Euphemistically Speaking (Craig's perspective)

[A guest post from Craig]

We’ve discussed on previous posts how big “brunches” are here—bacchanalic extravaganzas that offer various packages from non-alcoholic drinks to all-you-can-drink options (usually the most selected by those out for brunch). There are after-brunch all-you-can-drink parties at some of these venues as well.

One of the things we have found interesting is the use of euphemisms to describe things that may be “offensive” to a local. Here are three examples of promotions just at our hotel / apartment building alone:

It doesn’t take much imagination to grok / guess / understand what things like “hops,” “house grape,” and “posh bubbles” represent. Still, we find it rather amusing.

We’ve now attended two of these brunches ourselves. We took a cab to our first one here in Abu Dhabi because of the zero tolerance to driving under the influence. You’ve seen the photos of just how over-the-top that brunch was. And we had all-you-can-drink gin & tonics.

Last weekend we went to brunch at the Ruth’s Chris Steak House in the hotel we were staying at in Dubai for the weekend. Wine was poured without discussion or consent, resulting in a “bottomless” glass of “house grape” that left me face down on the bed in our hotel room midday.

But I guess that’s the point?

"I might need that"

Living in a serviced apartment in Abu Dhabi has been a really great experience. The apartment itself is very nice. It has enough of the basics that we are quite comfortable. But, of course, there are a few quirks.

There are things like pictured below, when I was eating lunch at the table when housekeeping came, and they inexplicably left me slippers:

It was probably 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I was barefoot, but I didn't need slippers!

Or there is the saga of the ice. There isn't an ice maker, we have to call room service to deliver a bucket of ice. But you never really know what you will get. Sometimes it's a small container and other times it's an enormous bucket. For comparison:

The bucket on the right is from the previous request, with only melted water. The bucket on the left comes with a lid. When we get the larger bucket, about half the time it will come like this:

I've been tempted to keep the plastic wrap, for later use, which leads to a quirk that I've learned about myself - I do have a tendency to save odd things "in case I want them later." (I've refrained from keeping the plastic wrap only because Craig bought me an entire roll of it.) A small selection of such things:

Yes, I kept all the half empty water bottles, even with the enormous water cooler in our room. Why? Well, I might want to take a bottle with me. And Craig purchased most of those for me with a meal, I wouldn't want to let them go to waste. (Note: I did buy a double-walled aluminum bottle and I've stopped saving such bottles, as I wasn't really using them.)

In this cabinet, I'm saving a few different things. I've got the boxes for everything we've purchased - so that I can pack things back into the boxes for storage. We will be in the States for a month before our return, so we're leaving a few things here. I've also got plastic bags, in case I need them to pack shoes or anything wet. And I've got paper bags, for, you know, some reason.

And then, there are room service "left overs". Our apartment came with two different sized glasses, four of each. It may not picture well here, but there is third size that I've collected from room service. What can I say? I like having a variety of glasses.

Once again, it's hard to tell in the picture, but one of these plates was supplied with our apartment and the other is from room service (same manufacturer, different lines). We had four large plates, now we have nine. (Super fun fact: we prefer to eat off the medium sized plates, of which we only have the original four, but I keep saving the big plates just in case!)

The silverware in the bin was provided with our apartment. I've collected one fork, one small spoon, three medium spoons, and four large spoons from room service. Once again, these are the same manufacturer as provided, but a different line. Most of the spoons have come with ice, oddly enough, though I have also collected a number of sets of tongs from the ice buckets (Craig keeps sending those back, but I think I've saved three in addition to the set we started with).

Surprise! I wasn't actually trying to collect ice buckets when I took this photo. Room service and housekeeping seem to be divided as to who should come and collect them. I had all of these one day when I called for ice - so I actually had six of them before I convinced someone to take them away.

What can I say? I'm something of a magpie.

Weekend Adventure to the Dubai Marina

After allowing me to recover from my travels, Craig wanted to spend a weekend at the Dubai Marina. Looking back, it's a bit odd that we spent a month in Dubai and never visited the Marina area. But the "neighborhoods" or developments in Dubai are so distinct and separate (even when they are geographically close) that it's easy to miss a few. So we drove up for the weekend.

