Rock escapades and other adventures in San Francisco...

Almost a week after we left for San Francisco I have finally managed the time in my busy unemployed schedule to update on our whirlwind five day trip - and what a wonderful trip it was!

Despite the ordinary weather and below average temperatures for this time of year, I thoroughly enjoyed our little hiatus - welcome relief from soul sapping job hunting.

As most of you would know, I might just have a mini-obsession with New York City - it's engaging, overwhelming, amazing - awesome. I can only describe San Francisco as a chilled out, less pretentious New York. There's so much to do, the architecture and streetscapes blow your mind, the people are relaxed (and a lot friendlier!) and it just doesn't take itself as seriously as the big apple.  I loved every minute of it! I will always be true to New York but it doesn't mean I can't have a little love affair with San Fran on the side! 

Yes San Fran, I do heart you. A lot.

Unfortunately due to the location of Escape from Alcatraz triathlon, we were limited in our options for hotels - we had to find somewhere relatively close - so we ended up staying at Fisherman's Wharf. For anyone who has not been to San Fran, I would personally not recommend staying here unless you're into Surfers Paradise - because that's exactly what this area is like. Tacky, touristy, annoying, smelly children screaming, obnoxious overweight loud mouth tourists everywhere who clearly can not last a minute without a piece of gum in their mouth and who clearly do not know how one chews with their mouth closed. They also love to walk right in the middle of footpaths and stop suddenly in random places, blocking the paths of all behind them. I digress.

So while I enjoyed Fisherman's Wharf between 8 am (when we arrived) and 10 am (when all these lazy people finally get up and start waddling around), let's just say I wouldn't be in any rush to go back there. The perks? Chocolate shops, lolly shops and the seals! Oh, the seals were so stinky but so fun to watch!

Stinky but loveable seals at Pier 39.

After we sussed out Fisherman's Wharf and bought our Alcatraz tour tickets for Sunday afternoon, we decided to rent bikes and ride all the way up and over the Golden Gate Bridge (and back again). I can't even describe how amazed I was with the Golden Gate Bridge, and I'm not generally all that into bridges and stuff. Something about it was so spectacular though, and being able to ride up to and over it was pretty amazing. It's just really beautiful.

Us & The Golden Gate Bridge - on our cycling tour.

After lunch at Boudin (original sourdough & clam chowder), we headed off to the famous Lombard Street - the most winding street in the world! It was amazing. I couldn't help but keep thinking about how I was certain I wouldn't find an obese native San Franciscan, purely because of how steep the streets are in this city. After 10 minutes of trekking up the mountain that is Lombard Street I was absolutely stuffed. And I'm pretty sure I had the beginnings of buns of steel ...

Lunch at Boudin.

Lombard Street.

More Lombard Street.

Once we hit the top, we decided to keep walking for a bit which is when I ran into my new dog crush - Titan the bulldog (he was extremely gorgeous) - who I may have tried to coax away with me ...

Titan - my new boyfriend.

The great thing about being the person responsible for all tourist related activities on our trip was that I was in charge of the map. This meant I could manipulate Steven into walking 12 blocks to Union Square (central shopping hot spot) with me and by the time he realised it was going to be a bit more than "just a couple more blocks" it was too late ... So the good news is after visiting Saks, Barneys, Macy's, Nordstrom and Marc Jacobs store itself, I finally got my Marc Jacobs bag - hooray! I will love it always. I'm pretty sure Steven was about 5 minutes away from strangling me before we even made it to Union Square because I kept having to "consult the map" every ten steps. My short term memory is like a sieve, particularly when it comes to street names and all numbers.

Oh, you're probably wondering why we were doing all this walking and not just jumping on a tram - the signature transportation of this city .... as luck would have it the trams weren't running this particular weekend due to track upgrades! So cabbing and walking it was.

Union Square was very busy and touristy and by the time we managed to find a cab back to the piers, I was certain that would be the end of my reign as chief touristy activities manager for Team Conlow. Fortunately I managed to quickly locate the restaurant I had planned for our dinner (phew) - a wonderful Vietnamese restaurant recommended to us by Alex. It was fabulous! I didn't realise how much I missed rice paper rolls until we sat down at that dinner table ...

Slanted Door Vietnamese dinner.

