Alcatraz Schmalcatraz. I’m Not The Only One Who Keeps Accidentally Calling It “Azkaban”…. R-r-right?

Our fourth day in San Francisco was cold. And windy. And foggy. And, apparently, so is my memory, because I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of where Scope and I had breakfast that morning. (????)

We bundled up in layers (no, we’re not sissies; there were people out in scarves and gloves, for chocolate’s sake!) and made our way through the fog to Pier 39….


….where we bought tickets for a boat tour around the bay.

While we waited for our tour to begin, we amused ourselves by frisking the statues….


….and getting our Tacky Tourist on by having our picture taken on a green screen….


….which is actually one of my favorite photos of the whole trip, fake-iness and all, because we, frankly, don’t have many pictures of the two of us together.

*sniff*

Once aboard our boat, we set off out into the bay, passing dozens of barking sea lions….


….including this cutie, who gave us a wink!….


(Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.)

I, of course, was armed with my camera and shot—ohhhhhhh—roughly 200 pictures on the boat that day….


No exaggeration. (It’s sad, isn’t it?) (I know.)

We passed Ghirardelli Square….


….and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, all cloaked mysteriously in a curtain of fog….


A seagull kept pace with us, right overhead for awhile….


….(ACK!!) but eventually he got bored with us and flew off to terrorize someone else. Thank God. I hate birds.

*shudder*

We cruised under the Golden Gate Bridge….










….and then we set off for Azkaban Alcatraz, which I have a hard time remembering is actually called Alcatraz and not Azkaban (true story), and which has caused me much ridicule in many a conversation.

*pout*

(JK Rowling, I am hereby suing you. My lawyer will be contacting you soon. So there)….












We didn’t get to actually go inside Azkaban Alcatraz or anything. We’ll have to save that adventure for a future trip. But it was still absolutely incredible taking the boat tour all the way around the island.

Wow.

After Azkaban Alcatraz, I had to sit down and stop taking pictures for awhile because I started feeling worryingly seasick. Weird. I’ve never been seasick in my life.

Never.

I blame the Dementors. Clearly.

I was most relieved as we headed back to the pier. I definitely needed to be anywhere but on a swaying boat on the sloshing water. Like right away!!

The sea lions welcomed us back. And so did a couple of pelicans….


After lugging my queasy self off that boat, Scope and I stopped in Biscoff Coffee Corner for some hot chocolate (which came with free cookies!! WOOT!!)….


I don’t know if it was the hot chocolate or the cookies (maybe both) but after our stop at Biscoff’s, I was feeling much, much better.

We looked around Pier 39 for awhile and bought a couple of souvenirs and I made friends with this fella….


….while Scope found someone who made him feel runty for once….


….and then there was an impromptu meeting of the redheads….



We saw the famous Fisherman’s Wharf sign, of course….


….and then we hopped a bus to Golden Gate Park, where we snagged one more quick look at the bridge….


….then took a walk through the beautiful park to get to the California Academy of Sciences Museum, where we had our picture taken on a green screen yet again….


Ha! You can still see the green screen through my hair. I look like I’m molding! Or like I’m Beetlejuice! But I don’t care. I plunked down the $30 for the picture anyway because it is a picture of the two of us, and so I love it, darn it!

We had lunch inside the museum, then we checked out their Living Roof….


….which soooooooo reminded me of the Teletubbies!

*gag*

We also checked out the Extreme Mammals exhibit, which was so extreme (almost-unending standing, walking and reading) that we were both thrashed by the end of it and decided to bail.

*yawn*

We went back to our hotel and had a much-needed nap. Then we hit Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Mm-mm-mmmmm....

© Coracabana

Have Camera (and a Brand New Telephoto Lens From My Sweet Husband!!) Will Travel

The day after the wedding was the 4th of July. Due to rain, we didn’t bother with fireworks or anything like that. Instead, I had to drop my daughter off at her dad’s house (*sniffle* *sob*) and Scope and I went out to dinner with some relatives at the Yankee Grill, where I got mistaken for Miss Washington.

Mm-hmm.

*patting self on back*

Okay, fine, I was mistaken as part of Miss Washington’s posse over the phone when I called to make reservations. Happy now?

It seems that Miss WA had reserved the entire restaurant at 8pm. Yes. The ENTIRE restaurant. And the rest of us riffraff had to get out before then.

What.

Ever.

It’s not like we were planning to linger late into the night there anyway. I mean, Scope and I had some bags to pack because we were flying down to San Francisco the next morning.

Monday, July 5th, Scope and I boarded a plane together for the very first time. I know. Crazy, huh?! With all the travelling the two of us have done back and forth across the country over the last year and a half, we’ve never actually flown anywhere together before!

We flew from Seattle to Oakland (because the plane tickets to Oakland were waaaaayyyyyyyyyyy cheaper than the tickets to San Francisco were ~ and hefty prices give me hives!!) and we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall on Scope’s netbook during the flight.

*snicker*

Once in Oakland, we took the BART transit into San Francisco and walked through Union Square to our hotel, Sir Francis Drake….