At night, in the Dubai Marina, it's easy to see why people compare Dubai to Las Vegas. (This isn't really the view I got of Dubai from where we lived before.)

And during the day, the ever-present construction cranes tell you that you're in a city constantly building. (This is consistent with every part of Dubai.)

We went out for dinner our first night. We enjoyed a brunch in our hotel on Friday. And we strolled along the water Friday night, before returning to our room and indulging in a room service dinner. Craig got a good picture of me at dinner our first night out:

On our drive "home" from Dubai, we stopped at Motiongate. Let me just start by saying - it was hot. Extreme heat being one of my migraine triggers, we had to skip some of the rides. For whatever reason, attractions with 3D and other effects that can cause a disconnect between the motion I feel and the motion I see are also migraine triggers.  For more obvious reasons, I try to limit the number of migraine triggers I expose myself to at one time.

At this park, I ran into another problem. On several of the rides, I wasn't allowed to wear my glasses. I understand the fear of sunglasses flying off rollercoasters, but this went further than that. I've never had this issue with my glasses before. (We met up with a Thinkwellian who makes his hobby of riding every rollercoaster in the world - he came prepared for this situation with a sports strap for his glasses. But I've never encountered this issue and been unable to talk my way around it.)

My uncorrected vision is very, very poor. It's less than 20/200, which is the level of sight used to determine legal blindness. Of course, my corrected sight is fine, so I'm not considered blind. Except, perhaps, when forced to leave my glasses behind. I think it's safe to say that I was not happy and did not enjoy several of the rides that I might otherwise have enjoyed.

Craig did take this picture of me in the Lionsgate area. But to my fellow Hunger Games fans - you did not miss much here. This was something of the highlight...this...picture opportunity.

Things did improve slightly when we moved on to Dreamworks - the indoor part of the theme park. It was more than just the relief from the heat; it's a nicer area of the park. But still, I was battling the combination of migraine triggers and the rules regarding wearing my glasses on several rides, so I cannot really say that I enjoyed it as much as I might have done.

We had lunch a little late because we couldn't find a place in the park that looked the least bit appealing. Even in the Riverwalk area, the dining options were sparse on a Saturday afternoon. We finally found a flame grilled chicken place that looked acceptable. Here I am pictured with my skewers of chicken, which really are as large as they look in the picture. I'd only wanted one, but they had a special for two for less than a dollar more, so we had leftovers. It was good, but, as they say, hunger is the best sauce.

A Slow Week

After my adventures traveling back from the States, I had a very quiet week here in Abu Dhabi. Craig caught this picture of my curled up on my "window seat":

I saw him at it, though, so this picture doesn't truly capture my relaxation, I'm afraid. But I spent most of this week recovering from my travels and adjusting to the time difference.

One side effect of waking up so early, I saw the "school bus deployment" several mornings in a row. At 6:20 a.m. a parade of school buses appears. I've counted 22 going through a single light cycle in one direction. As this series of photos shows, they are coming from every direction and heading out in every direction. It's difficult to describe using cardinal directions, because the mall is east of me and the streets are at a diagonal. So I'm probably going to make a few mistakes.

In this first picture, you can see eleven school buses. Four buses have come from the NE - two are in the left turn lane to go SE and two are in the right turn lane to go NW. The three buses heading NW came from the SW, making a left turn. At least one bus from the SW went straight, heading NE.

This picture is taken in a different direction. You can still see part of one bus directly below me at the bus stop. And you can see three school buses coming off a side street onto the street below me.

Back to the primary intersection, you can see buses coming primarily from the SE. Four of them will go straight (NW) and three are in the right turn lane to head NE. There are two other buses visible, but I'm not sure where they came from or were going...

Another shot, showing more buses coming from the NE. This is the side of the intersection I can picture the most clearly. As you can see, the buses are in every lane, heading in every direction.

I think each school must run its own buses. That's the only explanation for the number of buses I've seen in the morning. I'd guess that nearly fifty buses go through the intersection on each complete light cycle, and this lasts for at least twenty minutes - several light cycles, before tapering off. In the afternoon, the buses are more of a trickle. I don't see as many at a time, but I do see them for a couple hours.

I'm not sure what my fascination with school buses says about how I spend my time recovering. I also had to look up the spelling for the plural version of bus...so at least I'm learning something?

