Pastry Dinner

After a hugely eventful day today the highlight ends up being a pastry I found at Marna's Bakery in North Beach. Oh it was so good and worth every penny. A pastry filled with custard, just like I ate in Spain! Oh yum! I was so excited to see it. My class mate Blake and I were walking along and we saw the sweets in the window and when we walked past and stopped and looked at each other we knew immediately without a word we were going back to go inside. I am so glad we did too. The pastry I wanted was inside! It was such a nice walk around tonight. the lights were coming on on the streets and people were coming out. I think it was like locals night tonight. The tourists head home and the streets are less frantic and more quiet and so all the places were full of people just enjoying the amazing weather and company. Great night. Blake and I ate our pastry's in the park that was next to a great church and in front of us was Coit Tower. We decided the bench we sat on was empty because when you finally sit down and look up there is a big tree right in line with Coit Tower, so you just eat knowing its there :)

This day started out pretty good. We immediately went into our tour of the city on the bus. It was not as much fun today. Everyone was much more serious about it and not as much joking. I thought I did good with the information and such but was not nearly as "on" as I could have been or even as I was the first time around.
We went over Golden Gate Bridge and  stopped in Sausalito. It reminded me of Tiburon which isn't far from there. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed the sunshine. There were so many people out, it was just packed. I could feel my anxiety in crowds showing up today. I haven't had that feeling in a while. I walked down to a deli and grabbed some food and ate by the water. Today was the blessing of the boats and the Bay was FULL of yachts! It was such a view back to the city today. Yachts everywhere and music in the yacht clubs.
I had a great stroll to the marina and watched the yachts coming out into this really busy channel. It must take some serious navigating to manage all those boats! What a sight!
After lunch we went up to a vineyard called Viansa. Modeled after a Tuscan winery. Pictures didn't do it justice. What an amazing place that was! Beautiful villa set among the grapes and olive trees. Oh and the wine! Wow! Amazing stuff. You can't get it anywhere but from the winery. They grow their own grapes and have some really good food and olive oil from their land as well. Pretty cool!

On our way back they took us to Fort Point which is just below the Golden Gate Bridge. what a view today. We just had a quick stop there and then we were off again.

We headed back to the office to get our "assignments" for the overnight trip to Yosemite National Park. Oh boy. I cannot wait. I made the big mistake of picking Mariposa. Google it, its a HUGE topic. We have to speak for 5-8 minutes on our topic this time and to a bus full of people we won't know either. I just have to tell myself that I am just giving a tour to my family and that will help. My family knows I like to do that. I subject them to my "tours" all the time. Really its just me filling the car with commentary. Ha!

After I got back to the hostel and took a mini break, Blake called and was headed to City Light Bookstore. what a great place that is. Not alot of books but totally different things to be found there. Then we wandered further down Columbus Street. Thats when we found the pastry.

On our way back to Union Square we passed through Chinatown and saw a Chinese jam session. Never seen that before. It was like the good ole boys just sitting around playing music, being encouraged by their community of friends. What an interesting place when you think about it. They all live there, make their livings there, raise their families etc. And they must just sit back and watch the waves of people coming through there. I mean, that is their home, we sometimes forget that I think. Its like an amusement park or major attraction and what you don't get is that they walk up the stairs to go to bed.

My roommates just returned to the room. They are two girls from Stuttgart. They are getting up early early tomorrow to go to Yosemite of all places! They catch the bus at 6:20am, can you believe it? Its a one day trip so it will be a really long day for them. Wow. I told them to take good notes because I was going there soon, they thought that was really funny.

I will lay here tonight and think of everything I did and remember something I am just sure of it. It was just a great night following a big long day. The temperature couldn't be better and Blake and I had some great chats. This class is not conducive to us all getting to know every little thing about each other, that is really a bummer I think. We don't really even know each others last names. I just found out the other day that Jan has cats. You know, things like that. In a business where we refer our friends and network etc its not easy to do that here when we are all together. We are all staying around the city too so no one goes back to the hostel or hotel and recounts the day.

Tomorrow night we are headed to the cheap seats at the baseball game, the tickets are less than a meal in this city. So that is good. I am excited for that. I won't even tell you what my pastry costs. I say costs because I'm certainly going back for another one!

Off to bed I guess. Tomorrow we don't start class until 10 am. So once my roommates leave I'll get to go back to bed. It really is my turn to be woken up early. I've been doing that to them for days now!