Last Day in Davis

Pretty much took it easy today. We took Lauren home and had brunch with her neighbors. They live in a co-op where 4 houses all share the same yard and garden and stuff, it was interesting. We had a vegan brunch except for eggs, which Lauren brought for Dan and I. Afterwards Dan took me on a quick tour of the campus, including his office, his classes, and the class he TAs. We also went on the arboretum trail around the campus, which was very pleasant and had some redwoods, which were cool to see up close and personal.

That's it from Davis, next trip is Christmas in Italy...

San Francisco!

Today we got up at a reasonable hour and headed out to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Park, the Fisherman's Wharf and China Town. On the ride up I saw Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge from the Bay Bridge. We actually didn't see much of the park, it was gigantic. We just has a picnic style lunch and played some chess, then headed down to the Wharf. Parking was ridiculous and expensive, so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked at Pier 39, but I could probably have spent all day walking the piers rather than the hour and half we had to get to and around Pier 39. Oh well, it was still fun. I also found a portapotty for the picture collection, but unfortunately we couldn't get a good angle with it to capture anything historic in the background. I was really hoping to get one with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background...

China Town was really cool and was another area where I could have spent all day walking around. I had some BBQ pork noodle soup, which was good, but I've had better food at Houston's China Town. The atmosphere was very different though, with lots of fun little shops and boutiques. We wandered into a teahouse and got a 20 min demonstration and sampling of different teas and their benefits for free. It was really enlightening, fun, and delicious.

We got back to Davis about 8:30 and went out to meet some of Dan's friends at the local noodle place. We came back to the apartment and had a lot to drink before deciding that going to a club after midnight was a good idea. Everyone had a good time. The night ended with us getting kicked out of Taco Bell.

My flight is in the evening out of San Francisco, so I'm not sure what we are planning for the morning/early afternoon. Probably a campus tour of UC Davis

Day 3 Jelly Belly Factory

Today was fun. Dan and I were initially planning an all day trip to San Francisco and China Town, but we spent the morning recovering from the party last night and weren't really active until noonish. We walked into downtown Davis for lunch at Burgers and Brew, where I had a sausage sandwich that was solid. On the way back we stopped at a local TCBY type place.

Since San Fran was out of the question for today, we decided instead to check if the Jelly Belly factory was open the day after Thanksgiving. Tours were running, but the candy making equipment would not be running since the technicians had the day off.

The tour was pretty neat, and fairly interesting. It would have been cool to see the machines in action, but overall it was still worth it. I did learn that root beer and cream soda were 2 of the first 8 Jelly Belly flavors, and that Ronald Reagan was a huge fan of jelly beans, especially Jelly Bean. Smart marketing to play on that, as the whole factory was full of jelly bean portraits of Reagan, and a case of memorabilia. I took quite a few pictures of all the jelly bean art, and I'll post them as soon as I get back to Houston.

There wasn't any advertising history, just how jelly beans were made, so in that respect I preferred the Guiness factory tour, but this was still something fun and I'm glad we made it instead of wasting a day.

For dinner tonight we supported a local pizza place/bakery and ordered a pepperoni/goat cheese pizza which was really tasty.

Day 2 in Davis- Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Update: woke up at 6 because of the time zone change, so just chilled for a bit and watched TV. Around 9 we walked into Davis to get some breakfast, not even thinking that shops might be closed. Luckily we found a crepe place open til 2. Since I had a crepe yesterday for dessert during our Berkeley stop, I decided to get French toast and a hot chocolate. Pretty good, but also pretty standard. We got back to the apartment, turn on the TV, and Green Bay vs Detroit is already 7-7 at the start of the second quarter. Morning football?! Must be nice.

We arrived at Dan's 2nd year friends' house early to cook the turkey there after brining it. I met the host and hostess, and they were really cool and the talk was good. All the people who showed up were really nice and cool, and the food they all brought to the potluck was amazing. Dan's turkey was awesome, the Russian's mashed potatoes were fantastic (go figure), and the host's bread was out of this world. The meal was truly awesome. And the vegan cookies for dessert for really tasty too, something I was skeptical of because they vegan cookies have no butter. Most of us went for a post dinner walk around the neighborhood. Davis is really dark, there doesn't seem to be a lot of street lights and the ones that are here are pretty dim. I also had some brownies, then called it a night after getting pretty trashed throughout the afternoon and evening.

Update to dinner

First dinner in Davis was actually at a Bohemian place, not Bavarian. I had some fantastic Czech wursts- weisswurst, a mixture of pork and veal, and knockwurst, a pork, beef, garlic mix. I washed it all down with an authentic Czech lager, Czechvar.

Side note back on Berkeley. What what I saw, which honestly was not a lot, just several blocks of University Ave, I didn't see the appeal. The scenery was nothing spectacular, it just seemed like a normal college town. The hills do overlook the water though, but all the houses are jammed up next to each other. Dan couldn't figure it out either, and apparently some people commute to Davis from Berkeley. Maybe we didn't get a good representation of the town, and we didn't see the university, but my first impression is unimpressed.

Thanksgiving in California

This year I decided to spend Thanksgiving with my friend Dan at UC Davis, California. The flight into San Francisco was pretty bumpy, but I was able to see a pretty good view of Lake Tahoe from above. The drive to Davis, which should have taken 90 minutes tops, took more like 3 hours with traffic and a lunch stop in Berkeley. We had Indian, partly because it seemed like we drove through Little India, with Indian restaurants on every corner. The lamb curry and naan were quite good though.

On the way from Berkeley to Davis, we passed exits for West Texas Rd., North Texas Rd., and a Texas Road House. I found that stretch of road a bit odd. The hillside was quite beautiful though.

We also past a billboard exclaiming "Time flies when you're having spaghetti" We got a good laugh.

Davis is a nice town so far, and Dan's apartment is within walking distance of downtown. We went to the Co-Op grocery store to pick up a turkey for tomorrow and I noticed a few things. 1) they didn't have any turkey. 2) a found two new rootbeers that hopefully I will remember to remind Dan about to bring home for Christmas, and 3) dairy products are absurdly expensive here...we went to SafeWay to get the turkey and the prices weren't any better there.

Next on tonight's agenda is dinner at a Bavarian restaurant for dinner. I'm pretty excited.