Yes, yes I do. And yes, as of last night I am now back in Seattle, after a wonderful, wonderful, vacation in California visiting my best friend. First of all, let me show you some of the pictures that you had to miss out on last post, since I now have my camera cord again. (Yay!)
Here are parts of the beautiful University of the Pacific campus (
(I like palm trees)
(The tiles on this building are in binary...although I have no idea what they say)
(This was literally one of thousands of painted rocks)
(The library, where Bre works)
(The clock tower...it sings every freaking hour)
(The UC, aka. the dining hall)
(Knitted covers on the bike racks)
(The "river" ...ha)
(One of the music buildings)
(Sororities)
All in all it was, again, a fantastic trip and I am currently in denial that one: it (and spring break) is over, and two: that I have to go to school today. Even though Bre and I only roomed together for four nights, I think I really got used to having her as my (sort of) roommate...but really if her and I went to school together and lived together, I highly doubt that any form of productivity would ever occur, which would not be a good thing if we wanted to you know, pass college. We definitely came up with our fair share of [inside] jokes these past few days, and just for your sake of curiosity I will type them out, but I won't go into any extraneous detail about them because I'm pretty sure you'd just label us crazy and get confused:
1. YOLO. Yes, the acronym. Google it.
2. Clocccckkkkk.
3. "I'm going to boycott schoooool, doo da, doo da..."
Ha okay no I'm done. Typing these out was not as brilliant of an idea as I anticipated. Inside jokes are meant to be kept...inside. Anyway, oh, another thing I should probably mention is that I will now have to go to the gym every day for the next 16 years in order to burn off everything I ate the past four days. In N' Out, while fantastic, will be the death of me. We will just have to see what happens if, one day, I end up in a place where I have it at my constant beck and call. Obesity. Also, Ghirardelli chocolate will be the other death of me, so I will essentially die twice. Ha. I bought a cool-looking container of it (in the shape of a cable car!) in San Francisco last Saturday, and while it's not gone yet, it probably will be soon...
Ah yes! San Francisco! We spent the entirety of our Saturday there...getting wet. I kid you not, it rained the entire day. Oh well, I got my sun fix on Thursday and Friday, and that sunburn I mentioned in my previous post? Yeah it's still there. I don't understand my skin and it's apparent allergy to vitamin D. While in San Francisco, Bre and I did many things, including get lost, visit Ghirardelli Square, get lost again, visit Pier 39 and the Fisherman's Wharf, eat dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then get lost again. Okay we weren't completely lost, but we definitely spent some quality time trying to figure out the bus/BART routes and stations. Fun times. We were pretty smart in our decision not to drive into the city, however. We left the car parked at the Pleasanton BART station, and then took that into the city instead. For those of you who have ever lived in a city larger than 500,000 people, you would know that driving is a complete pain in the ass - thus why God created public transportation. Ha. Anyway, we started the day off doing what some teenage girls do best, shopping. Although I admit I only bought one shirt from H & M (gah...where else?), because sales tax and I really do not get along; in Washington I can very sneakily get away with not paying it (okay not so sneakily since you just show the people your license and/or ID, but still), since I'm still technically an Oregon resident, but in California that little trick does not work. And believe me, I learned that the hard way. Once I asked a lady in a mall in Sacramento if was "sales tax exempt" since I'm an Oregon resident, and she looked at me like I had three eyes. So I didn't try that again. Wow off track. So yeah, we shopped, and then decided we wanted to actually do some sightseeing, so we took off toward where we thought was the direction of Ghirardelli Square. No. We got back on the BART, got off, and then realized we still needed to get, basically across town, in order to get to the Square. So we spent said quality time figuring out a bus map.
Cut to about 45 minutes later: we made it! The chocolate stores are just, aaaahhhh. So amazing. I always knew I liked chocolate, but when you can actually come to the original store and try free samples and go broke on the stuff, it's even better.
Next we visited again, Pier 39 and the Fisherman's Wharf. But this time we walked. And I took (more) pictures of random things.
(The cutest "just married" I have ever seen)
I didn't get very many pictures of the Wharf, mostly because it was pouring and we only spent about 10 minutes there, but I did get this:
And this:
Oh, and then there was a picture or two of seagulls, because there were about two gazillion of those damn birds, but I'll spare you. Pier 39 was where we spent most of our time, since that's where most of the little shops are, and THE SEA LIONS. Oh my goodness, the sea lions. THE SEA LIONS. Okay I'm done. But seriously, I love those guys, they're just so cute and chubby and aaahhhh. For those of you who don't know, San Francisco's Pier 39 has hosted a colony (? Is that what you call a group of sea lions, or is it herd, or...sheesh I don't know) of sea lions for 22 years now! And not going to lie I just learned that last Saturday, at the Pier. Go figure.
(Sea lions)
(SEA LIONS)
(Here's where I learned the 22 years bit...)
