Nene's Visit - Saturday!

For my sister's birthday, I offered to fly her out to San Francisco to visit for a weekend. Her birthday is September 7th but she is one busy bee so I told her a few months ago. She picked a weekend, and this past weekend she flew out to visit! I was really excited because she had not met Tim and Navi yet and I have not seen her in over a year. On Friday, her plane was due to arrive around 8 pm, so I decided I would work from 12-8 pm and pick her up on the way home rather than battling bay area traffic four times in one day. Her plane was a little delayed, but at 8:30 I got the text message indicating that she had landed and drove to the airport to pick her up. I saw her immediately in the swarm of people and turned on the light in the car so she could see me. She ran to the car, and it was time for the weekend to begin!

It was late, so we just went home so she could meet Tim and the dog. We had some leftover couscous salad that I had made recently for dinner since we weren't very hungry. It was a pretty laid back night and it was really nice to have her meet Tim and Navi. I think Whitney liked Navi, but I do need to figure out how to teach Navi that jumping is not ever allowed. So many of our friends love dogs so they let her jump all over them even when I tell them not to. So, something is going to change. Anyhow, we ended up going to sleep so that we could get an early start and go into the city in the morning. Whitney wanted to wake up at 7 am, so I set my alarm. Morning swang around, my alarm clock woke me up, and Whitney took a few seconds to wake up. After an intial sleepiness, the shopping-deprived Whitney suddenly realized that she was going into San Francisco to go SHOPPING and became very excited. We rode the BART into the city and arrived at Embarcadaro right when the crafts festival was starting to open. It's one of my favorite places to shop in the city; there is a lot of handmade, awesome jewelry and unique clothing and it's a lot more fun to shop around than a store. Whitney loved it as much as I do, and she got a pair of green hand painted shell earrings. They were really pretty. I found this amazing bracelet that is made from beads from Ireland. The woman crocheted the bracelet using wire and wove the beads into it. I can't explain it, so I should put a photo up sometime. Whitney also saw some incredibly awesome shirts, so we snagged a few. One was made by Amos Goldbaum who does a lot of line drawings and had a few cool ones stenciled onto shirts. Whitney and I both liked one design quite a bit on a purple shirt, and it was cheaper per shirt to buy two, so we each bought one. Then Whitney's incredible eye for things I like found a teal shirt that had a block painting of a dog on the front and a fire hydrant on the back. It was so nicely done that it was incredible, and I had to have that shirt, too. So I got it, of course!

After wandering around the whole fair, and showing Nene the pins mom and dad had considered buying her, we walked across the street so I could show her the Ferry Building. I really like the Ferry Building because it has so many unique foods and very nice stores to poke around. When my parents came out to visit, they had enjoyed both the crafts fair and the Ferry Building so I figured Nene would be the same. She loved it just as much as I do, and we spent another hour poking around all the various stores. At one point, I saw the organic potstickers that my dad had bought for my mom and I to try with him. They had been really good, so I figured I'd buy six for the two of us to try, so my sister could experience the same foods my parents had. They were delicious, just as they had been before. I really love potstickers and these are some of the best I've had. After a while, we came to the Scharffen Berger store, which is one store I had been meaning to take Whitney to for a very long time. When I was Nene's maid of honor at her wedding, I asked one of the bridesmaids from San Francisco to bring truffles from a notable chocolatier in San Francisco. I was absolutely mortified to discover that the bridesmaid brought those Ghiradeli squares that you can buy in any grocery store in the country. I was so mad. My sister loves to try new truffles and other chocolates with ooies and gooeys inside, and all I had to give her was a bag full of standard chocolate squares that everyone has had before! Ugh. So I told myself that I would send Nene a whole box of wonderful truffles someday to make up for it. When I bought her plane ticket to visit me, I decided that I'd take her to Scharffen Berger, and let her loose. I told her she could buy as many truffles as she wanted, and she picked six of the most amazing looking truffles I'd ever seen. The flavors were orange sherbert, tiramisu, mexican chocolate, almond, and I actually can't remember the last two flavors. We got them boxed up, and finished wandering around the building and headed to fisherman's wharf. There isn't much to do in fisherman's wharf, but it is fun to see. Along the way, we stopped at the Fog City Diner to meet Nene's brother-in-law Matt and his wife Tyhler. We ate and chatted for about an hour and then Nene and I set off for Fisherman's Wharf. Before we left, we got a nice photo of the four of us.


