Bay Area Getaway – Day 1 in Berkeley, Emeryville and San Francisco — 2014

Friday, February 14 – DAY 1 in the Bay!
Left from LAX in the morning, arrived in Oakland, hung out in Berkeley, went out in San Francisco. *Whew*
A day with my friends on a weekend getaway (at least on my part). Enjoy!

Lookin’ tired but inside I’m like “YAY SO EXCITED TO BE HERE!”
Caught an early bird flight to SF to visit Rachel and Aryn and friends who are too cool for LA.

Aryn came to stay at Rachel’s in Emeryville from where she lives in the Bay.
What a treat!

Rachel had to work from home on Friday – us non-workers went to wander around Berkeley.

We almost went to Noah’s Bagels, but they ran out of jalapeno cheese bagels and I like my bagels spicy.
So we opted for big fat slices of ‘za.

Frowny Aryn is frowny.

THIS is how you do pepperoni! What is it with places that give you like 3 pieces per slice. C’mon.
This place covers the slice with pepperonis. *Heaven*

Loving the pink and blue neon lights and the really cold metal tables.
Also love to dine where there are no folks. PEACE.

Another Daiso visit!!!!!!!!!!
I think maybe it’s a tradition I come up to the bay and buy the pups a cute dog toy from Daiso.

Super fabulous toilet cleaning glove?
Or super fabulous hot grabbing gloves?

We wanderin’

We pop by Moe’s bookstore. When I brought Lena here in 2012 I left with so many lovely new books.
This time I didn’t pick anything out – didn’t want to carry books all day. It was tough!

I love these awesome illustrated spines!

If you walk too quickly, you might miss this Easter Egg.
WE FEEL YOU, BEYONCE.

It’s about time for another dose of caffeine.

“Philz is too commercial so now the real coffee lovers go elsewhere.” (heard at Philz)

Oooh, is there a teenager in the hood sneakin’ wine in the bushes.

RACHELLLLLLLL, are you done working yet??!?!

Aryn thought she was getting sick, so I bought some off-brand Airborne.

The thrilled face of the werkin’ girl.

So I convinced Rachel to get a naturebox too, and she knew it was supposed to arrive Friday.
She was texting me updates all day “Where is it?” “When will it get here?” “Ahhhh!”
And when we were just chilling it arrived!

We all get ready and freshen up to head over the bridge into San Francisco.

Fashun Aryn being fashun.

Zach can’t hang with the Aryn-smolder-fest.

Oh la la skyline.

There was like a layer of fog that made the bay look like the clouds had fallen onto the water.
Or like a huge tidal wave was coming towards us.

Clearly over-excited about photographin’ Aryn again haha.

Cloud city!
(That’s Coit Tower)

We finally get to where we need to go thanks to Rachel, best driver woo hoo.

What a lovely eve to be in Hayes Valley.
It’s pretty chilly, but we bundled good.

Lagers, pleeaaaaseeeeee
(Also that’s the smaller of the two sizes)

Aryn being fierce and not trying.

So this place is called Biergarten, and they’ve got beers, pretzels and other treats.
I’m sure this place is poppin’ in the summers, but it was a bit chilly.

Lovely Rachel being smiley and lovely.
Cheers to friends!!!!!

Rachel and I both got pretzels. *DROOL*

Aryn’s bein a pretzel hater.

They provided these thick wool blankets for us to use.

Nailed it.

We wandered down the street to a place we found on Yelp.
Let’s see how good it is!

Rachel always means business.

This place be fancy. Specials on the iPad!
So we totally realized that it was Valentine’s Day and that most people in this restaurant were on a date of some kind.
OH WELL!

Always gotta have my agedashi tofu.

Zach and Aryn had ramen, I had the tofu and Rachel and I split this spicy tuna roll.

We all shared baked mussels as well, and I think we had one more thing? But it’s escaping me!

*Ah* Full and satisfied on Valentine’s Day.

Happy hands.

Aryn had a couple of friends out at a karaoke places, so we headed out to meet them.

So this place I’m pretty sure at one time was maybe a gentleman’s lounge of some sort.
It has a bit of a weird layout, and all the lights are cray. It was definitely a fun vibe.

So this bar is actually the upper part of a split level room, and the actual bar to order drinks is below. You can see into that part of the room from above, where people were oddly eating sushi??! From where? Not sure.

What a partay.

Girls girls girls

TWEEDY????

We didn’t get to go up and sing, we were warned this place is pretty competitive.
But we did witness a custom mash up where a dude printed his own lyrics to bring to the stage.
So I thought…not bad.

I bought these socks at Daiso, cause WHY NOT!
Zach said the faces looked like me…a sleepy face with bangs? I guess so.

And then we all said goodnight and got ready to wake up super early for wine tasting!

Alright – that wraps up first day of my lovely weekend in the Bay.

2 more days comin’!

Much love friends.