Californian high life

The last couple of days have been awesome here in California. The Baseball on Monday night was a real experience, but I never want to eat another salted peanut again in my life, (they don't mix with beer too well either...)

On Tuesday we dropped Yates off at the Airport and said goodbye until Frankfurt in a couple of weeks time, and headed into San Francisco for a day out. We parked up in the Marina district and took a long leisurely walk along the bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge, and then headed off around the point to the Cliff House for some lunch, (always recommended....). After a drive around the Golden Gate Park and a pitstop in downtown, I dropped Fiona off at her FCBD dance class and had 3 hours of my own to kill.

Firstly I drove up to Coit Tower and parked up and spent an hour or so just chilling out at one of the best vantage points in SF. This was one of my favourite places when I first came out to California 15 years ago, and in the magnificent early evening sunshine, the magic of the place still lingers on. I then headed down to the Aqua Park area where you can walk out on a long breakwater out into the bay, with great views of Alcatraz in one direction and the SF skyline in the other. As a place to watch the sun slowly sink behind the hills it takes a lot of beating. By the time I picked Fiona up from the dance studio in a well dodgy part of town, it was after dark and we made our way back down the bay back to where we are staying in Los Gatos.

Wednesday was a special day for me as I got the chance to go and see my Son, Cameron, who lives here in California with his Mother. This was the first time I had seen him in almost 5 years so I was a little apprehensive, but it went off very well and I managed to get a ton of photos and some video. I'll go into a bit more detail about this day another time.

On Thursday I had arranged to meet an old workmate, Pete, for breakfast at the Cisco building at 8:30am. Fiona and I jumped in the truck, (Yates very kindly lent me his urban assault vehicle), and proceeded to do battle with the rush hour traffic of Silicon Valley... I think I saw more cars in that 1-hour trip than I have seen in a year of driving around Christchurch. Breakfast was great and catching up with Pete was a real treat as I have not seen the old Boyo since I left for New Zealand nearly 5 years ago. He is a tough, gritty Welshman with staying power beyond anything I could muster...., if I had been through everything he has been through since I left, I would have given up long ago. It was greatly satisfying to see him now doing well in one of the Bay Area's top companies and to have gained some stability to his new life in the US. Good on yer Boyo..!!

After Breakfast Fiona and I travelled down to the outlet mall in Gilroy and spent a couple of hours looking at all the bargains to be had. After making an investment in some t-shirts, a hat, shoes and a jacket, we headed off over the hills to Santa Cruz for lunch. We sat out in the hot sunshine at a place called the 'Crows Nest' right by the harbour watching the boats and seals coming and going, and had a very nice lunch. After a little walk around the harbour area, we had a pleasant drive along the Pacific Coast and then up into the Santa Cruz mountains to admire the spectacular views both to the ocean and into Silicon Valley. All-in-all it had been a great 12 hour day out and about.

Right now we are waiting for our shuttle to the airport on the next leg of the journey, firstly to Frankfurt and then on to Tunisia. This is going to be a tough leg of the trip with about 24 hours worth of travelling and a 10 hour time difference to cope with... Fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly and safely...., I'm guessing that we will need a week lying by the pool after this part of the journey...