i miss europe

i left my heart in san francisco


dinner at frascati in russian hill. a big thanks to jihye for arranging two days of our dining extravaganza. i loved kokkari too! (and amy, i also loved cafe kati) oh yes, and chris copied my green polo idea though he swears he had also planned on wearing green...yeah right. =)

amy was drunk, i was delirious from my 12 hour trek to SF from NYC.

rooftop champagne

chris not only jumped on my back, but lisa's as well

yay! no more nasty blackboard picture of us!

in the words of mark twain, "the coldest winter i've ever lived through is summer in san francisco".

i love amy's expression in this picture

palace of fine arts

and of course...tribute to amy jin!

you never cease to make me laugh.

if you weren't lisa yoon i'd still be furious at you

so...(btw, i'm in san francisco. well, more specifically, millbrae at chris' four seasons - which i will definitely get back to) i trusted lisa in booking our new york tickets. since we're both soon-to-be starving law students and we both had a southwest free ticket we decided to get the most out of our free ticket and use it to fly to new york. and i should have known immediately that this was a bad idea.

1) southwest of course does not fly into JFK or la guardia, the two closest airports to manhattan. no...we fly to islip, long island. LONG ISLAND. (another sidenote: when dealing with customers from long island at nissan...they were by far the snobbiest, i-think-i'm-all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips people ever! ungrateful SOB's)
2) no matter what there is a layover
3) chicago midway airport

so to get from long island into manhattan we had to take the long island railroad (which wasn't so bad except that we had to use the restroom and they toilets were perpetually broken) into penn station, then take a cab to our destination. so this takes, oh, 2 hours at the very least. and this of course, is after a FULL DAY of traveling and carting our carry-on suitcases off planes, on planes, throughout the airport.

layovers. i should have learned from my europe experience when i was trying to save my parents some money ($100 to be exact) and not take a direct flight from london to LAX. so it was supposed to be like a 2 hour layover in north carolina. i stayed there for 6 hours. all i wanted to do after a month of "roughing it" was to go home. and i was stuck in north carolina. back to the present. going to new york we stopped at chicago midway (this is of course, not chicago's main airport o'hare but midway...and as the lady next to me on the plane pointed out, the airport where the only southwest accident took place) i absolutely HATED this airport. not so much the airport but the location. chicago is known as the windy city. i swear i thought the plane was going to be carried away by the wind when we were landing. my head was spinning, the airplane was rocketing, i thought i was going to die. (yes, i have a fear of flying) and then when we were taking off, the plane was literally swinging back and forth because the wind was so strong. i told lisa as we were ascending into mid-air that i was so happy that i'd never have to return to the airport again.

WRONG. turns out, on our way to san francisco, yes from long island, lisa and i failed to note that this time, we not only had ONE layover but TWO. and jesus christ (no offense) the first just so happened to be chicago midway. enough said. i was so furious. i had to mentally meditate not to smack lisa with the snapple bottle.

we literally traveled from 10 am - 10 pm. 12 hours for a stinking 5.5 hour plane ride! i don't care, i'm so taking direct flights from now on. i knew i liked jet blue from the beginning.

sigh.

but then! there is salvation! chris' four seasons! omg so he's like the sweetest guy ever. not only did he spend the entire day moving his brother's room for me and cleaning it, he actually laid a fresh towel on the bed for me and placed soap and a bottle of water on top of it. so i have my own room, computer, and television. after 6 days on the loveseat/couch/chair contraption i slept on in new york this is like heaven. A BED. SHEETS. A BLANKET. (i used...my TOWEL as a blanket in new york. or i just wore pants and a jacket to sleep)

but my absolutely favorite, favorite part about chris' four seasons has got to be...THE SHOWER. i had NO IDEA he had a shower with FIVE shower heads. two for the head and three for the back. I HAD THE BEST TIME EVER. i think because of his shower i'm so taking like three showers a day.

smile. at least the nightmare of today's travels is slowing fading. (lisa yoon, you still owe me though)

and i love san francisco. i forgot how much i adored the city till driving through it tonight. it's still so amazingly beautiful.