After Friday's mammoth city trekking efforts, Saturday was dedicated purely to triathlon preparation. Although we'd had plans to visit a couple of other places, because of the horrible rainy weather and time limitations we didn't want to push it. Therefore Saturday consisted of triathlon registration, Steve's warm up ride & "warm up" swim, a trip to the shops to get nutrition supplies and resting.

And then came Sunday - what can I say? What a spectacular triathlon - for athletes and spectators alike! I have to say I completely understand why Escape from Alcatraz is on the 'to-do' list of so many athletes. The scenery was stunning - I'll never forget sitting on the freezing cold rock wall in the shadow of the Golden Gate, watching the sun come up over Alcatraz Island, teeth chattering, being able to think of nothing other than my mother once telling me if I sat too long on cold concrete I'd get piles! (Thanks Mum). Good news is that I didn't, so celebrations all round! The only thing that could spoil this spectacular moment (aside from Mum's timely advice) - my worst nightmare - sitting next to a COLLINGWOOD supporter! Yes, that's right. I'm sitting on a freezing rock wall at 7 am in San Francisco probably getting piles, and who's sitting beside me but Ron the Collingwood supporter! Once I noticed his scarf it was all over. Turns out he was there to support his son from Brisbane who was doing his first ever Alcatraz triathlon too, so I made peace with my initial annoyance.

Eery Alcatraz - moments before race start.

Some gorgeous views for support crew on race day!

I am happy to report that Steve successfully completed his first ever Escape from Alcatraz in 2 hr 36 minutes and I managed to take a few (perhaps a little dodgy) shots on the fancy camera. The best news of the morning was that we also got to meet Australian pro athlete and back to back Ironman World Champion Craig Alexander - and Steve had a great chat to him after the race in the recovery area too - stoked!!

How's that for a run with a view!

The famous hand gesture on the home straight.

Steve and Craig "Crowie" Alexander.

Steve and Crowie catch up post race.

Finisher!! (15th in his age group)

Sunday afternoon I dragged a tired athlete off to our tour of Alcatraz Island. I had high hopes after hearing how great the tour was from many of our friends and I was not disappointed. Alcatraz Island - located in the San Francisco Bay and now a designated national park. We spent the afternoon on Alcatraz making our way around all the displays and taking the brilliant audio tour of the old prison - phenomenal (and creepy!). I admit that I didn't know much about Alcatraz before, but the whole thing really sucked me in. I also loved that because it's a national park now, they have designated bird breeding grounds on the island for protected bird species.

A little chilly on Alcatraz, looking back to the city.

Inside the jail.

Jail cells.

Individual cell.

Sunday night we made our way to the Little Italy area of the city and had dinner at a restaurant Cecily had recommended called The Stinking Rose - sounds appetizing doesn't it! So The Stinking Rose is a garlic restaurant - we ate so much garlic that night I am sure we only made enemies on our wine tour the next day! Sunday night at The Stinking Rose also marked a momentous occasion in our relationship - it was the first time in 5 and a half years that Steve has won best dinner. He couldn't believe it, but there was mutual agreement that he had indeed picked the best dinner. FYI it was lamb shank and garlic mashed potato.

Yep - garlic cloves - delicious spread on focaccia!

Something else I really loved about San Fran was that just an hours drive away you will find yourself in wine country. Now, I'm not a massive alcohol of any sort lover, but I don't mind a nice glass of wine every now and then. Our triathlon-wine tour combo seems to be a trend of late, which I was in no rush to buck. So Monday morning we ventured off on a tour of Sonoma and Napa Valley - regions famous for their quality wine. Given this knowledge it would be wrong of us not to try ... right? So we enjoyed a day of wine tasting and eating and finished it off with dinner back in the city at a place called Calzone's. Safe to say Steve was thrilled with the opportunity he had here to eat the mother of all meals - his two favourite foods combined into one, greasy delight - lasagne calzone. I was told it was good.

Sonoma.

A dingy view, but a beautiful place.

Caught devouring lasagne calzone.

San Francisco - a thoroughly enjoyable whirlwind trip and I have no doubt we'll visit again in the future! More photos on Facebook if you follow this link - & also this link.

As for our adventures for the next two to three months - we'll be laying pretty low and saving our behinds off for our next overseas trip. In the meantime, there are plenty of summer festivities in Vancouver to keep us occupied so stay tuned for more local adventures ...