Nene remembered Fisherman's Wharf from when we were children, and wanted to see it again. When we got to Fisherman's Wharf, we went to watch the sea lions for a little while, and then Nene saw the Gap. She decided that since it was on our way to Chinatown, we should stop in and look around. She had a coupon for 30% off and multiple uses! We walked in and both of us immediately noticed a purse that was perfect for me. I've been looking for a purse for forever; I don't have one and I've wanted one so that I can wear fancy clothes in public without wearing my old, worn backpack. I was really pleased because the purse was only 27 dollars with the 30% off coupon, which is quite a bit cheaper than the other purses I have liked. We rummaged around the sale rack for a while, and Nene found a pair of capris and a sweater that she liked. She also found a pretty dress. When she tried them on, she liked them all! She had been a little chilly while walking because of the wind, so she asked if she could wear the capris out. The staff obligued and when we walked out of the store, Nene was hot.

We wandered down Powell until we came to Lombard Street. From where we were, you could see the curvy section of Lombard. Then we headed over to Grant Street, where I took a photo of Nene under the stree sign since her husband's name is Grant.


After that, we shopped along Grant until we came to Chinatown. There was a really cute children's store and I found a book for kids about a dog that gets lost in the city. I liked the book a lot because I had taken Nene to a lot of the places the dog visited. I ended up buying it for her since she loves children's books so much. There were a few clothing stores that were interesting to poke around. When we got to the intersection of North Beach and Chinatown, we went into the City Lights Bookstore to find a cookbook for Nene that had some relation to San Francisco. She ended up buying a cookbook by the woman who started the restaurant Greens, because our parents took us to Greens when we were younger and she remembered it. We wandered down Chinatown and I bought Nene some bubble tea, since she has never had it before. It is a lot of fun because there are several flavors and they all have tapioca pearls at the bottom of the drink. You drink with a special, large straw, and you get a mixture of liquid and tapioca pearls! It's weird at first, but some people love it and others don't. I think Nene liked her drink, but was just a little weirded out by the tapioca pearls. After that, I took Nene to my favorite bakery in Chinatown, and bought some pineapple shaped buns and cream buns. We sat down on a bench and each enjoyed a very rich cream bun, and then wandered off to Union Square. When we got to Union Square we went into Williams-Sonoma so that Nene could buy the arborio rice she wanted. My mom says that the arborio rice from Williams-Sonoma is the best there is, so I bought a box as well. I will make risotto two nights in a row soon; the first night I will try with the arborio rice I already have, and the second night I will use the arborio rice from Williams-Sonoma. I am curious as to whether it is worth the extra bucks. By this point in the day, I was really, really sick of my wallet. It was a small wallet with enough room for 4 cards and a twenty dollar bill folded in half twice. Whenever I had a few ones and fives and twenties, I would have to take it out of the wallet, open it all up in front of everyone, count out what I needed, hold my money while waiting for the change, and then fold it back up and put it in the wallet. To make it worse, the wallet couldn't hold any change. It was infuriating and embarrassing because I don't feel comfortable with everyone seeing all my money. We headed into Macy's to buy a new wallet, and I found a nice wallet made by fossil. It is green! I like it a lot because I can put all my cash inside, and I can keep change and more ID and gift certificates in my wallet! It is wonderful. We wandered through a lot of stores in Union Square, and wandered through the San Francisco Mall as well. At this point, it was after 6 pm, and we were getting hungry for dinner. We got on the BART and Tim picked us up when we arrived back in Albany. We went home to clean up quickly and put on our new dresses. We posed for a photo!


After the photo session, we drove over to BevMo! to pick out some wines for later in the evening. Then we headed over to Ajanta, which is a wonderful Indian restaurant on Solano Ave. We had a fantastic dinner with manjo lassi and poori. Nene's husband, Grant, got food poisoning when he was younger from some raw lamb in his Indian food. He can no longer eat Indian food, so Nene is indian food deprived. She was so excited and thrilled that she could eat all sorts of food while with Tim and I. After dinner, we all headed home. We poured some wine, got ready to move a movie...and we all passed out, instead.