Time for a Pork Run (Craig's perspective)

[A guest post from Craig]

As we’ve both mentioned here before, pork is pretty scarce in the UAE, as one might imagine. Breakfast menus and buffets feature beef bacon, chicken sausage, and veal patties. Still, it’s not impossible to get pork, you just have to know where to look.

When we first arrived in Abu Dhabi we found the hypermarket (a giant grocery store and WalMart rolled into one) catty-cornered from us in the mall across the way. Lulu (the hypermarket) has televisions, luggage, clothes, sundries, furniture, a pharmacy, and food. So I was shocked that they had no Pork Room.

A Pork Room is exactly as it sounds—the place behind closed doors where one can purchase pork. Like the old adult videos section at the neighborhood video rental shops, you have to slide behind a curtain or through a door to get your kicks on chorizo, frozen real pepperoni pizza, hot dogs, and—oddly—things like Pop Tarts. Given our hypermarket doesn’t have a pork room I have to stop on my way home from work at a Waitrose, a UK grocery store chain that appeals to expats, because I’ve been to their pork room in the past.

So when we need something, it’s time for me to make a “pork run.” Parking at the Waitrose can take longer than getting what I came to buy, but eventually I get inside. Located in the back of the store (just like those “XXX Rated” video sections), a frosted glass door with the sign “NOT FOR MUSLIMS” delivers the sordid greeting. Press the button, the door opens, and in you are in a world of fresh, prepared, and frozen pork products. Interestingly, they carry our exact brand of bacon we like (well, not on this last visit, but normally), which is nice. I’ve bought breakfast sausages and chorizo from the pork room, too.

When we lived in Dubai for a month, our tiny little neighborhood “bodega” had a bit of a “pork room.” Nothing elaborate, but it was in close walking distance. Of course, when we were there, the largest mall in the world, Dubai Mall, was adjacent to our apartment (across about 30 lanes of traffic). In the basement of that mall was a Sainsbury’s hypermarket, another UK grocery chain. It was enormous and upscale and had a pork room to shame all other pork rooms I’d ever seen in the region. Easily, the pork room at Sainsbury’s was 40-feet long. Not only did it have fresh, prepared, and frozen pork products but it had a flippin’ PORK BUTCHER COUNTER. Of course, their pork room was so large there were products for sale that almost defied explanation—besides the things like Pop Tarts, which one figures is an issue if you have lard for frying?—they had gelatin products, felt tip markers (???), and other surprisingly pork-filled products.

When we were in Dubai we made “pork runs” of a different sort, as crossing those 30+ lanes of traffic was more akin to the vintage video game “Frogger” because we walked, as we had no rental car. Now, the Waitrose is (more or less) on my way home from site, so it’s easy to make a pork run.

To add sin to sin, when I take the different route back to the apartment from my normal route in order to do the pork run, it also makes it very convenient for me to stop at the windowless, unmarked liquor store.

But I’ll save that for another blog post…

All About the Valet (Craig's perspective)

[A guest post from Craig]

At our “executive apartment” we get valet service for the car. They told us when we checked in that when we want our car to call down first and they’ll have it ready. The first day I called about ten minutes before we went down to leave and waited for the car. The second time I called about 15 minutes early. Still no car. The third time I called 20 minutes early and waited a full ten minutes more before the car arrived. After that, I was done with valet. We had learned that we could get a key card and park in the garage ourselves. Frustrated, I acquired the card and the next time we went out we decided to park in the garage to avoid waiting for our car.

The problems began when we drove behind the hotel/apartment building (plus an office building, another apartment, and a third office) to the two-lane road behind that gained us access to the garage ramp. Parking in the UAE is always a challenge. I don’t know what local building codes dictate but there’s never enough dedicated parking and never enough surface parking. If there’s a vacant lot or a planter you’ll likely see a car partially parked in it enough to keep a lane of traffic clear. We rounded the corner to the alley behind the building and that was the case we discovered. A row of parked cars half in the dirt over the curb and half in the alley, creating a single lane for two-way traffic. On top of that, one car—facing toward us—had its hazards on indicating (locally) that someone ran in somewhere to get something and didn’t bother finding a parking place.

