So my friend Emily moved to CA after fourth grade. She's come back to visit NY a bunch of times since she moved, but this was my first time visiting her! She and her husband had recently bought a house in Livermore, which is a suburb of San Francisco. So the plan that night was to go and visit her.
Emily had given me instructions on how to get to Pleasanton, and part one involved taking the MUNI to the Embarcadero BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. The closest MUNI station was only like a block away, so after relaxing in the room and freshening up we ventured back outside and started to head towards the MUNI station. (With the assistance of my iPhone map.)
Now, while wandering around San Francisco and riding in that awful taxi cab, I had seen some bus looking things that were attached to wires overhead. (I've tried to find a decent picture online to no avail.) Anyway, we were expecting a subway of some sort. Not a bus on a wire.
So we stumble upon the station. And we have a few minutes to wait. And...it starts to rain. More people gather around. And more people. And I'm getting nervous, because I have no idea what I'm getting myself into.
So the MUNI pulls up, and everybody crowds around to board. The bus driver starts SCREAMING at people to have their tickets out - she was seriously being really nasty. Now I understand she was probably having a long day and there were a lot of people, but holy crap was she rude! I had exact change for our fare, and thank god I did because that was another thing she was screeching. We moved to the back of the car and found two seats together. They were some of the last seats on the bus. And then it quickly filled up so that people were standing from the back to the front - it was like after closing time at the Magic Kingdom. The seats were tiny and the bus was gross - there was stuff carved into the windows.
It gets worse.
So we continue along, rain slapping against the graffiti decorated windows, and the bus driver has decided she hasn't yelled at everyone enough. Oh no. She gets on the PA and starts screeching about how it's a dangerous city and there are pickpockets everywhere and to watch your stuff. Um, hello? I've been in this city less than 10 hours - this is what I get treated to? And she doesn't just say this once. She says it REPEATEDLY. Like four times. Seriously. I could not get the hell off that horrible bus fast enough.
Finally our stop came, and we ran off and never looked back. The BART station was right there, so luckily we didn't have to do any more wandering around in the rain.
And I decided what MUNI really stands for - Massive Under-performing Network of Incompetence.
So we purchase our tickets, and we're a little confused at how no one takes the ticket...it's not like the subway where you have to insert your ticket to get through the turnstiles. You just walk right through.
BART trains run like the metro North trains we have here in the NYC area, but they look like subway cars. There was a guy behind us who decided he had to share his rap music with the rest of us, and some panhandlers came through (they were all over Fisherman's Wharf, too, and they were aggressive) so it was REALLY like the subway. But I just relaxed and we rode the train for about 45 minutes to the end of the line - Pleasanton.
When we got off the train, we realized that we had to put our tickets into the turnstiles to get OUT. Bizarro land...
It was raining pretty hard outside. I had texted Emily from the train, and she was waiting to pick us up at the station. We looked around for her car, but she spotted us first. We quickly greeted each other, and then we were off! Emily claimed that we brought the rain with us, since it hadn't been raining a few minutes ago. Sorry! We New Yorkers bring the crappy weather with us. It's a curse.
She offered to take us on a tour of Pleasanton, and we took her up on that offer. Even in the rainy darkness, it was a really cute town. Hopefully I'll be able to go back soon and see it in the daylight! After the tour, we got on the slow moving highway and headed to Livermore.
When we got to Emily's house, we got to meet her husband, Ivan, as well as their rescued greyhound, Fantom, and Ivan's sister's pitbull puppy they were watching - Tila. This was our first time meeting Ivan since we weren't able to make it to their wedding and they hadn't been able to make it to ours. He's really nice, and we all got along well right away. Emily gave us a quick tour of the house and then we all talked for awhile while she made dinner. It was really comfortable in their house because they had the fireplace going - but I was surprised at how NOT TIRED I was. I'm not a night person at all, so I thought I'd be jet lagged like crazy, but I was actually doing really well.
So we just sat around and talked, and I got to see their wedding album. (We had the exact same album cover - weird, right?) Emily made chicken and rice for dinner and it was delicious. We also had this really good natural soda - it was like ginger ale. I can't remember what brand it was! Anyway, after dinner, Ivan wanted to play this game he had.
And so it began.
The game was called "Last Night on Earth" and basically it's a tabletop RPG game that pits zombies vs. humans. That means it involves fighting and rolling dice to see who wins. I'd only played one game like this before, and it was overly complicated and took forever and we had monsters lined up outside our town waiting to get in like it was Space Mountain. But this game was much simpler and much more fun - Emily and I played as the zombies and the boys were the humans. We won! Okay, it was kind of cheap, but we still won! Brian immediately fell in love with this game and it became his goal to own it. (Ivan also made some yummy brownies for us while we were playing the game.)
When the game was over, we talked for a bit more and then decided we should probably head back to the city. Emily offered for us to spend the night, but all our stuff was back in San Francisco and I didn't want to impose, so she took us back to the BART station. It was a really fun night!
The rain had mostly stopped by this point, and even though it was after 11, it was still like 50 degrees out. While we were standing on the platform waiting for the train, this young couple were asking us about the stops - I guess we looked like we were from San Francisco. (One city for another, I guess.) I fell asleep on the ride back, so it went quickly. We caught a cab (this cab driver was much nicer and didn't drive like an escaped maniac), went back to our room around 12:30.
Here are some reflections from our first day:
By the time I got ready for bed and laid down, it was 1 a.m. PST - that's 4 a.m. EST. And I'd been up a full 24 hours.
And I never had jet lag the whole trip.
That, my friends, is how to kill jet lag.
COMING UP...
A Trip Over the Golden Gate
The house from Full House!
And how I'm a sucker for puppets
The house from Full House!
And how I'm a sucker for puppets
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