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A 3 day weekend? Why, let’s have a road trip!

But first, let’s spend Saturday hanging out and relaxing, and not getting stuck in traffic with everyone else.

Instead, we left on Sunday. We checked in at the Oakland Marriot at around 2pm, and right away we got in the BART headed to San Francisco. More specifically, to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
We’d eaten a small breakfast, so by the time we made it there, we were ready to sit down and eat. And what better place to do that than Cha Cha Cha! The place was busy, but luckily we got to sit at the bar right away. A pitcher of sangria, and 3 different dishes later (plus an awesome caramel-covered bread pudding for dessert), we were feeling quite good, and more than satisfied. This is definitely a cool place to eat, and the food is delicious.

After eating, we went for a little walk around Golden Gate Park. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperating, so we didn’t get to enjoy the beautiful gardens as much, but that’s not saying we didn’t have a good time.
We walked through one of the many gardens, took some silly pictures, and headed back to the Haight.

We went into a few of the shops, killed some time and had some fun. Kelly even found something to wear at Burning Man that we could afford -because there are LOTS of things that would be great for Burning Man, but they’re just too expensive.

On Monday, Memorial Day, we headed out to Berkeley. We stumbled for a while looking for a place to eat, and we ended up going into Ann’s Kitchen, which served a glorious American style breakfast, perfect for the occasion.
The weather Gods (or the spirits of all those fallen soldiers) made this day much nicer, which we welcomed as we walked up and down Telegraph street, and checked out the shops and the diverse crowd that was doing the same thing we were.

We also checked out the UC Berkeley campus, where we proceeded to shmoop on the grass by the library. Good times.

With a lot of time to kill, we went on Wikitravel to see what we could do in the area, and that’s how we found out about the Indian Rock Park. Finding it curious enough, we went and checked it out.
Sure enough, it was just a big rock. But lots of people were there, mostly hanging out, and some practicing rock-climbing, some others photographing and at least a couple smoking marihuana.
From the top of the rock you can see most of the Bay. Sadly, it was mostly covered in fog, but despite that, we enjoyed the panoramic view.

However, the main event of our trip was a Flight of the Conchords concert. They toured the US in 2009, and this was their last stop. We HAD to see them, since Kelly and I both enjoy them.
At around 6pm, we sat on the balcony of the Berkeley Community Threatre. The opening act for FotC was Arj Barker, who played Dave in their HBO series. Little did we know that he’s a stand up comedian, and his routine was a great ice-breaker for what was to come. His style was sometimes very close to Dane Cook, but that’s alright by me, since it makes me laugh.

But then, it actually happened. Lights went dim. And …

Of course, that video is not from the same performance that we saw, but it was similar, and set the tone for what was to come: over an hour of silly songs, and the goofy kind of humor that only New Zealand’s fourth most popular digi-folk paradists provides.
There were lots of laughs, some songs I’d never head before, and a lot of singing along with Bret and Jemaine. It was a great live show, and some of the antics that they put on onstage were worth the ticket and the traveling.

To sum it up, we had a great time, and it was a weekend that won’t be forgotten. Or, to use the vernacular, an EPIC WEEKEND.

Monday, April 13th: After getting up at 8am, and going to get a car window replaced, we were ready to get on the road by 11am.
It took us about 9 hours to go from Reno to Huntington Beach. We took US 395 all the way south, and then went from there.
We arrived at the house of Kelly’s aunt and uncle, Ginny and Gary. They welcomed us and fed us leftover Easter dinner (which we missed thanks to the car theft that delayed us by a day and a half). We talked, and went to sleep to recover from the long trip… and be ready for the next day!

Tuesday: I hadn’t gotten much sleep. It was hot, humid and I guess I still had a bit of anxiety about the burglary. It also didn’t help that I woke up at around 8, ready to go… because we were going to Disneyland!
The lack of sleep didn’t get in the way though, because as soon as we set step upon the happiest place on earth, I was too excited to be tired.
Kelly had promised to buy me a Mickey hat and a churro as soon as we walked in the park, and that was exactly what happened.
It was my first time in Disneyland, and I was enjoying every minute of it. Everyone was so happy!
My first ride ever was Star Tours. It was a great start to the day, and my experience: old-school, classic, fun and silly.
From there, my memory gets blurry in a haze of laughs, rides, cartoon characters and feelings of happiness.
My favorite parts were the rides that involved movement, screaming and laughs: Screamin’ (in California Adventure), Big Thunder, Indiana Jones Adventure and Space Mountain (Kelly’s favorite ride!). I also really enjoyed Toon Town, because it really made me feel like I was in a cartoon, and it was just so goofy and happy!
Kelly and I also enjoyed observing all the park-goers, specially the little ones. Early in the day, most kids were litteraly bouncing up and down, running around as the excitement overwhelmed them. But later in the afternoon, the sight was quite different: temper tantrums, kids crying and our favorite: just passed out, so tired that they couldn’t even stay awake, and crashed on a bench somewhere.