After much confusion with our car and others, the vehicle left, allowing other cars coming toward us to get by before we headed down the alley to find the garage ramp. Once we got into the garage we had to get to G4—four levels down. It was slow going between speed bumps (these are very aggressive in the UAE) and people pulling in/out of spaces (slowly) and people away from the vehicles (obligatory hazard lights on). We got to G2 before I realized this plan was untenable. Between the alley access and the time spent trying to get to the lowest levels of hell I realized this could not be the norm. It would take too long! 

So I didn’t park. Instead, I turned around and drove back up and valet parked and gave the guy at the front desk of the apartment building my access card. 

The next couple of days were work days. Each day the car took 45 minutes to appear. One day, the valets made me late for an important meeting. I was pacing out front. The Eastern European girl who was manning the front desk (we have never seen her again, strangely) I think felt sorry for my situation when I came in to complain and say the valet service was unacceptable. “Don’t call the house line to order the car,” she said to me a bit conspiratorially (or at least I imagined it to be somewhat conspiratorial). “Call me here. I’ll get the car ready. I’ll keep calling them every five minutes and yell at them. Just tell me when you call me when you want to leave.” She had offered to have the car ready at a specific time every day, but I don’t leave at the same time each day because meetings on-site start early some days, I work late the night before, or I have 100+ emails from Los Angeles that came in overnight that I have to deal with urgently before I leave for site.

So the next morning I called the front desk of the apartment and told the girl I would be down in 20 minutes and she said she’d have the car ready. And guess what? When I got down to the lobby the car was there!

Until it wasn’t.

One morning, after my Eastern European friend was gone, I came down and a large, sand colored SUV (ubiquitous in the region) was out front. I poked my head out the door to see if my rental was in front or behind the behemoth. It was not. The valet was there and asked me for my ticket. I handed it to him and he handed me the keys…to the SUV. “That’s not my car,” I said. He wordlessly showed me the valet tickets—the one on the key fob and the one I handed him. They were the same. “I see,” I said. “But that is not my car.” 

“It <i>is</i> your car,” he said, pointing at the tickets as if this truth was irrefutable. “That is <i>not</i> my car!” I said. “Someone made a mistake!” As is often the case when there is a service problem in this region (service is plentiful because it is cheap but the motto we have here is “They’ll get it 70% right. The other 30% is almost impossible to achieve.”), the situation turned into a group activity with much talking in a language I do not understand. And to make matters worse, I had an important meeting to be at and this was cutting into my drive time. “You are making me late for an important meeting. I need my car!” That stopped the cluster discussion. Phone calls were made. A manager from the attached Marriott appeared. There was a new cluster discussion and more phone calls. “This is making me late for work!” I said angrily. They could see I was agitated. Finally, one of the valets said, “We go to look for your car now.” 

WHAT???

We took the elevator to the G4 in the garage. He stood there. I stood there. “What do you want me to do?!” He took me to the valet office and opened a cabinet door revealing dozens and dozens of car keys on pegs, each with a valet tag hanging from it. “Find your key and the space number is on the peg.” I looked through keys. The key fobs were all similar. Tags were hiding many. The only identifiable feature of my key to me was the Eurocar Rentals tag on the keychain and the bathroom key I had to the one clean bathroom in the theme park. I couldn’t find the key. “I don’t see it!” I was really frustrated and agitated now, as it had been almost 30 minutes since I had showed up in the lobby to leave for work.

He gestured that I should be out looking for the car. So I started—nearly running at this point—to search the rows and rows of cars. At some point I realized G4 was not even the lowest level in the garage—there was at least one more level down! This was going to take forever! 

Finally, I found the car! I got the space number, ran back to the valet office and the valet guy grabbed the keys and handed them to me. I ran back to the car to head out and the valet guy asked if I could give him a ride back to the hotel entrance! “Yeah…I guess!” I said, now more frustrated than ever. 

Driving up and up through the narrow lanes in the parking garage—pausing while people ahead of me jockeyed into or out of a space—and up to the surface took what felt like forever. I went down the one lane-ish alley to the hotel entrance to drop off the valet. “I’ll need your driver’s license and passport,” he said. “I have to fill out some paperwork that you need to sign.” 

