Curious Souls

OK. Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Alrighty, bad news first it is. Napa was almost a complete disaster. We woke up in the Bothe-Napa State Park and it was cloudy and a little cold. We almost missed the bus into town and had to run to catch it. We rented bikes to ride to the wineries and as soon as we started riding, it started drizzling. But there was wine to be drunk so we were still in good spirits. First up: Louis M. Martini. We locked up the bikes, walked in and found out that their wine tastings and tours started at $15 each and went up from there. Undaunted and thinking that surely this was an anomaly, we moved on to the next winery. And the next. And the next. Turns out $15 is now the starting cost for most tastings and tours in Napa. Booooooo. Isn't the idea of a tour and tasting supposed to be a marketing technique to create lifelong customers who will buy your crap over the course of many years? Seems that Napa has gotten too big for their br...

I meant to post this before my Ode to San Fran but a certain  something prevented me. I'll give you a hint: it rhymes with Sminternet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tickets were half price on Thursday night at MOMA . It was just as extensive and awesome as we had remembered. Sadly, the Fountain was no longer there but this was: (Robert Gober, Richard Serra and Frank Stella respectively) If you're planning on going, I would recommend starting early. We only got through about one and a half floors (of four) in two hours - at least it gives us plenty to go back to see!

I guess cars were smaller 2400 years ago...

All day yesterday I suffered from SFWDD (San Fran Withdrawal Disorder, Dammit!). Part of the purpose for this trip is to suss out where we would like to live next. We have a long list of requirements but two of the most important (to me) are culture and public transportation. We want to be able to easily and conveniently live our lives without a car and we want to be able to learn and be inspired. In the U.S., this limits us to a handful of major cities (San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York, DC and Boston) and I honestly thought that no matter where we went, we were going to have to suck it up and deal with at least one or two seasons of crappy weather. Not that we are strangers to crappy weather. 115 degrees anyone? But now that we've spent some more time in San Francisco, talked to the locals (who are super nice!), walked and used transport around the city (which is super walkable and has super public transport!), we (read: I) am 98.6% sold on San Fran as our...

Zachary's

A few photos and videos from our day yesterday... Video here Video here

Why, oh why, did I have that extra cup of chai? Because it was delicious! (Also, I had some wine in me.) We had two stellar dining experiences yesterday thanks to some excellent recommendations from friends. Although we can't possibly try every restaurant out there for budgetary and temporal considerations, we truly appreciate hearing about your favorite eats in the cities through which we pass. Keep them coming! Ellen had her first experience (my second experience) with dim sum at Ton Kiang . Pork buns, pot stickers, shrimp and spinach dumplings and even... what? cold asparagus?!  sure...  why not...  we'll take some. It all passed through our famished gullets (we skipped breakfast).  So thanks, Michael, for hooking us up with that suggestion! It was a beautiful, sunny day and so, after blunch, we enjoyed a long walk through Golden Gate Park over to the beach and then took the light rail (you have some catching up to do, Phoenix) back to Market St. to recov...