Wednesday was a much more laid back day. We slept in for the first time since Sunday, which we deserved since we were on vacation after all.
The plans for the day were quite simple: go visit some relatives. And that’s how I ended up hanging out with Kelly and her grandpa for about 3 hours. Propitiously, he had a large stack of old pictures, and it was very enjoyable to see pictures of Kelly when she was a young one.
On the way back, we drove a little bit of the Pacific Coast Highway, from Orange County to Huntington Beach. The scenery was beautiful, and we both longed to go hang out at the beach, which we would soon do.
For dinner, we met up with Kelly’s cousin Gillian, her husband Dave and their 3 kids, at their house. We had pizza, some beer, and chatted for a good while. It was very laid back, relaxing and enjoyable.

On Thursday, we had major plans. In the morning, we traveled across LA, through some really shitty traffic, to arrive at the gorgeous Getty Center. We spent a few hours there. Kelly gave me a private history lesson about art and the Renaissance, and we enjoyed the sun and warm weather in the beautiful gardens.
While at the Getty, I couldn’t help but think of my parents, who would love the architecture of the place (my mom is an architect, my dad a civil engineer). It also was when I was hurt the most about not having my camera, because I really wanted to take some pretty pictures.

Afraid of what getting back on a freeway -at rush hour- would do for my mental sanity, we decided to take an alternative route to our next destination. Kelly’s excellent navigational skills determined that we could take Sunset Boulevard, so we did just that. It was another great drive!
We went from the Getty, through Bel-Air and Beverly Hills, seeing incredible houses mansions and fancy cars, and into Hollywood and LA, where the feeling was not quite the same, and we got to see a bit more of the “west side” feel.

Anyway, our final destination for the evening was the LA Dodger’s stadium. It was time for another First Ever for me! I’d never been to a baseball game, and this was the perfect opportunity to cross that out of my list.
It was awesome! There were a lot of people, and we got some pretty good seats, so we were able to even see the ball as it got pitched and swung at.
In an attempt to get the real experience, we got hot-dogs and beer. I wasn’t quite ready for the wallet shock that this was going to be: three hot dogs at $5 each, and four beers at $10 each. An expense of $55 for something that was really worth less than $20. Oh well. Had to do it at least once.
The game was entertaining, and we got to learn about the Dodger’s fans and their passion for Manny. The other team was the S.F. Giants… and I could have probably pitched for them and gotten away with it, because they were horrible at it.
The Dodgers won, and that sealed my first official baseball experience as a very positive one.

After such a long day, Friday was time to finally go to Huntington Beach, aka SurfCity USA. The temperature wasn’t very hot, so we laid out on the sand to enjoy the sun, and watched some surfers do their thing.
Before we knew it, a couple of hours had gone by, and we were getting cooked. We decided to take a break, go have dinner with Kelly’s aunt and uncle, and to come back to watch the sunset.

So nice! A cool breeze blew as we sat on the sand and saw the sun slowly disappear. It was very romantic, and I hope we can do it again on beaches all over the world.

On Saturday, we did it all over again. Beach, sun, relax. I even got in the water and went for a very short swim, since the water temperature was of only 58 degrees.
The day ended with a big birthday party for Gary, with all of Kelly’s relatives that live in the area. It was fun to be in such a big family setting, with the kids being noisy playing, and everyone chatting it up. I think I did an ok impression on everyone, other than the couple of times when I called someone by someone else’s name. Oops.

Sunday was the sad day of traveling back to Reno, but it had to be done. We decided to just come up the same roads that took us down there.
We stopped in Mammoth to visit the Coach Outlet store, and found Kelly a replacement wallet for the one that had been stolen from her. We saved about 60% by shopping at the outlet! And by we, I mean me, because it was Kelly’s advance birthday present. Win-win, all the way.

The trip ended on a very high note when I got a phone call from someone that had found Kelly’s purse in their garbage can. The irreplaceable bag from Fiji was safe, and saved! The rest of the items were not there, but the most important one was the bag, and that made us happy to be back home.

It was a very long one week, and an excellent vacation. Kelly was an excellent tour guide, and it was a great road trip from beginning to end. We drove a little bit over 1300 miles total, and we were apart only when the other one was using the bathroom. Oh yeah!

Even though I didn’t have my camera, we had Kelly’s. We took a few pictures, and you can see all of them on my flickr page. I leave you with a link to that: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoyogui/sets/72157616981363233/