Oakland and Berkeley

Me and Savannah outside the Blondies Pizza - Two blondies! This blog post backtracks one day but here are some photos from our first day arriving in the Bay Area. We went straight to Bittersweet Cafe where I completely forgot to take a photo! I met with a friend of mine, Steve Newton who works with NCSE in Oakland. I had rented a car for a week so Paige drove Lu & Wylder and I drove up with Sam & Savannah and the strangest thing happened throughout the trip that I didn't really even realize until today when Paige pointed it out. So whenever we would go anywhere on our separate ways, we would arrive at places literally within MINUTES. It was actually pretty bizarre the more that I think about it! At any rate the first such coincidence happened when we arrived within a few minutes of one another at Bittersweet. Everyone was hungry so after getting a spicy hot chocolate I said bye to Steve and we headed to Telegraph Avenue in Oakland just next to the UC Berkeley campus. Paige and her kids have a tradition of visiting Blondie's Pizza for dinner so we went there despite a recommendation from Steve for another place. I think the kids wanted to stick to tradition.
Us inside Blondies. I got the Tom-Art pizza - aka Tomato-Artichoke. It was thin crust, New York style, and delicious! Afterwards we walked down Telegraph Ave a bit where there are always street jewelers and musicians. This is a thrift shop where I shopped with Zofia and my niece Kira once a few years back (here's a link to my blog post with the pics). A shot of a really nice street vendor named Daniel who made jewelry out of those glass beads. I got one and an infinity bracelet. I also got an evil eye necklace from a local artisan named Twiggy but he didn't want his photo taken. Next we headed to check out the campus. Once again Paige was our wonderful trusty guide! She showed us the library, where protests used to take place and several other parts of campus.
Sather Gate marks one end of campus. UC Berkeley - aka "Cal" - was the first UC school. I always wanted to go there or UCLA when I was younger. Sather Tower aka the Campanile. Next we stopped in Doe Library where we were greeted by none other than Mark Twain. Only we thought he was Albert Einstein until we figured out that he wasn't. At any rate, the bronze statue got a lot of attention and even hugs. And Lu got some hugs too! Lu, me, and Savannah with Mark. Doesn't this look just like a library scene from some movie or movies? I'm sure it must be in some... Next we visited the life sciences building which has a giant T. Rex skeleton. And also a Pterodactyl. A random announcement board outside the Free Speech Cafe.
After exploring the campus we headed to San Francisco via the Bay Bridge!

I love San Francisco!

We arrived in San Fran on Monday. First we actually visited Bittersweet Cafe in Oakland and the UC Berkeley campus but I'll post those photos another day. We are staying at the Donatello where Paige's mom has a timeshare and graciously let us stay here. It's really nice. We got in and went straight to the jacuzzi! The next morn we picked up our Wharfpass (comped) which includes several different tours you can choose from. We first went on the "red & white" boat tour of the San Francisco Bay. It includes headsets that tell you what you are seeing as you cruise the Bay for an hour. This is me and Savi by the Golden Gate bridge - not surprisingly covered in fog! Notice our matching ROXY hoodies. :)
Paige and I on the boat!
I really wanted to do an Alcatraz tour but alas it wasn't meant to be on this trip. We did cruise around it and get a little history on the boat tour though. It's known as "The Rock" and is quite close to San Francisco really. About halfway through our hour-long boat tour, the cloudy sky cleared making way for a gorgeous sunny (but not too hot) day.
A closer view of the buildings and prison on Alcatraz.
Oh no! An escapee from the Alcatraz psychiatric unit is on the boat! I think she's in the photo!
Next we went to Boudin Bakery right next to the boat dock (in Fisherman's Wharf) and got the classic San Francisco lunch - clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Yum!
Then we walked down to Pier 39, famous for the sea lions! I was here last year also when I had a day in SF before heading to the Bering Sea/Dutch Harbor Alaska. I could watch them all day! They were pushing one another off the docks, it was pretty humorous. Then we walked around the shops in the Embarcadero, let the boys play in the Arcade ($3 in tokens is one of the items in the Wharfpass) and then we went to this Ultimate Log Ride 4D adventure theater, also right there next to the Arcade. It was pretty cool. Lu and Paige went to the Wax Museum instead of the 4D theater which was an option.In the afternoon we got on our 2-day CitySightseeing Doubledecker bus. At first we didn't have seats upstairs for everyone but there was one, so I went. The kids didn't want to! I thought they were crazy! It is sooo much better on top where you can see all the buildings that are super tall and all the sights in the breeze. It was late afternoon so getting chilly but they even provide blankets. Finally after a couple stops, seats opened up and I got everyone on top with me. Lu, Paige, with Wylder and Sam in the seats behind.At first it was just me and Lu on the top part of the bus. Lu was all the way in the back, and the tour guide was super anal about standing up or putting your hands outside the bus. Lu had his teddy bear and he must have lifted his hand up because we all heard the tour guide say "Put your hands down or the Teddy Bear is mine." Paige said they were all cracking up downstairs. :)We left from Fisherman's Wharf and then took a loop around the city back to Union Square where we got off. It is a couple of blocks over from our hotel. This is a shot of the sun behind their City Hall.
Union Square is surrounded by 4 artistic heart sculptures. Each has different painting on it. Pretty cool.
And Levi's were invented in SF and their headquarters is here.
The bear's gonna jump! Ha! After the us tour, we hopped off at Union Square and went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory which is on top of Macy's building. This is Lu and his bear he bought after the morning boat trip. We ate outside and it was freezing! But fun! I had this totalllllly delicious Nutty Monkey (?) milkshake with Nutella, Marshmallow, Frangelico a something else. Mmm soooo good! Plus I had some Thai lettuce wraps and stuffed mushrooms for everyone to share. PS Apologies again for the crappy photos - they are from my point and shoot because I didn't want to take my good camera around the city.