(...and then this guy became my new best friend)
We ended up eating dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe San Francisco:
And then, since we were both wet and cold and tired, decided to head home. Unfortunately that required more bus navigation (and picture-taking on my part, of things like the Coit Tower, the Transamerica Pyramid, and Alkatraz. Oh and then an ill-attempt at the Golden Gate Bridge. Damn rain).
(If you look really really closely, the Bridge is there!)
Once we made it back to Bre's room in Stockton, we crashed. Literally. While walking all day can be tiring, doing it in the rain takes only that much more out of you. So basically we just hung out, watched a movie, and went to bed. Pretty wild Saturday night, but, yolo. (HAHAHAHA)
I didn't get back into Seattle until around 7:30ish last night, and needless to say that was a long freaking flight. Not long in the sense that it took up a lot of time (it was only about an hour and 45 minutes), I just mean that it was not the most fun experience of my entire life. It started out fine, we took off when Southwest said we were going to take off, and granted I got an isle seat this time, I managed to not get that wave of nausea that usually comes over me right after take off, and therefore didn't need to sip my weight in ginger ale. However, I can't really say the same for the woman sitting in the row in front of me. She decided it would be fun to empty the entire contents of her stomach for almost half of the entire flight back. Yeah okay it wasn't the smoothest ride, but that's because the northwest is almost always covered in rain clouds! Turbulence almost always happens! I guess I can't really blame her though, some people have weak stomachs when it comes to being 30,000+ feet over the Earth - it's happened to me before. Anyway, I felt really bad for her and even though I didn't know her, I kind of wanted to give her a hug. Being sick is hard, especially when it happens in public and again 30,000+ feet over the Earth. Of course, I wasn't going hug her until she was done...even my stomach isn't that strong. I don't do vomit. Ha. The one thing that really wasn't fun was the landing. Since it was kind of raining in Seattle when we got in, we had to go through some thick clouds, and because the clouds were so thick, we had to descend a little sharper than normal. So it was pretty fast and bumpy, which made me kind of panic and wish I could throw a temper tantrum, screaming that I wanted off the airplane. But the little two year old several rows up took care of that for me instead. I secretly thanked him.
It took me about an hour and a half from when the airplane landed, to actually get off, get my luggage and get back to school. I don't know if this ever happens to you, but every time I get off an airplane and wait for my luggage in baggage claim, I always get that mini-panic attack that says it got lost, or got put on the wrong airplane or whatever. However irrational, it's annoying. I took the Light Rail/bus back to campus, and while the Light Rail wasn't too bad (I actually love taking that thing, I used to take it to work every day last year. It's relaxing), I swore to God I was going to die on the bus. Here's a little tid-bit of information for you: don't take the bus in downtown Seattle by yourself after dark, especially one that goes through a sketchy area. Even if you don't get shot at or murdered, there are some scary people out at night...and people who like to throw lit Black and Milds into trash cans and set them on fire. Gah.
I guess there's really only one more thing I want to touch on in this post, and it goes back to my being in California. I was telling Bre about this at breakfast yesterday morning before I left, and honestly it sounded kind of weird saying it out loud, but in my head it made a lot of sense. So let's see if it makes sense in writing. And let me just say now that what I'm about to (attempt to) write, I haven't told or tried to explain to a lot of people before. In fact I think I can count them with one hand, or two fingers. It kind of has to do with that post I wrote back in January about my "pipe-dreams." Here goes. When I was there, and not just Stockton, or San Francisco, or whatever, but when I was there as a whole, I don't know, I just felt...different. And not different like I'm on vacation so I should be happier or having more fun or anything like that (because often that's what happens when you're on vacation), but different like I have never experienced a feeling like that one before. No, I take that back; I have experienced that feeling once before in my life, when I was 14 and went to a week-ish long volleyball camp down at UCLA. Anyway, the feeling was that feeling, you know, the one you get when you just know that you're where you're supposed to be, and where you should be. I never really had that feeling growing up, because I always knew that while Eugene would forever be my hometown, I would settle into adulthood somewhere else. I didn't get that feeling when I went to college either, (which I'm not going to lie surprised me), I think because the decision to come to SU was sort of half-assed on my part, and being in Seattle a year and a half later, it's still not there. Yet, when I was with Bre for a total of four days, I felt better. Gosh, I'm trying to think of what it's called when you find that place where you belong, like something inside of you is now aligned or something. Gah I can't think of it...but if that's the right expression for what I'm trying to say, then something was aligned within me these past few days. I think I'm slowly figuring out where I need to be in my life, maybe. Maybe I don't actually know anything and I was letting my mind play tricks on me. All I'm saying is that how I felt when I was down in California wasn't just that feeling you get when on vacation. It was like something inside of me was hinting that I might just be figuring some things out. Ugh...basically:
(But really that's just my excuse to you so you don't think I'm crazy)
That's it. Such was my spring break vacation/potential inner epiphany. And now I leave you because I must go to school soon. Do not want, but must regardless. I'm in denial. I'm going back to bed.
Happy Monday everyone.
~Erin
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