Staying awake in San Francisco

I arrived back in San Francisco last weekend. On my last trip, I did the bootcamp-equivalent of kicking jet lag, which means I arrived at  6:30 Monday morning and went to work for the day. This time I got a flight arriving on Sunday - luxury! So instead of trying to stay awake through work meetings, I did things like walking around the city to stay awake. I was staying near Union Square, so I decided a walk through the hills of the city to Coit Tower would do the trick and keep me awake! Through the edge of the Financial District....

 

 

Along the edge of Chinatown...

 

And up the hill!

The steps to the left nearly did me in. It was after that climb that I started thinking I might need a nap that day.

 

 

  Sitting by the tower and resting for a while was pretty nice!

 

The other part of the day that was working against me was the temperature. It turned out to be the hottest day in San Francisco for the entire year, topping out at almost 100. I made my way back to the hotel through North Beach and the streets of Little Italy.

 

 

 

  It was such a beautiful day and a lovely walk. But there is no forgetting that I live a lucky life when I'm in this city. At Walgreens, the store is set up to deter the vast number of homeless people from stealing things they need. Things like medicine and cards are on the shelves like normal, but things like toothpaste are locked away. Around the store there are lots of buttons to call a store clerk to get your soap or toothpaste from behind the plastic.  

 

Notwithstanding the sadness in the city, it was still a great day. I fit in a nap and finding a burrito for my dinner, which I do believe is the best cure for jet lag yet!        

Let's make pasta!

Last weekend we went to a pasta making class. Yay! Sydney has a small Italian population compared to Melbourne, but we managed to land ourselves with a true Italian couple. They were so cute, and VERY passionate about their pasta. They immigrated from Italy 10 years ago and have opened a little pasta restaurant in Surry Hills. Now they do cooking classes, which I was so excited to check out after I learned about them.

We made two batches of pasta dough and then we got to play around with a lot of pasta tools.

 

At the end of the class, the restaurant kitchen cooked up our pastas with some delicious sauce and we all had a meal together. It was really fun, and I have to say that our pasta tasted pretty good! It wasn't beautiful, but we got the important parts down. After our pasta lunch, we headed back to the CBD. It was a beautiful and warm day, so we weren't ready to head home quite yet. We happened to notice that the new tunnel to the Barrangaroo development was open, so we decided to check it out. Toby loved it, which might have something to do with the fact that he said it looked like a starship.

It is pretty futuristic, I have to admit. 

Of course, once we were in Barangaroo, it seemed like we should maybe check out the new gelato shop that's opened. Tons of new buildings and shops have sprung up; it's almost like a whole other city over there!

 

 

And then we really needed to walk off all the Italian-ness of our day. So we decided to walk home, going through the Botanic Gardens  and soaking up as much sunshine as we could!

 

  Maybe next sunny weekend we can check out the pool with all the other fabulous people!

Some Sydney pics from last week

It's definitely starting to turn spring here! The flowers are all blooming and the weather is perfect for more time outside.  Two days in a row, the sunsets were fantastic on my walk home from work!  

And the flowers have been blooming like crazy! One of the parts of my commute is filled with booming jasmine, and you can smell it from 20 feet away.  

  Last Wednesday, we went to dinner and then to late night hours at the Art Gallery New South Wales. It was a nice 30 minute walk to dinner through Hyde Park.  

   

And then we went to the gallery, where there was some live music.

 

 

  I've also had lots of dog time at work recently. Yay for work pups!  

 

 

We took advantage of the later daylight hours by grabbing some dinner in the CBD and having an impromptu picnic on the way home from work.  

And we had one of the best festivals of all recently: a chocolate festival! The day was sunny and warm - what better way to be enjoying chocolate?

 

Setting up got chocolate lecture, I assume!

 

Yay for chocolate fun!