Now if this was America I would have told the guy to go f**k himself and attempted to burn rubber in my humble little Ford Focus. But because this is the UAE, aggression of any sort can be reason enough to get the cops called on you, so I gritted my teeth and said, “Look, this has already made me late for work. Don’t make me later. I can sign anything you want when I get back from work tonight. In the mean time, am I breaking any kind of law if I leave now?” He told me I could go. 

I never was able to peel out.

A couple days later I went to the hotel lobby (the Marriott Hotel and the Marriott Executive Apartments are attached) and asked for the manager. It was in the evening, so I got the feeling the guy they sent to me wasn’t the manager, but it was close enough. I told him about the problems with the valet service and the time it was taking to get the car in the morning. “We are very busy in the morning. Sometimes it can take up to 15 minutes,” he responded. “So what do you think about 25, 35, or 45 minutes?” I asked. “We are very busy in the morning,” he repeated. “So what about when they lose my car? And I’m late for work? And I have to searching for it in the garage? Is that okay?” He had no real satisfactory response.

“I want to talk to the hotel manager,” I said. The next day was Friday, the first day of the weekend. “I’ll talk to him in the morning. I will be sure to have him call you. What time tomorrow would be good?” “Anytime between 11 am and 1 pm, “ I said. “Okay. We will be sure to call you.”

I never got a call.

But guess what? Since that day (it’s been two and a half weeks) my car is always there in the morning. I don’t wait. It’s not lost. No pacing. I’m not sure what went down, but all I know is the valet service has drastically improved from the first few weeks!

25 Hours

After a very relaxing weekend at home (read that: a weekend during which I did absolutely nothing but binge watch NCIS), I was ready to pack up and head back to Abu Dhabi. I'd spent a couple days gathering things to pack and running last minute errands. Here are my packed bags, waiting by the door:

I might have a favorite color.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, L.A. time, I called an Uber. It was 1:30 in the morning, in Abu Dhabi. Inexplicably, the vehicle that arrived to pick me up was a Toyota Tacoma. I've never had a pickup truck as an Uber before. But the driver was very nice.

I arrived at the airport and checked my duffle bag. I proceeded through security with my backpack and my rolling bag. I had a change of clothes and all our refill medications packed in the rolling bag. With all my vitamins, this amounts to quite a few bottles, as you can see:

My flight to Abu Dhabi was the same one we took several weeks ago, with the tight connection in Istanbul. I kept an anxious eye on the clock, hoping that my departure would not be delayed. Soon enough, it was time to go! I made my way to the gate, boarded, and got settled in.

Still watching the clock, I had a new worry when a young couple, with an infant, settled in across the aisle from me. The baby was so little that he wasn't yet holding up his head. I could only hope he would sleep through the flight. Ultimately, the couple swapped places with other passengers so they could sit in seats that had an attachment for a bassinet. As far as I could tell from this new location, the baby did sleep through most of the flight.

We took off a few minutes after our scheduled time. But at this point, all I could do was hope for the best. Dinner began with nuts and a small selection of appetizers:

The second course was appetizers I selected from a cart - soup, artichokes, eggplant, watermelon and cheese. The soup was really good. There were a number of other things on the cart, but I didn't want to ask for everything.

For my main, I had selected the beef option. It was dry enough that I actually smeared some of the butter from my bread plate onto it, but after the butter melted in, it was perfectly fine.

For dessert, I opted for the cheese plate, as I typically do because I'm never sure of the ingredients.

Dinner service took a long time, but I read my book and watched a couple television shows. After dinner, I went to sleep.

I slept for about four hours before waking up. I didn't feel great when I woke up, but I figured I was still fighting the touch of a stomach bug from the weekend. I drank some water and went back to sleep. When I woke up another four hours later, I knew I had a migraine.

With just over two hours left, they began serving breakfast. We had filled out cards selecting our breakfast at the beginning of the flight. Breakfast began with this fruit platter:

But after nibbling on a slice of kiwi, I knew that food wasn't going to be an option. With so little time left in the flight and a tight connection in Istanbul, I couldn't risk taking a migraine pill. Instead, I asked the flight attendant to take my tray away and I curled back up with both my sweatshirt and my blanket covering my eyes. I did fall asleep again, which is unusual for me.

