Fisherman's Wharf

Yesterday it was finally warm all day!  I think the high was somewhere around 90, yay!  So, after my dad's conference was over we went to fisherman's wharf.

Oh here's a picture of the conference place.  Haha, and when I took this picture I waited until there was no one in front of the door.  But there were some people about to walk in front and one engineer was like "hey do you want me to pose." lol  he actually isn't in the picture though :p

Well, first off, you should know that the power went out in the entire hotel . . . for several hours (there was a big power outage downstairs.  So there was an emergency generator that kept some of the hallway lights on and one elevator working.  Lol but everything else was down.  It seriously went off the moment I unplugged my computer.  Right after I unplugged it (when it was plugged in it said it had power) I went to the bathroom and the light wouldn't turn on.  At first I didn't notice anything because the light takes forever to turn on anyway lol.  Then in the parking garage it was pitch black so they were giving out glowsticks so you could find the way to your car.  At least that was right before we were going to leave anyway.  And they had power in Monterey! 

When we first got there we walked around the harbor and looked at the beach for a little bit.

Here's some boats :)

A panorama . . . a really crooked panorama.  I really need to stop trying to take panoramas when i'm in a hurry!

More boats.

And, um wow what I surprise!  more boats.

Guess what this one is!  haha it's not boats.  It's the beach.

This is the pier and the beach as well.

Dad and me on the pier

This is me on the pier.  I put my sunglasses on my head for just a minute and they got caught in my hair . . . that's why there's a weird spot sticking up on the right side (or my left side . . . but in the picture it's to the right).

 A boat up close!

We walked around fisherman's wharf for a couple of hours.  There were some pretty cool shops there.  I went into this one store and they had something really funky that I knew Laura would love so I got it for her.  And then in another store my dad bought some fleece jackets to replace the one he bought two years ago and I found something really pretty that I knew Natalie would love so I got that for her.  And in this other store it looked just like a normal touristy gift shop, but the second floor was full of historical recreations of guns and medieval and fantasy swords!  I am SOO glad I went up there--I almost missed it!  So I am now the proud owner of a really cool medieval short sword . . . now I just have to figure out how to get it home without it being confiscated at the airport.  Anyway, Cat, you would have loved that place!  So I also saw something really awesome that Catherine would absolutely love so I got it for her :) (sorry, cat.  It's not a sword . . . but it's still really cool).

Fisherman's wharf!

Oh, that's one of the store's I really like on the far right.  I think it was called Fisherman's Wharf General Store--I got Laura's thing there.

And that pink building (I can't remember the name) where I got my sword and Cat's present.

So the seagull was sitting up there and it scared the heck out of me because it flew away when my head was right next to it.  I wasn't expecting it to stay so close for so long!  Then it landed again and stayed there just long enough for me to take the picture.

We ate at Rappa's Habor View.  I had clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl.  It wasn't as good as the clam chowder at Neptune's Palace, but it was still good.  So, there were three reasons I chose to eat at this restaurant.  1.  It had a harbor view.  2.  I really wanted the clam chowder in a bread bowl (and I didn't want to walk all the way back down the pier and look at all the other menus when I already had my dinner picked out).  and 3. . . . I had to pee really bad. lol Yeah, I was not using a port-a-potty and the closest restaurant was too far away . . . lol  It was funny because every single restaurant had a sign saying that they had the best clam chowder on the wharf. 

I actually don't remember what dad ate . . . I think it was some sort of Tilapia.  I tasted it and it was pretty good (not as good as the swordfish though).

Here's me at the restaurant . . . it's really dark, so i retook the picture.

And yes, those are the earrings you gave me, Charlotte (I wear them all the time).

Here's the front of the restaurant.

And here's me in front of the restaurant.

Then we went and ate ice cream here.  It was ridiculous because it was three stinking dollars for the teeniest little cup of ice cream. . . . pitiful.

Before we left I begged dad to take my picture with the pirate in the pirate store :)  And for some reason he had a lot of trouble with the camera.  He kept turning it to video lol.  FInally, after a ton of tries and a bunch of blurry pics we got this one!

So that's what we did yesterday.  And here's what the wharf looked like in the dark.

This is walking down the pier.

 And this one is the front of the pier.

Thanks for reading!  Comments are always welcome! (and wanted)  God bless!

Hotel Pics and Fun Pics

Ok, so here's some pictures of the hotel and some of the fun pictures I took yesterday.  There will be one or two (or maybe three or four) from the last post, but the majority are new pics.  Ironically, I took a lot of pics of the hotel and outside because I thought I wouldn't have enough pictures for the blog.  But, I ended up having so many that I needed to break yesterday's events into two posts.

Here's the pics of the hotel.  This is the staircase you see when you first come in.

Here's a pic I took of me in the mirror . . . and that's the bathroom door in the background.

Ooooh this is the cool green couch and the cool "art" thing when you first come into the hotel.

This is another view of the staircase and the the hotel restaurant Affinity.  There's this weird sculpture/fountain in front of the staircase (you can see it in the Affinity logo in the far left).  And there's this really long explanation of what it means . . . yeah like I said, weird.  And, i don't know why this pic is in this spot . . . these are really out of order.  oh, and I think that's my dad's arm in the bottom left-hand corner.

This is our hallway and dad is trying to open the door to our room.

Here's the fun pics.  And these are also out of order.  I didn't feel like putting them in the right order . . . and for this post I don't think it really matters.

This is the sidewalk on the way to the brewery.

This is also somewhere near the hotel and the brewery.

This is a building we passed.

