Randomized Output

Friday Jan 7
The second leg of our flight was ok. Sat next to a fat lady who won the elbow war. Also lost my ear drums to a toddler who wouldn’t shut up.

Arrival in Lima was crazy even at 10:30pm. Tons of people everywhere. Customs was a breeze. The taxi situation is Bizarre! So many people wanting to give you a ride. Anyone can be a taxi if they have a car and put a sign on it. Luckily we already had a pre-arranged ride.

Our hotel is cute, but it’s right on a main street so it’s a little loud. No ac is a little annoying since its humid. I’m terrible at communicating. We tried to get bottled water and it took way longer than it should have because I’m just so bad at getting non English people to understand me.

We were given a room with two double beds. Haha I think we’re the only couple in our group so the travel agent just got double beds for every room. That seemed to confuse the desk clerk.

Oh well it’s like 2am and we’ve been traveling for 24 hours.

Friday Jan 7th
I’m sitting in the only sit-down restaurant in tocumen, the Panamanian international airport, writing on my poor neglected blog because we’ve got an 8 hour layover.

Our day started at 2am to get ready for our cab ride to Dulles. We went through the employee security checkpoint. So much easier than normal. The flight left on time, which was great since I could see snow flurries out the window.

They served pancakes and sausage and fruit for breakfast! With metal knives and forks! Yay.

We had tried to get exit row seats but the website for copa air somehow prevented us. So instead, we saw Laura’s friend Eason on the plane sitting in them! He also had gotten the better second leg despite booking his tickets just 2 weeks ago! We booked our flight a month+ ago and the layover for his second leg was only 35 minutes at that time. Not enough time to possibly make it. But later they changed the time so it was an hour. meh. So he’s going to get there at 2pm while we’re not getting into Lima until 10:30 T_T

So we’re in the airport wandering around. At least there’s free wifi. The mountains of panama look pretty through the windows. There’s also a ton of duty free shops. Booze, watches, 42″ tvs, chocolate, and large stuffed animals: that is apparently what they want you to buy here.

For the main hub to South America, there are not many choices of restaurants in the airport. The sit down place called terra firme where I’m writing this, a Dunkin donuts and a Subway. Hah.

It took about 40 minutes to get a cup of coffee at Dunkin donuts. Slow, but the girl did seem to be paying attention. She just didn’t care about moving quickly.

At terra firme, the Ham and cheese was pressed like a Cuban sandwich and the hamburger was tasty. You could actually could taste the beef. Unexpected surprise! I’ll add pics to this post later. Hm, Laura got iced tea. We remembered too late that we should probably avoid local ice. Guess we’ll see how that goes!

Picture gallery for the day.

Took a random tour of the Disney concert hall. The lady took us all around to the founders rooms which were super fancy.

Ate at shanghaiese restaurant. Deep fried fish sticks. Fish soup. Ma la Kung pao chicken. Fried tofu.

Went to Huntington library garden and museum. Saw Chinese garden. Jungle garden. Japanese garden and bonsai

Picked tangerines. Or as Laura calls them: tiny oranges with puffy skin.

Going to eat king crab legs. Nit on sale. Just had salt boiled chicken. Broth soup. Lettuce wraps. Dungeness crab.

Fixed lauras grandpas computer from a virus. Then had bday cake. And leftover duck. And Johnny walker blue label.

Picture gallery for the day.

Ate dimsum at Luna. Had soo much food.

Played 9 holes of golf with Laura and her grandparents. They walked! And they were pretty good.

Ate at New Capital Seafood. Roast duck. Shrimp with walnuts in mayo. Watercress soup. Tofu with dried scallops. Lobster Cantonese style.

Picture gallery for the day.

Ate at in-n-out burger. Animal style. Liked the toasted bun. Fries were super sad.

Went to Alcatraz. The room from the rock where Sean Connery jumped into the bathtub was the hydro therapy room. The hospital room was the bad guys headquarters

Ate at boudin. Bread bowl sourdough and tomato. And tomato and basil sourdough pizza.

Saw homeless man scare people by hiding behind a constructed bush. Laura thought it was hilarious.

Had a hot fudge sundae at ghiradelli square. Yum.

That concludes our tourist activities in sf.

Picture gallery for the day.

Went to brunch with Ray and lee at The Butcher and the Chef. Great little French cafe on south park and third. I had quiche, laura had waffles and lee had a crepe. Good coffee

Then lee drove us to golden gate national park. We walked around fort point. An then about a third of the way across the goldn gate bridge.

Then he drove us around the park and took us to sea cliff to see expensive houses. And the beach. And the science museum and tea garden

Ate dinner at Range. Had duck sous vide. With brussel sprouts citrus and chestnut purée. Laura had beef daube with barley and horseradish. App was white bean soup and chicken liver mousse

Picture gallery for the day.

Checked into our hotel. Le meridien. Wow. We got an awesome deal. It is super nice.

Went to eat at the ferry building again. Ate at taylors automatic refresher. Not as good as rays hellburger. Had peets coffee. Walked along the pier.

Met lee. Drove us to Castro district and we walked around. People watched. Drove to marina. Took some pics. Haha. Had a cookie at hot cookie.

Went to dinner at cha cha cha in mission district. Carribean tapas. The jerk chicken was outstanding. Shrimp in spicy cream sauce.

Hungout at hotel for a bit.

Picture gallery for the day.

Flight to San Francisco worked out well. I goofed when selecting seating. To select seats for the flight, you first have to select the passenger and then their seat. Then you have to select the next passenger and their seat. All of this on the same page. So when we realized my mistake, there weren’t any two seats next to each other. So we were in the middle of two rows. But it worked out because the seat next to Laura stayed open and I was able to move there.

Rode the Bart. It’s like bizarro metro. Dirtier and smellier. Same design and mistly the same rail cars with slight differences. More homeless people.

Ate at the outside market of the ferry building in sf. Had some really good carnitas tacos at tacolicious. Had a divine porchetta sandwich at the roli roti cart. Well sorta. Laura had a giant bug in her half! But the owner gave us a whole new sandwich. Porchetta by the way is pork belly wrapped in pork tenderloin and herbs. Crispy crunchy and delicious. Mmm we still have half of it in the car and I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

So tired. Had to get up at 4:30 so we could get to Dulles. Thanks Kevin for driving us!

Rented a car from the hyatt. Crazy looking interior.

Drove to Napa with no problems.  Sitting in bed while Laura is on a conference call. Maybe we’ll eat at the girl and the fig over in sonoma. Their cheese tower is apparently to die for, according to yelp.

The concierge was super helpful and recommended we go to Ristorante Allegria. I’m glad we went with his suggestion! Risotto fried cake was eh, but the caesar and arugula salads were well balanced. The veal saltimbucca on polenta was super well balanced – flavorful but not too salty. Just a fantastic dish. Gnocci with tiger prawns entrees were really good too. Ended with the bread pudding with caramel and vanila which was superb.