Food, glorious food!

As I sat down to write this latest update on our Canadian adventures, I thought to myself "gee, we haven't really done anything interesting to write about this week" .... and then I remembered we'd managed to consume double our weight in a variety of delicious food - hooray! - so here goes ...

I'm happy to report I am blogging alone, at lunch time this Monday morning as Steve is working (I know - miracle!) and I'm job hunting (oh how the tables will turn once he starts his own blog!). I've found heaps of admin jobs to apply for so I'll get to that in a minute!

Although we've been trying to cut down on unnecessary spending of late (because we need to save for San Fran this weekend), food is of course essential for life and coincidentally pulled pork sandwiches fall into the category of 'food'. Last week Steve took me on a day date to the pulled pork sandwich van in the heart of downtown and yes, they tasted as good as they look! I'm not a lover of pork at all (only Helen's roast normally) but this sandwich was pretty good! I think we had soup for dinner to compensate!

One of those is mine porker!! (pun not intentional!)

Delicious sandwich.

Friday night I was desperate to achieve something for the week, so we headed off to dinner at Guu Japanese restaurant (it's pretty much Japanese tapas) so I could cross one thing off my giant list of things to do in Vancouver. Dave & Missy came along too and we had a fun night eating all kinds of interesting sashimi and other uncooked and cooked goodness. We may or may not have had waffles for dessert ...

I am also happy to report that we had a gorgeous, sunny and warm (16 degree max temps!) weekend. Saturday was spent walking around and enjoying the sunshine, bike shopping for Dave & Missy (add another two people to the list of triathlon converts care of Steven Wehlow: triathlon brain-washer) and exercising.

On Sunday we ventured over to Kitsilano to check out the farmer's markets which turned out to be an adventure! Really, it was only an adventure because neither of us had bothered to properly look at a map or take notice of street names before we left for the bus. So after two buses and about 20 minutes of walking (and thanks to my trusty nose for farmer's-markets-smell and other detective skills) we found the markets! Thankfully (to go with the theme this week) they were mostly food markets, so we bought a couple of things and had some lunch - crepes - while we sat in the sun and watched the local cricket game. Funniest thing was when we were both watching the game on and off and looked away for a second at something else there was a brilliant catch. The entire team cheered and ran over to the guy who caught it and as we quickly looked back we both said "dammit ... oh well, we'll catch the replay" and it took maybe 2 seconds for the penny to drop.

Markets.

Steve enjoying the crepey goodness.

Mmm crepe.

As you can see, there were plenty of other people out enjoying the beautiful sunshine - no one more than this guy! (... I'm pretty sure he was breathing...)

May-or-may-not-be-alive guy - enjoying the sunshine! (Cricket in background).

Sunday afternoon finished with a little more bike shopping, a car trip around University of British Columbia (UBC) - very beautiful and very impressive looking - a game of bocce at English Bay and Wings for dinner.

On Friday morning we're off to San Francisco for 4 days as Steve is participating in Escape from Alcatraz on Sunday 5th. I've started to get a few ideas together for some kind of itinerary for the remaining 3 days, one of which includes a Napa Valley wine tour which I'm pretty excited about. I've wanted to go there for quite a while now, so that's exciting. As for the triathlon, Escape from Alcatraz involves a 1.5 mile swim (from Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay),  18 mile bike ride and an 8 mile run. It's one of those triathlons that's 'on the list' for many athletes so he's pretty fortunate to be able to compete. I'll of course be there as lead Support Crew and will be trying hard not to blind everyone with my now translucent skin.  If you're interested to know more about Steve's race, click HERE.

Race report & San Fran summary to follow in the coming days!

Adventures & Origin

This week has been slightly less full-on than previous weeks, primarily because I finished up my month long stint as an executive assistant last Friday, so we're both unemployed once again. On the upside we've had a chance to do some more city exploration at our leisure! Not concerned on the job front for the moment though as Steve has a couple of potential opportunities coming up (if he wasn't so damned "over-qualified" he would've had about a million jobs by now) and I had one potential, but it was during San Francisco trip time so that wasn't going to work for me! Admin jobs are fairly easy to come by at the moment coming into summer and all, so I'm not worried.

