new friends
While my previous post was all about the work side of my recent trip, this post is going to be all about the non-work happenings.
Instead of staying at a hotel for the trip I had decided to see if anyone had a spare couch or bed. I knew that if I stayed at a hotel I would just end up spending most of my time at work and probably miss out on seeing any of the city. So after sending out an email I got a reply from Bryan Stearns saying that he and Gina had already offered his couch to Jeffrey. After some back and forth we figured that I could sleep on the air mattress.
works for me :)
Anywho, it basically ended up that I slept on the couch because Jeffrey was staying at some friends (that's when I learned he was moving to Berkeley!) even tho Jeffrey still stayed over a couple nights. It was, I think, the best way to do things - we ended up having some great conversations since we shared a lot of similiar interests. Gina and Bryan cooked dinner a couple of times (yummy!) and Jeffrey cooked breakfast one morning.
By far the best night was when I took the two of them out to dinner as a thank-you outing for the great time and Bryan took us on a driving tour of San Francisco. I saw a ton of things that I never would have been able to see if I was just wandering about on my own - he had an amazing amount of info on the city. We ended up at Fisherman's Wharf were I got to see the tall ship (and dang if I can't remember it's name!). After that we went to an amazing seafood restuarant and had some of the best food I've had in a long long time. I was very happy to see that they were "communal plate" people like myself :)
I'm not putting into this post even 1/4 of all that went on, but basically wanted to get some overall thoughts down about how Gina and Bryan made the non-work part of my trip actually the best part of the trip I think. They were amazing hosts and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Oh! I would be totally remiss if I don't mention the spectacular view they have of the San Francisco Bay Bridge! WOW! It was a total treat to wake up each morning and look at the fog covering the bridge and then watch it slowly recede as the sun rose.