During the last thirty minutes of the flight, I packed up absolutely everything I had out. Usually, I will keep my kindle and a few other things to entertain myself with during landing. But I didn't want to risk leaving anything and I knew my migraine was making things fuzzy. With the headache, I couldn't read anyway.

We landed in Istanbul just ten minutes late. This left me with an hour to make my connection. I was feeling reasonably good about this timeline. But I'd forgotten that we would not taxi to a gate, but to a bus. I got off the plane and onto the bus. At the bus gate, I got off the bus to hear a uniformed employee shouting for "Abu Dhabi passengers".

I skewed out of the crowd over to him. He told me to get back on the bus. I waited until everyone had exited and climbed back onto the bus. He got on with me. We were the only people in the bus. He said something about the Abu Dhabi gate being on the other side of the airport.

The bus drove us around to another gate. I got off, following the employee into the building. We surprised the man working at that gate; he clearly wasn't expecting anyone to enter. The employee I was following shouted something at him that included "Abu Dhabi" and we walked past.

Up two escalators and through several hallways, he deposited me at my gate. The sign was flashing "last call". There were perhaps six people waiting ahead of me to have their boarding passes scanned. Outside, a bus was completely full with another handful of people standing outside the bus. By the time my passport was checked and my boarding pass scanned, that bus had left and the few of us were boarding another bus. We waited for several minutes, but only three more passengers came after me - all of them were out of breath from running.

The bus took us out to our airplane. I boarded and found my seat. Business class on this flight was only about half full. I got a glass of water and took my migraine pill. I'd told Craig my plan. I hoped the five hour flight would be long enough that I could function again by the time I needed to go through customs.

I curled up with the sleeve of my sweatshirt pulled over my eyes. A flight attendant took my water glass and threw a blanket over me. After we took off, another flight attendant tried to show me the menu. I just shook my head at her; the migraine pill was in full effect.

She suggested I move to another seat, "away from the baby," if I wanted to sleep. I groggily agreed and she moved me back two rows, as far from the toddler on this flight as possible. As a bonus, I got two extra pillows because I'd taken the pillows from my row. I curled up and dozed through the entire flight. I can't say that I slept, because I kept starting awake and I frequently had to change position.

With about thirty-five minutes left in the flight, I finally woke up. One of the flight attendants came back and asked me if he could get me anything. I remember staring blankly at him, trying to figure out what exactly he was offering. Finally, I asked for some water so he would go away.

Getting off the plane was a bit of a challenge. Once more, I had to make my way down a set of stairs to a waiting bus. My migraine pill made the stairs even more of a challenge than the full blown migraine had done. But I managed and found my way to passport control.

I'd forgotten to ask Craig which line I was supposed to pick and I only vaguely remembered coming in last time, sick from Istanbul. Naturally, I picked the wrong line. I should have gone through e-gates, but instead went through the normal line. By the time I realized my mistake, the line for e-gates was longer than my current position in the other line.

I knew Craig was waiting for me, which did not make me any more patient. Queue management was sketchy, with security opening new lanes all the time and funneling the waiting people into those lines. It was frustrating, but I kept an eye on the e-gates line. While I'm certain I would have gotten through there quicker if I'd made that choice from the start, I'm also fairly confident that by the time I'd gone back I would have finished at about the same time.

Regardless, I still needed to get my bag. And, as it turned out, that was an even longer wait that passport control had been. I waited at the baggage carousel for over thirty minutes, until the slow trickle of bags stopped. At that point, I had to return to the baggage desk to fill out a form. I was told that my bag was still in Istanbul (no great surprise). It would come on the same flight the following day and they would deliver it to my hotel.

By now, it was 2:00 in the morning. When Craig paid for parking, we discovered that he had been at the airport for over two hours. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 2:30, a full twenty-five hours since I left the house in Los Angeles.

The next day, my much traveled, extra tagged bag arrived at our hotel:

Sunnyvale, CA - all the parks

Before our trip, I had made a list of possible activities surrounding the area where we were staying. But other than our two trips into San Francisco, we only visited public parks. The girls enjoyed playing in the parks so much, though!

At this park, Daniella insisted she could use the "big girl" swing. With Court keeping a close eye on her, Daniella did indeed manage to stay in the big kid swing. Both girls had such a good time!

