Sea Lions, Houseboats and Old Friends

Yowza. The past couple weeks have been busy busy busy. The light at the end of the tunnel, though, was my highly anticipated and much needed VACAY to Puerto Vallarta with my roomie, Mckenzie. We currently are at the Phoenix airport with a 4 hour layover (aka the perfect time to finish up some overdue blog posts), so here I go... :-)

A couple weekends ago I made a short trip up to San Francisco to see one of my dearest friend Vanessa who was there for work.  I was there roughly 40 hours and spent about 15 hours driving (alone) roundtrip, so that definitely wasn't the best travel to vacation time ratio. A rare combination of overly pricey flights due to the golf U.S. Open in SF that weekend and a random craving for a solo road trip led me to the (crazy) decision to make the long drive. However, when I hit some killer construction/congestion on the 5 (that literally caused me to put my car in PARK for an extended period of time), I definitely began regretting that decision. Ha. Alas, after approx 8 hours in the car I made it to SF and my lovely weekend reunion with Vaness officially began. :-)

I went to SF for the first time last year with Mary, but we spent the majority of our time Outside Lands, so I got to see a lot more of the pretty city this time. We ate a lot of DELISH food (highlights: gnocchi at Firenze by Night Ristorante, tomato/mozzarella croissant at Caffe Greco, and the famous pancakes at Dottie's True Blue Cafe), enjoyed the views from Coit Tower, visited St. Peter and Paul Cathedral (one of the prettiest churches I've seen in the U.S.), and saw the sea lions at Pier 39 (which are so freaking cute... I love them). 

We then had a wonderful/hilarious reunion with another good friend from college, Amber, who is one of the coolest, nicest, and most unique people I know.  It's hard to describe her in words, but I think the following text from her gives a glimpse into her awesomeness: 

"Hey! I have a ping pong lesson with this El Salvadorian master dude at noon, other than that, heck yes! We should meet by the ferry tomorrow- I live on a boat in Sausalito, and yall are gonna LOVE it.  :) guaranteed exciting/entertaining. HUZZAH." 

hahaha. Vaness and I read that a couple times and just laughed... so very "Amber." We took a ferry to Sausalito (on which we hilariously got RAVAGED by insaaane winds) and Amber brought us to her houseboat. I was expecting a small little boat where I'd have to duck my head to fit in the cabin... oh how wrong I was. It was a full-sized large HOME that also happened to be the oldest houseboat in Sausilito. The decor was artsy/eccentric/amazing and both Vaness and I couldn't get over how cool and crazy it was that Amber lives there.  

We spent the afternoon drinking delish handcrafted cocktails (fresh watermelon juice+gin+basil...yummm) and catching up on the last few years. It was perfect. And it definitely made me think of the cheesy (but true) quote, "True friends can grow separately without growing apart." :-)

Overall, it was a fantastic weekend full of old friends and exploring a great city. These are definitely a few of my favorite things. :-)

xoxo,

Annie.