Greetings From Sunny California!

I love it here! It's been kinda chilly, but aside from that it's absolutely beautiful. It is gonna be really hard to leave all the lush, leafy trees and thick, green grass and colourful flowers to come home to the ugliness that is Southern Ontario in April.

My flight from Buffalo was delayed and so was my flight leaving Chicago, so by the time I landed in San Francisco, retrieved my rental car and drove to my Honey's it was 2:30am--5:30am MY time! For those following along at home, that's 25 hours on practically no sleep. Long day...

On Saturday, we went for lunch (breakfast?) at a ramen place and wandered around downtown Mountain View for a while. It's a very pretty town (palm trees!) with lots of neat shops and restaurants. Saturday night, we went into San Francisco with a friend of my Honey's and tried to navigate our way to Mission Street with his crappy GPS. For those of you who have never been to San Francisco, Mission Street is a pretty seedy part of town. I spent most of my time trying to dodge puddles of vomit and urine--pretty classy!

In spite of this, we did find an awesome little restaurant called "Fish and Farm" that appears to serve organic food and beverages exclusively. We had a variety of appetizers, my two favourites being a marinated squid and a chicken liver pate served with a fabulous bread. For my entree I had some of the best fish and chips I've ever tasted--the fish had a magical butteriness to it and the fries were infused with sea salt. Mmmmmmmm!

After stuffing ourselves, we carried on to a club called Mezzanine where we listened to two different DJs, Tommie Sunshine and Junkie XL. Tommie Sunshine's stuff was more mellow but it was a good warm-up to Junkie XL who was the headliner and his stuff was way more energetic. My Honey's friend had the foresight to bring earplugs for all of us and it's a good thing, 'cause I don't think I would have any hearing left if not for those little bits of foam. Miraculously, I made it all the way to the end of the show which turned out to be about 2am. I know--it's amazing! Two ridiculously late nights in a row--whoda thunk?

Yesterday we drove to Carmel which has to be the prettiest little town I have ever visited in my life. We had lunch at a terrific Italian place, the name of which eludes me at the moment, where we had some fabulous breadsticks, a mushroom pizza to die for and risotto balls with gooey melted cheese inside. Then, to burn off some calories, we walked down a street called Scenic Road--what a huge understatement! This road has spectacular views of the ocean on one side and spectacular homes on the other side. We walked part of the way back on the beach and of course I had to dip my feet in the freezing cold Pacific.

After locating the car, we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway to Big Sur. While Big Sur itself was a big disappointment, the drive there sure wasn't--OMG! Most breathtaking drive ever! I have got TONNES of pictures to show y'all when I get back. It was so worth the drive.

Today is my shopping day--I've located the nearest Lane Bryant--and I'm also off to Winchester House which my Honey recommended I see. It's close to the shopping mecca I'm hitting named Vallco Fashion Park so I figured, what the heck? Tomorrow I'm heading back into San Francisco for sightseeing and other touristy-type things and then it's back home again and another long day of air travel. Woo hoo.