Kai insisted that I take this picture of her on the elephant.

And I got this picture of Daniella when she wasn't looking:

We had a really good time exploring the parks in Sunnyvale and the surrounding area. The only complaint I had was finding parking at some of the parks. But a large part of that problem was that the GPS would not necessarily take us to the parking lot at each park.

Pier 39

For our second venture into San Francisco, we were headed to Pier 39. After our usual morning routine, we set out. This time, we had packed all the activities for the girls - binders, journal, and magnets. Court lamented that the girls may expect activities every time they get in the car from now on, which might be a hassle. We also checked Waze, but that proved unnecessary. We made the trip in about half the time.

Arriving near Pier 39, we found a parking lot that was $30 for three hours or $40 for all day. Parking the day before, near the Exploratorium had been $25 - it would have been $20 if we'd gotten our Exploratorium tickets in advance. Uncertain how long we were going to stay, we opted for the all day option.

Pier 39 was not as kid friendly as the Exploratorium, which is designed with children in mind, but we still had a good time. The highlight was seeing the sea lions. I got a picture of Court and the girls:

We also stopped to watch a street performer. If you asked Daniella about her favorite part of the day, she would say it was watching the man eat fire. The street performer did eat fire, but I don't think the little one even watched this part of the show. I stood with Kai, who was fascinated by the entire show, while Court chased Daniella in and out of the surrounding shops.

We got lunch on the pier. Court and I got clam chowder in bread bowls, which was our main goal for the day. We wandered into some shops, but we didn't find the perfect souvenirs for the girls.

The girls really wanted to ride the carousel, so we made our way there. It was $5 per person or $10 for three. We tried to get the 3 for $10 deal, but we couldn't make the machine work. So we paid $15. Then, somehow, I ended up on the carousel with the girls. Kai found something to ride and I stood next to Daniella on another moving animal.

Do you know how well I do on spinning rides? I won't even ride the teacups with Kai at Disneyland. The last time we went, I made myself sick just trying to take pictures of Court and Kai on the teacups. So why was I on this carousel? I don't know. I held onto Daniella and hoped for the best. We made it through and I took a few minutes to recover.

We went on to a cookie dough store that Court had read about. I couldn't find ingredients, but I didn't really feel like eating after the carousel anyway. So I skipped on the raw, edible cookie dough. The girls seemed to enjoy it, but it was sugar. From Court's comments, I'm glad I skipped it.

Exploratorium

One of the things I knew I wanted to do in San Francisco was visit the Exploratorium. I had gone with Craig on an earlier trip and I was dying to take the girls. So after a quick breakfast at the hotel, we all got in the car and went to the doctor's office. While Court was there, I took the girls run an errand at the bank. We picked Court up and were on our way!

For Kai, we brought both her binder and her journal, because she had enjoyed them both during the long road trip. For Daniella, we brought the magnets, because she had enjoyed them. But, of course, on this trip, Daniella wanted her binder, which we hadn't brought. We vowed to bring it on our next trip.

The really unfortunate part about this trip was that we did not use Waze to map our route. We relied on the car's navigation. Ordinarily, this might not have been a problem. But neither of us knew that it was the Giant's opening day and that our route would take us past the Giant's stadium. So that added an extra hour to our drive.

We got parked and went inside. Because it had taken so long to get there, we had to get lunch before we could do much of anything. There wasn't much around, so we ate there. It was overpriced and not that great. But then we were off exploring all the hands on exhibits.

Both girls enjoyed all the optical illusions and mirror displays. I think Court and I enjoyed the auditory exhibits more than either of the girls. Or maybe they just couldn't appreciate it because they could actually hear everything. One of the activities was basically a self-administered hearing test. I was able to hear the least of any of us - possibly because of all the ear problems I had on my trip.

Daniella finally fell asleep in the stroller, leaving Kai and I free to explore more of the museum. Kai found the magnetic sand and played there for a very long time. When Daniella woke up, we had time for a few more exhibits before it was time to go.

But before we could go, I wanted to see if the girls would try to recreate this picture I had taken of Craig at the Exploratorium:

Kai was initially very suspicious. But she finally agreed to pretend to drink for my photo. In the process, she got the water on her face and discovered that it was perfectly good drinking water.

