mmmm goooogle

Sure, everyone uses the search engine or gmail or whatever...but you don't understand how great Google is until you visit. My friend took me because he has an internship. These photos don't capture the atmosphere but, believe me, it's like an amusement park for adults where everything is free! (Though don't take anything from the gift store without paying; those t-shirts and toys aren't free.)

First stop: of course, it's one of the cafeterias! Google has 19 and the food is sooo good.

There's outdoor seating but this day was kind of misty.

And there are things to play with--slides to slide down, video games at the arcade, trails to run, bikes to ride, capuccino machines to fiddle with, bocci ball, volleyball. I ran out of batteries so this is where the story ends, but...

you know I had to take some snacks for later!

the trip that never ended

To mend a fried brain, take one day to goof off. However, don't spend Labor Day in San Francisco without a map, without GPS and a friend who is as clueless as you are when you really have no idea where you're going. You can guess how this ends... It started off okay. We walked from Caltrain to the wharf where we had garlic fries. The garlic wasn't cooked and burned a bit going down. But we were famished, so they were delicious! We walked up to Little Italy...though I don't know what they call Little Italy here.

Then we went through a tunnel. Dad says a tunnel from Chinatown takes you to Union Square. So I thought this must be the tunnel. How many tunnels can there be?!

Well, it was kind of scary to walk through such a dark tunnel so close to cars. You wouldn't walk through the Holland Tunnel! But I guess people here do this all the time because we weren't the only ones. Then, we walked out and saw this.

Yeah, it wasn't the right tunnel....

We ran into these, too. I don't know....It took us another couple hours to figure out where we were.

short lived

shhhh...I clipped roses from the gardens. Big fat blossoms in bright shades. I finally got the right lighting in the room to take photos (I usually remember when it's too dark to use natural lighting). I guess it was good timing because, the very next day, most of the petals fell off. Good while it lasted!

just studying

I've been at school the last couple weekends so nothing exciting. But here's what I usually see...

It's kind of nice to see palm trees right outside!

the calm before the storm

I'm trying to savor the last few days before school starts again.  Up here, it's pretty cool compared to home.  I arrived at the airport on Thursday and it was only 60-something degrees!  I definitely wasn't dressed for that chilly temperature.

My friend planned an adventure on Bonny Doon Beach last night, complete with our...well, my first bonfire (which basically means he dragged two boxes of wood down a steep cliff--yeah, take a look at these photos--and we made s'mores for a couple hours).  Later, I heard this beach was clothing optional; glad all the other beach visitors decided to stay dressed.

Oh and we saw this creepy tunnel...

so technically...

this blogging adventure began during my summer at home. It hasn't been a lazy, sip lemonade while tanning at the beach kind of summer. Marco and I have been very busy!

1. He's retraining me so I'll give him his dog biscuits after I shake his hand. 2. I messed up my foot (who knew you could twist your tendons by walking too fast?!) and ended up wearing sneakers everyday to work. Though I'm in my comfy red sneaks, I'm still hobbling around. Not the best timing for an injury because I should be exercising more after gobbling much too many of these.