The beginning of our trip has gone very smoothly. After final farewells with their grandparents, the kids were quickly fully absorbed in the inflight entertainment, barely noticing that the plane had even taken off, until falling fast asleep. Uncharacteristically, we even managed quite a bit of sleep ourselves. The flight flew – in all respects.
Aside from being a pretty fantastic city, the main reason for stopping over here is to catch up with Kiley & Michael. We last saw them here three years ago on our way back to live in NZ after living in Dublin.
We met up at ‘Mel’s’ – a diner, which we felt very fitting for our first day in America, and had a great afternoon catching up at a playground in Golden Gate Park and evening at their place in Sausalito feasting on superbly BBQ’d chicken.
The only mild mishap yesterday was coming back through a toll gate, having forgotten all of our US money at the hotel. We acted as the dumb tourist (which in this instance was actually somewhat true!) and like almost all San Franciscans we’ve met, the guy at the booth seemed pretty chilled and just waved us through.
Today we had a great day in superb weather hanging out with Kiley around the very tranquil Berkeley, where Iris found a great Easter event for the kiddies. On the way back we did a bit of electronics shopping to keep us boys happy and also stopped by in the vibrant Chinatown.
‘Mummy pillow’
At Mel’s
Gymnastics with Auntie Kiley
The first of many hotel room breakfasts
According to local lore, the cranes at Oakland Port were the inspiration for the AT-AT Walkers in the Star Wars movies
At Berkeley University
Easter egg hunting at Berkeley
Liam and the sloth
Hear no evil, see no evil and… still see no evil
Thanks for the art & craft set Aunty Kiley!