To start with some good news for all involved, I visited my new favourite Vancouver hairdresser (although she didn't have much competition!!) last Saturday morning to rid myself of Dolly Parton/Troll/Stripper/Cheeseburger hair - what a relief! Sadly, the work required to undo the initial damage cost almost as much as it did to create the catastrophe in the first place, alas I must say goodbye (for now) to my Marc Jacobs messenger bag purchase planned for next week's San Francisco trip - boo hiss. Having said this, should the Australian dollar continue to be awesome I might still be able to justify the purchase - I'm working on it, I'll let you know.

In more good news, last Saturday (prior to my hairdresser success), we indulged in our naughty meal for the week - breakfast at the waffle cafe on Robson Street - and yes, it was most definitely worth it! Steve had the Canadian style waffle breakfast (waffle, bacon, eggs, maple syrup) while I gorged on a waffle with nutella spread, gelato, whipped cream, strawberries and maple syrup - indeed it tasted as good as it sounds! For some reason I can't upload the photos off Steve's phone, so here's one I got from the site - it's pretty much mine, but substitute the chocolate for maple syrup and add some nutella.

Waffles anyone?

Thankfully we've both been really good with our exercise of late so no worries on the porker-front. Steve has found a few trails in Stanley Park and we are both now converts of trail running. And I HATE running! It's very easy to lose time when you're running trails through a forest in the middle of a busy city (!) and there's pretty much no one in sight. We actually went for a walk up to Prospect Point (touristy, look-out spot) via the trails on Sunday which was really nice and got a couple of good photos. You get the idea of the trails anyway ...

Lions Gate Bridge (view from Prospect Point).

Trails through Stanley Park all pretty much look like this!

Tourist!

Steve spotted a raccoon sneaking off into the bushes

Steve outsmarted by said raccoon. Caught on camera.

Like the true Queensland supporters we are, we faithfully got up at 2 am and made our way over to Dave & Missy's to watch the first Origin match. Glad we did! They've got some gorgeous views from their apartment which is on the 23rd floor of a pretty impressive building just off English Bay (naturally they've got nothing on our basement views of shoes and legs!). I made Steve have a photo with Dave's big TV (I ordered him to look more enthusiastic at 5 am, prior to taking this photo ...)

That's more like it!

Views.

More views.

In other sporting news, the Canucks are in to the Stanley Cup playoff finals following their win over San Hose last night. It was a great game to watch too because we scored an equalizer with 10 seconds to go in normal game time and then scored the winning goal in double overtime. What a great time to have jumped on the bandwagon! GO CANUCKS GO!!

Things I have learned in the past 24 hours

A pre blog-post disclaimer: Brace yourselves for the most hideous images you will ever see. 

1. Never book a hair appointment on impulse.
2. Never book a hair appointment with a hairdresser named Silvana. I should've known better.
3. Never allow a 'stylist' to do your hair when her own hair resembles Shakira's 're-growth central' (Shakira - see below).

Since when did - "can you please just touch up my roots, I like to have a natural blonde look" translate to "please make me look like a stripper" or "give me Lady Gaga hair ... but YELLOWER!" or "I really love the look that albino monk in Da Vinci Code was channeling - let's do that!" or finally - "I just love cheeseburgers so much, I want my head to be a shrine to MacDonald's cheese!" ... I could go on, as you know, but I'm saving the ranting especially for my lovely fiance. He just loves to hear me rant.

Anyway, now I resemble a combination of the following:

Long and painful story short, I now have bright yellow hair. I may have had a little cry this afternoon. Thankfully I have booked in to another (recommended) hairdresser to get the issue fixed. What makes it so much worse though, is that I actually paid $50 more than I would have at Julie's (Julie - my Brisbane hairdresser) to look like a clown. Naturally, as the massive push-over I am (in all situations minus Lions arguments) I didn't even think about stepping foot back in the salon to ask for it to be fixed. It has actually been such a terrible experience that I just never even want to walk past the salon again. Oh I had it so good with Julie, why did I ever leave?!

This time I'm taking a photo of my normal hair to the appointment, just in case.