Twister

Despite staying up late talking, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning. I eventually went back to bed, but I was unable to fall asleep. When the girls woke up at 7:30, Court got up and turned off the monitor thinking she would let me sleep. But I was still awake, so we all got up and made our way to breakfast. The breakfast included with the hotel was very nice, actually.

Court had her first appointment that morning, but I elected to stay at the hotel with the girls. The doctor's office was only a few miles away, but honestly, I was nearly as tired of being in the car as the girls were. The hotel had a basketball court, where the girls and I played for an incredibly long time. We played tag, Simon Says, Follow the Leader, Lava Monster, and Twister. In this picture, Kai is running at a Simon Says command, which Daniella has decided to join in on.

If you're wondering how you play Twister on a basketball court, let me explain. There were two white lines painted on the green court. I could call out something like "left foot on white" or "both feet on green" and Kai would arrange herself accordingly. I added things like "left hand on right knee" or "both hands on your head" for variety. Finally, Daniella reached the end of her patience with us. I gave my last call to Kai, "put your left foot on your head". She nearly fell over laughing at the impracticality of this.

Later that night, in the hotel room, Kai discovered that she could put her foot on her head! We played additional games of Twister in the living room, using the sofa, chair and floor as markers. Kai even made a Twister "board" out of the memo paper in the hotel, with different drawings on each page. I did manage to get a picture of this version of the game:

Road Trip!

I woke up early, even after staying up way too late the night before. But I still needed to pack! And I had so many other little tasks around the house to complete. I managed to get most everything done before Court and family arrived.

We had a quick egg hunt for the girls, but Daniella wasn't really that interested in finding the eggs. She found a couple before settling on the sofa to eat the goldfish out of a few eggs. From there, she dictated where Kai should find more eggs.

Court and I quickly packed the car. We managed to wedge our bags around the stroller in the back. We had a bag full of activities for the girls in the back, where Kai could reach it. We also had a bag full of snacks for the trip, which Court had prepared ahead of time.

The road trip went about as you might expect, with two young girls. Kai seemed to enjoy both the binder and the journal I had made for her, keeping herself entertained fairly well. Both girls enjoyed the magnets I had picked up on a whim, with the cookie sheets Court had picked up at the last minute for them. I had read about this on Pinterest, but hadn't had time to find the cookie sheets - I'm so glad Court found the time, because this was the one thing the little one seemed to enjoy.

We put off stopping for lunch a bit too long, which caused a minor melt down in the back. Then, Court and I struggled to actually find a place to stop. We missed the first place because we didn't see signs for food until after we had passed the exit. Finally, we found a place to stop for a quick lunch and fuel. It was here that I finally managed to take a picture:

Post-melt-down, Daniella has the iPad. Kai is
still enjoying her journal and binder.

Although that last 26 miles was a little rough (did I mention that it was 26 miles from the place we missed to the next exit?), the girls did recover a bit with lunch and we got back on the road. In the end, I'm probably glad that we had lunch so late because the remainder of our drive felt so short!

We arrived at the hotel and got checked in. We had a two bedroom suite. The only obnoxious thing about it was that both bathrooms were ensuite. And really, when that's your main complaint, things aren't so bad. From left to right in this picture: the open doors lead to the bedroom I slept in; the next door is to the outside; behind the desk is the door to the other bedroom; beyond that is the small kitchen. The only eating area is two barstools at a small counter.

The hotel staff brought a crib for Daniella, but it was a very small crib. We called to have it removed, but we were told to leave it outside because the housekeeping staff had gone home. A picture Court took of Daniella in the crib:

Rather hilariously, this picture showed up in my TimeHop, proving that this is a bad day for this family and beds:

We drove to Panera for dinner. Then we went to a Target we had passed on the way, hoping to pick up a Pack N Play to replace the crib. But Target was closed for Easter. So we had to drive across town to a Walmart, which was very busy, probably because so many places were closed for the holiday. By this time, the girls were very done with being in the car.

We got back to the hotel, set up the Pack N Play, put the girls to bed, and collapsed on the sofa. Court and I stayed up far to late talking. My jet lag probably didn't help.