Ok, so it was really hard to take all these pictures because I can't stop walking or I'll get left behind.  So it's like pictures on the run.  there was a whole wall full of these lights and I kept missing them because we were walking too fast . . . on the last try (the last light!) I finally got this.  It's in a weird setting called "split" so it put it in all these different frames.

 This is the panorama that I almost got.  The first two frames turned out neat, but then the crosswalk thingy said we could go . . . so I didn't get the last frame lol

This is a really cool clock thing that I really wanted a picture of so I ran ahead and by the time everyone else caught up I had an ok picture :)

I know this is in the other post, but I like the angle.

 This one is cool.  The wall was very textured and then there was this random spot of bricks.

I like this one--it looks like a picture you'd see on a hotel wall. What do you think of this one?

Here's the other one that I really liked.   What do you think? 

 Ok, one more that I actually liked.  The others are just kind of . . . blah.  and I was practically running while taking the pictures lol.

 That's it for now.  I think we're doing something fun tonight, so hopefully I'll get some more pictures.

Just Root Beer

So, we really didn't do anything today except go out for dinner . . . but more on that later.  I pretty much just hung out in the hotel room all day.  I didn't really feel like walking around San Jose and the only things within walking distance are restaurants . . . lots and lots of restaurants.  Yeah, I didn't really feel like walking around and looking at restaurants right after lunch lol.

Dad got out of the conference at like 5:30PM  (a little bit late . . .) then he said we were going to meet with his buddies and then go out to dinner.  haha, that didn't happen until 8PM . . . seriously (it might have been 7PM, but it was still really late.  Anyways we went to go find the guys in this huge convention center full of geeks and nerds (and there's nothing wrong with being a geek or a nerd.  It was just funny. shirts tucked in, pants pulled up to their chests, walking around with two or more hugely stuffed briefcases, oh yes, and laughing at C++ jokes . . . i could go on).  and dad wanted to stop at like every single booth.  I was in the middle of watching a TV show when I left and I really didn't care . . . until we had spent more than an hour in there.  Needless to say I was really bored (and sorry I didn't think of taking any pictures of that).  The cool thing was a magician that did a bunch of cool tricks with a rope that he would break apart and then put back together right in front of you.  And he did this really cool card trick were instead of finding my card when he shuffled the deck the name of the card appeared in writing on the side.  Oh, and he took my dad's 1000 rubles and burned it up but then made it reappear in an envelope that had been inside his jacket :)  that was cool.  And he gave me some flying stretchy monkeys (that scream when you press their bellies).  Other than that the rest was really boring.

So . . . finally we found everyone and they decided to meet in the lobby at 7:15 (it was actually more like 7:30).  And we ended up walking to Gordon Biersch Brewery.  Yes, a brewery . . . and yes, I did drink beer.  haha, just root beer!  It was awesome, homemade root beer.  Thankfully, I was really thirsty so I really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately, I was really thirsty, so i drank ALOT!  I don't know how many times the server came by and refilled my glass lol.  Anyways I ordered Fire-grilled Chicken and Fettuccine.  And, it was amazing!  I was really mad because I drank so much root beer by the time my food arrived I wasn't really that hungry, so i only ate half :(  but it was really good. 

So there were 7 engineers at the table . . . so guess what they talked about the whole time.  Well, actually I can't answer that because I really have no idea what they were talking about.  Since I know a little bit about computers (html, css, java script, and python), I was able to understand a very little bit of what they were saying.  The rest of the time I pretty much zoned out . . . and played around with the camera on my phone.

So here's the sign of the restaurant/brewery.

Here's the side of the building. Or it might be the front . . . the entrance was on the side.  So either the entrance was on the side and this is the front, or the entrance was on the front that looked like the side meaning that the front of the building is actually the side.  Confused yet? :)

 Here's another picture of the brewery.  this is the entrance that's either on the side or the front.

We had to wait a little bit for them to set up a table for us to eat at since there were 8 of us.  I felt like a little kid 'cause I totally had no idea what they were talking about so I took some pictures while waiting.  Please note: I am NOT a photographer.  I was using a cell phone camera so these aren't the best quality. . . and I also have no idea what I'm doing.

There was this really cool brick wall in the outside waiting area.  I loved the natural colors and the textures . . . and then there was this spot with a bunch of bricks that looked really cool.

I really just had to photograph what was there.  And what was there happened to be an umbrella.

I actually like this one--what do you think?  I was trying to be creative and juxtapose the colorful, textured wall with a small section of the smooth, mono-colored door frame (it's got other colors . . . but it's mainly one color).

Here's a pic of my chicken fettuccine.

Ok so, like I said earlier, I was really bored in the restaurant.  and, yes, these are "bad" on purpose.  I wanted to have a curvy table and extra forks :) (no, seriously it was on purpose--i think they're hilarious looking.  Actually pretty much anything in hilarious when your stuck at a table with 7 engineers lol)

I had to work with what was there.  So here's a picture of my root beer glass with another really cool brick wall in the background.

and here's just the brick wall.  isn't it neat looking?  i should have taken an up close picture.

Ok, so here's where i was getting really, really bored.  I discovered that my camera will take up to nine shots in a row...hehe.  So after a few normal tries, I started turning the camera this way and that and ended up with a sort of Alice in wonderland falling down the rabbit hole effect.

This is the wall to the right of our table.  I think it looks cool in black and white.

And here's a picture that I didn't take.  This is me at the table.  Actually I didn't sit here lol I sat on the other side, but I wanted the brick wall to be in the background.

Well that's it for now.  I'm going to post some pics of the hotel in another post and some more of the "fun" (but really bad) pics I took yesterday.  So, now that I've thoroughly embarrassed myself by showing you my awesome photography skills, or lack thereof, I hope you'll still keep reading lol