Now, I don’t know exactly what I was expecting our hotel to be. Maybe like a Holiday Inn or something….? I dunno. When we booked the hotel online, it was definitely one of the more affordable ones, so I certainly wasn’t anticipating any frills and whatnot. So, when I saw the dude in the snazzy Beefeater outfit hanging out outside our hotel, I was a wee bit surprised! And definitely delighted.

And then we walked in….


According to Scope, I gasped when we walked into the lobby and my face lit up with a look that plainly squealed, “is this all for ME?!”

*giggle*

We stayed on the 14th floor, which was really the 13th floor, only someone was too spooked and superstitious to get up the guts actually call it the 13th floor. *cough chicken cough*….


(I’ve heard of old buildings like this, where there’s no 13th floor, but I’ve never actually seen one until now. So, they really exist, huh? How funny!)

This is what our room looked like….


….and, shh, because my handsome husband is taking a very important phone call! ;-)

After dropping our bags off in our room, Scope and I went out on a sightseeing walk around the city, where we saw artsy fartsy sculptures….


(No, I didn’t cut my hair, it was just very windy.)


….and gorgeous buildings….


….this cool clock….


….a nearly life-sized Sally doll I kinda wished I could bring home for Gwen as a souvenir…. but for $200? Ummm, no thanks….


….a “Fashionista Ken”! (Really, Mattel? Really????)….


….and, of course, lots of cable cars….


We ended up strolling through Yerba Buena Gardens….

For dinner, I had “bangers and mash” (sooooooooooo good) at Foley’s Irish House….


Then for dessert, we stopped by a cute little bakery….


….where they had a window full of tempting cupcakes….


Scope got a red velvet cupcake and I got a coconut chocolate one….


Mm-mm-mmmmmmmm. :-)

Up next: day two of our honeymoon!

© Coracabana

I Take a Redonkulous Load of Pictures, Therefore I Am

Last Thursday, my daughter, Gwen, and I rolled our bleary-eyed, sorry selves out of our nice warm beds about three hours before the crack of dawn and trudged our way to the airport like zombies. I-pod-toting, Skechers-donning, gum-popping, tired, cranky, don’t-talk-to-me zombies. Why? ‘Cuz we had a date with Scope in Chicago, of course!

:-)

We grunted and plodded our way through airport security at 5 am and then had two hours to kill before our flight. Setting up camp on the airport floor was mighty tempting, but—eh—we figured we’d have breakfast first.

So, there we were a little restaurant in the ‘port, having found ourselves a nice, cozy window seat, watching the sky morphing from black to navy blue while we noshed and slowly de-zombified, when suddenly we saw something so shocking it sent me into a giggling fit of epic spazzy proportions which startled all the other sleepy zombies nursing cups of coffee at nearby tables and made me dive for my camera.

What did we see? This….


Uh-huh. The pilot of the plane right outside our window opened the plane’s windshield, hoisted himself out of it, and Windexed the thing before takeoff! Ummmmm….. call me naive, but I had no idea plane windshields could roll down like that, did you? I dunno, that’s just wrong somehow.

Wrong, but funny!

Anyway….

Soon we were boarding our plane (and suspiciously sniffing around for a whiff of Windex) and then *POOF* we were landing in Chicago!

(Well, okay, fine. Maybe, technically, it was a little more than a *POOF*, alright? But as I slept 3/4 of the flight, it definitely had a *POOF* quality; a *POOF* essence; and a *POOF*-iosity to me.)

Scope was waiting for us and towering impressively over the riffraff rest of the crowd just beyond security, and soon the three of us were locked in the first of the many, many, many group hugs of which our weekend was made.

(Awwwwwwww.)

We collected our bags and hit the road in Scope’s PT Cruiser and almost immediately found ourselves face-to-rear with this….


Yeah. That’s right. Cora’s Predator! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! But wait—let’s take a closer look, shall we?….


Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. ;-)

Of course, good bloggers that we are, we tailed Cora’s Predator for quite some time; me brandishing my camera so we could get a good picture of it just for YOU.

You’re welcome!

We went to Bennigan’s for lunch and then waltzed across the street to the museum at the Art Institute of Chicago….


….which Gwen (oh, alright, fine—maybe it was me, happy now?!) was super-excited about because Ferris, Cameron and Sloane had once set foot in there!

*maniacal giggle*

We got all artsy fartsy….




We snapped many a picture….


And we saw a vast array of amazing work, including the famous A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat….


(Yep, and that spectacular Scope of mine is holding my purse. Ain’t he a sweetie? *le sigh*)


And, looky here! Just in time for Mother’s Day, YOU can adopt a dot on the Seurat and show your mama that she’s “one in a million”! *snicker*


We posed like American Gothic….


….which, ever the giggletastic ball of dorkiness that I am, I just simply could NOT pull off with a straight face!

(Dammit.)

And, much to Gwen’s horror and disgust, we saw a plethora of naked butts everywhere we turned (!!!!)….






(Tee hee hee! That last one is my favorite!)

Seeing all those butts burned Gwen’s eyes. Clearly….


….or maybe she was just tired. ;-)

So Scope took us back home and the three of us cuddled up on the couch all family-like and we watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone until it was time for bed.

And it was bliss.

:-)

[….to be continued….]

© Love Letters By Cora