7 posts tagged “travel”

We arrived Thursday afternoon and got right out for a walk to North Beach.

From North Beach towards the financial district

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By the time we got to Sts. Peter and Paul church is was closed; but we enjoyed some time hanging out in the adjacent Washington Square Park. It was a perfect day.

Such a beautiful afternoon!

For dinner, I chose a place in keeping with the opera theme of our trip:

Ah, Puccini

It's a real neighborhood-feeling spot...

Inside

...with a jukebox full of opera and classical CDs.

Drake ponders his choice.

We spent Friday at Golden Gate Park, mostly at the DeYoung. Even though here in Seattle we get a bit weary of Dale Chuhuly, his exhibit at the DeYoung was outstanding.

I think this was my favorite

It was another beautiful day. At Mark's suggestion, we walked over to the Conservatory of Flowers, which had a special butterfly exhibit.

Butterflies!

What prompted our trip was SF Opera's production of Simon Boccanegra. Drake suggested I swoon next to the poster of Dmitri Hvorostosky. Not that I would ever stoop to something so silly on my own.

*sigh*

We ate lots of good food, too, including a trip over to Chez Panisse in Berkley.

And as much as I love visiting San Francisco, it makes me appreciate the livability of Seattle. I guess I'm just a small city sort of gal.

SanFrancisco

Hey Voxers, Drake and I are taking a long weekend to San Francisco next weekend. We've been there a number of times, so I am looking for things to do that might be off the tourist track. Specifically:

• Dinning suggestions (Thursday night, light dinner Saturday night pre-opera)
• Things to do (Thursday afternoon, during the day Friday and Saturday)

I have a minor restriction on things to do in that right now I can't walk or stand for long periods of time (flair-up of a long-standing medical condition I'll blog about some other time). As long as there is the chance for me to sit down and rest a while I'm fine. But a major hike probably isn't going to work for me right now.

One thing we haven't done that's on the agenda for Friday is the De Young Museum and Golden Gate Park. Other than that our agenda is pretty open.

Thanks!

It's always so great to see the Seattle skyline coming into town from the airport.

• Austin was hot (no surprise), the conference was better than I expected, and I was happy with how my presentation went.
• The first couple of days I was in Chicago, my Dad was really zapped by his latest round of chemotherapy, but seemed to pick up the last day in particular. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will end treatment at this point... they want to look at his numbers before making a final decision.
• The cicadas in Chicago - they were everywhere and they were loud!
  
• Research in San Francisco went well.

I've got lots to catch up on here at home this weekend.

I leave Tuesday for another 2-week jaunt, a mix of business (AUS, SFO) and personal (ORD).

• Austin, TX is the site of UPA this year, where I'll be presenting. I seem to always draw the early morning speaking slots. It's not that I mind speaking at that hour (in this case 8:30am) it's that I have a little paranoia about oversleeping and missing my presentation. I'm bringing an extra alarm clock.
• From Austin, I'll be spending 4 days in Chicago, visiting my Dad. Can't wait to see him.
• Then to San Francisco. More specifically, South San Francisco, right by SFO. I'm going to be doing some more user research. Probably won't have any time to pop into downtown San Francisco.

Unfortunately, I have to drag around my video equipment for the user research to each stop.  But, at least I can plan for warm weather (in the case of Austin, very warm). I'm stuck in middle seats for every flight, but the flight durations aren't too bad (4 hours, tops). And, I bought a little Elph to keep me company :-). It fits oh-so-nicely in my purse (my first pocket camera!)

I'm home from my little jaunt to San Francisco. The conference was fine but (as I suspected) all-consuming. And I actually had a nice time at the networking events. It was a smaller-scale conference so that helped.

All the speakers were supposed experts on their topic but what struck me was the variability in the presentation skills. I'm currently working on two new presentations (one I'm doing in March at a local professional society; the other I need to have finished by March 1 for final submission to a conference that isn't until June). I find it helpful to study other speakers - what makes a good presentation good and what makes a bad one fall so flat. There was the good, the bad, and the ugly in this conference.

Tonight I just want to be a vegetable in fuzzy socks and my warm, cozy hoodie.

Paul and I, 1967

This is my brother Paul and me ready to board at Washington National Airport. We had visited my Aunt Alice, who at the time was living in Alexandria, Virginia; we also visited Washington, D.C. and Williamsburg. Paul (who seems to be squinting) is wearing a tri-corner hat that he got in Williamsburg.

We are both dressed as people used to dress for air travel - in a suit and dress. I've topped off my ensemble with white gloves. I loved wearing white gloves when getting dressed up, but I can't remember whether this was something I emulated from my mom or I got on to on my own.

We got in last night, in the midst of a rare Seattle snowstorm. The normally 30 minute drive from the airport to our house took 2 hours. We were sharing a van-cab with 4 others. For a while, it looked like we weren't going to make it. The cab in front of us couldn't make it up the ramp to I-5, but we did - barely. One person in our cab was a cancer patient coming in to Seattle for treatment. At one point, we all were seriously considering the fact that we would be stranded. Here is an idea of what it was like:

Seattle Snow

In the cab, we were listening to the Seahawks-Packers game - the only home game the Seahawks have ever played in the snow.

I am still trying to catch up with work, laundry, grocery shopping, and 2 1/2 weeks of accumulated snail mail.