed with the GGB myself and took this as the prefect opportunity to finally take some of my own touristy bridge pictures. I knew of a great place with an amazing bridge view, and with a bit of research (asking one friend who lives in the city) I learned that the place I wanted to go was called Baker Beach.  So we made Baker Beach our #1 SF stop for Bernadette's visit.

The few times I have been in San Francisco have been pretty difficult (to say the least) driving/parking experiences, and since this was literally the ONLY thing Bernadette requested, I was scared that we would make it all the way to Baker Beach only to find no parking within a 2-mile radius.  So we left extra early and took the scenic route up to San Francisco.  We got to Baker beach around 11:00 AM (had to give the fog some time to burn off) and of course, there were dozens of parking spots in the closest lot. We parked and walked along the eucalyptus-lined path, turned a corner, and saw THIS:

Taa-daaaaa!

Not even a wisp of fog!  Bernadette was beside herself, and I tried to play it cool, but I was loving it too.  Even Ronny knew how lucky we were to be seeing the bridge in all its glory on such a beautiful day, especially in March. What an amazing view of a world landmark!  I had never felt more excited to live in the bay area than I did in that moment.

So we took our shoes off and started walking along the beach, taking pictures of the majestic bridge as we walked.  And then we started looking around.  Despite the stunning view in front of us, we were surrounded by another view entirely: a decently-sized crowd of naked men.  Because, naturally, the beach with the most amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge in all of San Francisco WOULD be a nude beach. 

With naked men to our right, large families (with children!!) taking family photos to our left, and the Golden Gate Bridge in front of us, I realized then that I - and my foreign friend - were having a true San Francisco experience.  But of course, she is European and it wasn't even that big of a deal to her.

Overall, I was blown away by the view at Baker Beach.  I've seen hundreds of pictures that friends have posted of them standing in this exact spot, but seeing it in person was really special.  It was easily worth the drive, and I look forward to showing more touristy friends the beach - except this time I will warn them about all the nude men!

Please notice the naked men sunbathing

The panoramic postcard shot

Me and Bernadette in front of the GGB!

He allowed me to take one touristy picture, good thing it was the perfect one!

Bay Area Adventures: Another New List and a New Life to Go with It

In the four months that I've lived in the Bay Area, I have experienced a complete lifestyle change.  Besides being unemployed for the first two months, I have realized that I have moved to (though technically 9th largest city in the United States) the 'burbs.  San Jose is big, yes, but it is truly nothing like Los Angeles.

LA is a metropolis, and I wasn't expecting for it to be similar to San Jose.  But I guess I never realized just how busy my life was in Los Angeles.  I would go to dinner/movies/activities almost every night of the week, and then make plans to jet set somewhere on the weekends.  San Jose, though full of cultural diversity, inexpensive Asian food and more tech companies than I ever thought existed, is also much more relaxed, kid-oriented, and uneventful.

However, I have very happily and willingly traded that busy city life in for evening dog walks, The Voice marathons, and pho for dinner at least once a week. And general maturity, I guess. And though my bank account sure is grateful for this slow-down, my adventurous spirit is not.  I took a few months to settle into my new home, my new job, and my new life, and now I am ready to get back into my most favorite hobby: exploring.

With the help of my dear friend Betsy (who made me a long list of inexpensive activities for me to do once a job I had been interviewing for before I moved fell through, and I was facing unemployment) I have compiled the following list of things I want to do in the Bay Area.  I don't really have a deadline on when to finish, and I'm hoping along the way that I learn all about my new home, and share it all with you!

1. Winchester Castle
2. Santa Cruz Mystery Spot
3. Jelly Belly Factory
4. Alcatraz
5. Santa-Con
6. Walt Disney Family Museum
7. Baker Beach
8. 17-Mile Drive in Monterey
9. Ghiradelli Square
10. Coit Tower Stairs
11. The Painted Ladies
12. Angel Island
13. Mountain Winery wine tasting & concert
14. Stanford University
15. Bike the Los Gatos Creek Trail
16. Napa/Sonoma Wine Tasting
17. Oyster Shucking at Tomales Bay Oyster Co.

18. San Francisco Ice-cream pilgrimage

19.  Muir Woods State Park

20. Pacific Pinball
21. Charles Schulz Museum
22. The Gilroy Garlic Festival
23. Monterey Bay Aquarium 

30 Before 30: A Color Run

If something is advertised as the "most fun anything on Earth," I will probably try it.  So it was no surprise that when I heard of The Color Run - advertised as "the most fun 5K on Earth" - I was determined to do one.  Even though I had only moved up to the Bay Area weeks prior, I traveled back down to Los Angeles in early February to do the 2013 run with Barbara and Marsha.

One of the main reasons why I wanted to do the LA run was because it was held at my beloved Dodgers Stadium.  The course consisted of twists and turns around the huge stadium parking lot, with four different "color stations" along the way.  We would go under an arch of colored balloons (first blue, then orange, yellow and finally pink) where volunteers would then cover us from head to toe in coordinating colored powder.  It was a bit unfortunate that they started with blue and orange, as those colors ended up looking brown for the majority of the race.

Marsha was smart and brought us all red hats which not only protected our hair, but helped us spot each other in the huge crowd.  They said 10,000 runners registered for the morning race, not to mention 10,000 more for the afternoon shift.  It was a bit crazy, but lots of people got really into it with full outfits, tutus, rainbow socks, wigs, and everything in between.

For $40, it was definitely worth the experience (and the cute free shirt), but it's probably not something I will do again.  The girls and I had a blast (not to mention a little exercise!), but the process of getting clean after the fact wasn't so fun!  Barb had green-tinged hands and I had blue between my toes for days!