Thailand

"I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish…"
- Simone de Beauvoir

Thailand was such an amazing experience. Here a quick photo recap of what we did. I apologize I don't have anything prolific written down. If you want to hear all the crazy stories we need to schedule a phone date. Call me!

Golden Buddah Temple

Dragonfruit

Reclining Buddah

Veterans Day

Death Railway

River Kwai

Elephant Trekking

Felix Hotel

Map of all the places we visited in Thailand.

Road Tripping

Yay!!! It seemed like it was never going to get here, the weekend of our girls only road trip, that is. I am so lucky to be blessed with such amazing friends and although I know so many of my dearest friends are busy with their lives and starting families I am still so lucky to say I'm always in their hearts and minds and they are always in mine. For those that do have the opportunity to visit its such an exciting time for me, as I still don't have super close friends here in the city.

Graci, Heather and I had decided to plan a road trip from San Francisco down Highway 101 to San Diego. It was a little hectic getting everyone together, Heather flying from Orlando to San Franciso and Graci flying from San Diego to San Francisco and then us driving back down to San Diego, but we were just ready for the adventures, pictures, stories and most of all memories.

HD is on the West Coast, again!

Our Baby Rental Car

When Heather arrived we picked up our rental car and cruised to the city. I took her on the fastest tour of San Francisco imaginable starting from the Mission to Downtown to the Ferry Building, Embarcadero, North Beach, Fisherman's Wharf and over to Sausalito where we ended with dinner at were picking up Graci from the airport at 8PM.

One of the most exciting aspects of our trip was the opportunity to stay in a YURT! I booked it using Airbnb which I wasn't entirely familiar with, but the booking process was seamless and the reviews for the property were all great. But just as a forewarning try to arrive at your destination during the day if at all possible. Our drive down the dark driveway to the Yurt was like something out of the Blair Witch Project and the paranoid thoughts of my cautious friends turned it into something way creepier than it actually was, but it doesn't yurt to be safe. (Ha...see what I did there).

Reunited

After one night of drinking wine by the bottles and stuffing our face in cheese between secrets we passed out to wake up at 7AM and continue our journey down the 101.

Big Sur

Hike at Andrew Molera State Park

Priceless

Mcquay Falls

Manhattan Beach

Singing, dancing and storytelling

San Francisco's Growing On Me

Ironically in the second most expensive city in the United States, we’ve been afforded the opportunity to travel quite a bit. Oddly enough Tyler’s spent the majority of his time here on an airplane flying all over the US with work, for family and luckily for leisure.  He made the final count on our flight back from visiting his grandfather in Houston, that he just completed his 10^th flight and trip in a 5 month span. I haven’t traveled as much, but after my best friend’s Florida wedding in May, I have been back and forth to San Diego and even took an impromptu trip to Vegas with my friend Jess.

Jess and I in Vegas

It’s not that money goes farther here. It’s just that the misconceptions which I was fooled by are actually incorrect. It's funny that I am writing this blog to defend San Francisco when a few months ago I wasn't keen to the whole idea of the city life. Don’t get me wrong I felt more at home in San Diego, but the city isn't so bad and it’s actually growing on me, especially since I’m getting the opportunities to travel.

1.       It’s not as cold and rainy as everyone says it is. We live in the Mission and most days it is sunny and a high of 70, with hardly any cloud cover and we rarely get a visit from Karl, the fog.

2.       Aside from rent, everything is priced equivalently to what I experienced in San Diego. Gas, groceries, beers, cocktails, clothing, etc is all about the same. We tend to spend more money on food here, but hell San Francisco has some of the best food in the country!

3.       "Everyone is a hipster or pretentious". Not exactly, there are a lot of hipsters and there are a lot of pretentious people and I think I've become a semi-pretentious hipster, but the city does it to you and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. They make best things accessible to you and introduce you to finer things and smarter ways of doing things and you can’t really help it.

Those are the top three things I can think of off the bat, but I’m sure there are more misconceptions that I’m happy to abolish. Living here for the past 7 months hasn't been the easiest thing I've done, but I’m definitely learning a lot about myself and what I’m capable of and that’s something that I find priceless.

I've finally created a little business for myself and although I've never worked so much in my life, I’m glad to say that I’m doing it and I’m a better person because of it. I've been blessed to have the opportunity to work with 3 amazing clients and 1 amazing little boy and I have some money to spare in this expensive city to visit Thailand, plan New Delhi and well, who knows.