Universal Studios fun!

Saturday me and my kiddos went to Universal Studios. I have fond memories of the "behind the scenes" Studio Tour from when I came here as a teenager and I hadn't been since! My grandparents lived in North Hollywood so I would come to Cali regularly to visit. It was exciting to get back!
The first thing we did was go right to the Studio Tour. We had "Front of the Line passes" which get you to the front of the line passed all the people who wait for... 25, 25, 75 minutes depending on the ride. We got tics courtesy of Universal Studios and a discounted media rate for the passes. The front of the line passes were awesome! These photos are frolm my phone so they aren't good quality but just show what we saw. This is a set of some street. The vehicle we were on would show scenes from movies filmed in the different sets we drove by which was pretty cool. This is the Courtyard Square which was made famous by Back to the Future! It's been in several other movies too.This is called Little Mexico. It floods!Sam, me and Savi on the Studio tour.

Savannah in the Uglydolls!
So they have characters and of course I saw a guy doing a chest bump with SpongeBob SquarePants and I HAD to follow suit. My daughter HATES SpongeBob with a passion so she had to get a funny photo with him too but these are just my most favorite photos ever. Here I come - running at him. His expression cracks me up!

Chest bump! My daughter thought the photos looked "inappropriate"! I thought that was too funny!

Hug!
The fam with SpongeBob
Savi with Shrek and Fiona.
Me and Savi with Scooby Doo.
I got a hair wrap! It isn't permanent but gets put in with a braid. We also went on the Jurassic Park ride which goes through a lush jungly land with dinosaurs and then has a big drop at the end where you get wet (like a log ride). They had several shows (kind of like Seaworld has) including an Animal Actors show, Special Effects show and a couple of others. All in all it was a lot of fun!
I had to take a photo with an E.T. I loved that movie!
At the end of the day, we left the park and went to Universal CityWalk which is just a shopping-eating district right next door. We shopped at the magnet store, the candy shop, and a couple other fun places, and were going to possibly eat dinner at one of the restaurants and then realized we were really not that hungry because we'd been munching all day in the park - especially on the yummy cupcake-flavored popcorn from Popcornopolis!

Chillin in L.A.

Open door on Thorne Hall, Occidental College in Los Angeles. President Obama went here for a couple years.A shot of Thorne Hall from the outside. A lot of concerts and presentations are held here.
Another building at Occidental or "Oxy" as they call it. A terrible photo taken by a phone but I just wanted to present a couple snapshots from the day yesterday. We hung out by Paige's gorgeous pool! Savannah and Dana's daughter discovered some blackberries in the yard.The original Charlie's Angels - ha ha! Me, Dana and Paige.

Pepperdine, Point Dume and great friends!

We arrived in Los Angeles around noon Thursday and went straight to Pepperdine University, a private Christian college in Malibu overlooking the ocean - wow! Gorgeous campus. This is the chapel. The blue in the background in this photo is the ocean!
This is a view of the stained glass inside the chapel. I didn't get many other photos of campus but it was really beautiful. Paige is a teacher and when she taught high school she took some of her kids to look at this and other colleges so she gave us a tour and told us about the campus since we didn't have a formal tour set up. We visited the library, the chapel, the student center and ate lunch in the cafeteria. Savannah loved the college.

Next we drove a couple miles to Point Dume, which is where they filmed part of Ironman (his house was CGId onto Point Dume). This is Lu, Sam, Savannah and Raleigh.
My friend Paige!At the edge of the sandy beach there were some rocks and though the tide was up and we couldn't see any tide pools, we climbed over the rocks to another beach around the corner.
The lava rocks were sharp! We went back and got our flipflops...
The water was a beautiful emerald/blue color. We even saw a couple of harbor seals on the rock that is teeny tiny in this picture. Paige saw some dolphins playing in the waves.
And this is the beach around the rocks.
Savannah taking photos as usual! :)
They were even filming a commercial. The one guy kept yelling out "Rolling - quiet!" which I found very annoying when my son started climbing off on the rocks and it was windy and he couldn't hear me tell him to not go off too far... I was like, forget you dude, my kid is more important than your dumb commercial!
At the end of the day, we headed back and had a few friends over for dinner. This is Dana and Paige!
And this is Bruce and Paige. Love all those gorgeous orchids in the window! Their house is amazing - love it. It was an overall great first day in Cali! I am so grateful to my friends who I love so much.

Tomorrow my kids and I are heading to Universal Studios and meeting up with my second cousin Daria and her two kids. I haven't been there since I was a kid so I'm excited to get back and see what it is like now.