In other news we had some excitement in the street last night. Just as we were going to sleep we heard this woman scream in the street and a man yell something at her and then we heard some running and 2 police cars, lights flashing, speed around the corner. Turns out we think someone had just robbed them, they'd gone to look for the thieves and ended up running into one of them who was carrying their television! I think they caught whoever it was, but the most exciting event as a result of all the commotion was that while we were peeking out the bedroom window, we saw a skunk run across the road! It was a big, fat, awesome skunk and super cool because, again, I've never seen one in real life before! Awesome!!

So this week it's supposed to be four days of beautiful sunshine and even 21 degrees on Friday! Woohoo! We're looking forward to it and will try and make the most of the long weekend ahead. Steven also managed to score a temp job for two days so we'll have some weekend spending money! We have plans to do the Chinatown night markets on Friday night and then no doubt indulge in some outdoors activities - perhaps a little hiking (though it'll have to be post Saturday morning, or else my troll hair will scare nature).

xx



Oh, P.S. ->

Harrison Not So Hot Springs

It's nice to have friends with a car!

On Sunday we (Dave, Dave, Steve, Missy & I) decided to make the most of the overcast but (thankfully) dry weather and embark on a road trip to the little town of Harrison, about 1.5 hrs drive from Vancouver. We were hoping to enjoy a day of relaxing in the hot springs and checking out the tulip festival - little did we know there would be no hot springs and the festival would be closed a day early!

Overall, Harrison was a gorgeous little town and I can imagine it would be absolutely packed in Summer - there is a huge lake and plenty of decent sized hotels which line the main street and overlook the lake ... there's even a Baskin & Robbins, although I still can't believe it'd ever be warm enough for ice cream there! Nevertheless, we have grand plans to return in Summer and perhaps spend a little time on a boat out in the lake.

Harrison Lake.

I actually don't think I ever found out why there were no proper 'hot springs' to swim in in Harrison ... I'm pretty sure I was too busy chowing down on a muffin while we trekked to what we thought were the natural springs .. which they kinda were (gotta love that sulfur smell!) ... but not sure why they didn't have any baths there. The closest we came was the public bathhouse in the centre of town, so we spent an hour or so in the steaming indoor baths until I was about to pass out from the heat.

Thankfully our stint in the bathhouse was followed by some lunch and a visit to the local Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (!!). There were so many awesome chocolates there I pretty much wanted to sample everything in the entire store. I eventually settled on a trio of fudge samples (we shared) and a tiger caramel apple ... delish! And healthy.............. (it was an apple!!)

Mmmmm... healthy (caramel) apple.

After settling nicely into chocolate comas, we headed off to what was supposed to be the tulip festival. Unfortunately the 'festival' finished a day early (apparently it normally closes at the end of April) but of course the tulips were still there and 'entry' was half price. The display was pretty spectacular, so I can imagine how beautiful it would be in its prime. We had some fun with photos there and Steve got a lot of practice using his new fancy camera.

The photographer in action.

Endless fields of tulips.

So despite some minor setbacks the day turned out to be pretty good and was fun all the same.

Last exciting event of the day? Downtown Eastside Vancouver.  Not to make fun, because homelessness is a serious problem in this city, but on the way back to our side of town (not the homeless side) you have to drive through Downtown Eastside (not surprisingly, on the edge of the very trendy, gentrified Gastown) which is absolutely packed with homeless people and drug addicts (just picture a classic zombie movie) - apparently some travel companies even do tours through this area (!).

Driving back through here was a complete eye opener for me. We saw blatant drug dealing, completely out in the open, in front of everyone, for all to see. When we stopped at lights it was really sad but fascinating for me at the same time. I couldn't look, but I couldn't look away. Apparently the police just turn a blind eye to this sort of behaviour in certain areas of the city. Sad, but true. Apparently they're harmless but I'm in no rush to test the theory.

Hockey Night in Canada!

As we sit in our new 'official' basement apartment for two, I finally have a chance write what I promise will be a very concise another essay length blog ...

So this morning was an early start for the entire household, but for me in particular, as the much anticipated Q-Clash streamed live this morning at 2.10am. Like the faithful supporter I am, I was up at 2.10 on the dot, and promptly made my way to our tiny bathroom, where I sat silently on the toilet, laptop on lap, ear phones in, for almost 2 hours of game time. Thankfully at the start of the final quarter I heard a little knock at the door and Steven allowed me back into our room to watch the last term together. That was a big step for him, I was impressed.

