California
Dave and I took a great, and action-packed, trip to California last week. Eric picked us up at Oakland airport late on Wednesday night and we went back to crash with him in Berkeley. Thursday morning, we met up with Steve and his girlfriend Shannon for brunch at Boogaloo's, followed by really good coffee. Dave picked up some cds and I bought some fabric and then we headed out to Greens Restaurant for a fantastic lunch with Steve and his fellow farmworkers. The lunch was particularly special because Steve has been a member of the team growing much of the produce for the restaurant over the past summer. We got to meet the chef and enjoyed a delicious meal, especially a grilled fig salad and a chocolate torte. After a quick drive over the Golden Gate Bridge and a stop to admire the view, we headed up to Green Gulch Zen Center for a few days. Steve has been living, working, and studying there since March and we had a couple of days to see the farm, meet his friends, visit Muir Beach (and see pelicans!), eat the best croissants ever, and get up at 5am for morning zazen. We also got to help prepare for the weekly farmer's market, by helping pick spinach (before breakfast!) and then washing it, washing and boxing the salad mix, and picking edible flowers. Green Gulch is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, and the time there was incredibly relaxing.
Saturday, we met up with Bahar, Satish, and Manav and headed back to the city. Saturday night we met up with Eric for California-style burritos, and a trip up to Chabot Observatory for their free weekend night views. We looked through some antique telescopes to see distance star clusters and Jupiter and three moons. Sunday we met up with Steve and Shannon again for a trip to the new California Academy of Sciences (penguins!), which was beautiful, but way too overcrowded. We escaped and headed across the street to check out the de Young museum's sculpture garden. Next, it was back to the Mission for some amazing Vietnamese food and caffination at Tartine, and then off to Dolores Park to meet up with Shannon and some of her friends. At the park we met up with Eric again, and headed back across the Bay to Oakland, where we all feasted on amazing homemade Indian food, cooked by Bahar, Satish, and Bahar's mother. The next morning, we headed back on a 11-hour odyssey back to Boston, which included an unplanned layover in Chicago to fix the plane's broken toilets. yay! Have you ever wondered who those poor bastards were who got stuck de-planing on the tarmac? That was us. Finally we got back home, and fought jet lag to head into a work week!
Lots more pictures on Flickr, but I was having too much fun with Bahar, Satish, and Eric to remember to take any pictures...so they are mainly of Green Gulch and the museums.