Anyway, we all know what happened so I will say no more .. except .. GO LIONS. I still love you. No matter what.

The only positive to come out of this morning's early rise was that we got to say our goodbyes to Kristen & Alex as they headed off to the airport for their next big adventure!

Around lunch time we made our way to the Vancouver Spot Prawn Festival - dedicated - because it was 8 degrees and rainy outside! It actually wasn't too bad once we started walking and I was kind of hot once we got there (what is happening to me?!!!). So the Spot Prawn Festival left a lot to be desired for us, not that we knew exactly what to expect but the line ups for the food were huge and we decided we'd rather just buy a bunch of cooked prawns (I wouldn't go near any live ones!) instead ... which, in the end, we didn't do. Instead we met up with a few friends of Steve's and entertained ourselves at the Granville Island markets buying some lunch and dinner ingredients.

Spot Prawn Festival (just a fraction of the line up) - a gorgeous day...

Line up to get fresh live Spot Prawns off the boats (not my kinda scene!)

On the way to the markets we stopped to be embarrassing tourists and take photos of this wild seal being fed some fish scraps by a salmon fisherman - very awesome.

Weird bird with cool hair-do eating salmon scraps

While we were wandering around Granville Island, Dave (who was wearing his Canucks jersey) was hijacked by a cameraman who was taking footage for the beginning sequence of "Hockey Night in Canada" - mind you, "Hockey Night in Canada is every second night here! Anyway, he ended up being filmed for the opening shot of the program (with a whole bunch of other supporters) and provided some great entertainment for us, heckling him in the background.

Getting a few tips from the cameraman.

Practicing before the big take!

So at 2.40pm Steve and I took on our Canadian version of the Mother's Day Classic (which I normally do with Kimmy & Mum) to coincide with the 7.40 am Brisbane start time - a 4.5km run around English Bay and through Stanley Park - beautiful! The sun had come out by this stage and so had the animals - we saw ducklings, chipmunks and another raccoon - all good distractions from me almost dying (I blame the lack of sleep).

This afternoon has been all about cleaning our new "pad" and unpacking the rest of my clothes - I actually went to put a load of washing on not long ago and because it's only a short walk on the basement level, I thought I'd just sneek in in my pajamas and uggs. Unfortunately on the way out of the washing room I got caught out by this gay guy with fancy hair who swiftly gave me a look of pity and a half grimace-smile. Yeahhhh, so I look like a bogan.

Tomorrow's adventures include a visit to the Tulip Festival and hot springs ... can't wait!

Comings and Goings

So not much to report on this week really. It's been pretty rainy the last few days but nothing we Vancouverite's can't handle! Well, I haven't tested out the gumboots yet but I did buy a nice shiny pair in Seattle so I'm kind of waiting for a day of good rain to test them out!

Last Sunday I completed the 8km fun run which was held during the Vancouver Marathon/Half-Marathon event. Happy to report I ran my fastest ever 8km time thanks to my super coach Steven Wehlow (and his trusty old garmin he palmed off to me). And perhaps a little bit of training...

Start line with stadium in the background. Rogers Arena (home of the Canucks is right near here too)

Stretching

Finisher!

Tastes like metal...

The other big news of the week is that Kristen & Alex are leaving tomorrow morning :-( I will really miss them - it's been nice having the company around and I think we've all done exceptionally well living together in a one bedroom apartment! It was nice to have some extra friends too (not that they had a choice because they're family!) ... and now they're leaving us for their next big adventure - travelling around the US, and then back to Australia later in the year. We will miss them but can't wait to hear all the travel stories and see all of their awesome photos.

Steven is still focussing on his training and job hunting. A few opportunities may be opening themselves up in the coming week so we'll wait and see!

So far we don't have too much planned for the weekend (with weather pending) but Saturday will consist of me waking up at 2am to watch the Q-Clash, a visit to the Vancouver Science Centre (we got free tickets!), my proper training run & a 4.5km run in the early afternoon to coincide with Mum & Kimmy doing our annual Mother's Day Classic. Steven has training (San Fran is one month away!) and Sunday we might head over the bridge to Kitsilano if the weather is nice.

Sorry I don't have any more photos from this week. We've been kinda preoccupied with job hunting/working and training. I promise to do better next time!!

Miss you all x