Driving down the coast

Today we went with a friend on a drive down the coast - it is still weird to me to be in a city that is so close to the ocean. The first place we stopped was Pacifica, a pretty seaside town that is home to the country's most picturesque Taco Bell.

You can tell it's a Taco Bell because of the taco ad in the window.

We continued driving down the coast and stopping at any place that looked interesting, which led to lots of happily aimless wandering around lovely beaches for most of the day.

I need cooler sunglasses.

We had lunch at Sam's Chowder House, which is apparently a Thing. It was delicious - there is something about eating seafood on the beach that makes it taste better. Although Ben and I did both think it was funny that we came all the way to California to eat an "authentic New England lobster roll."

So much lobster!

We stopped at a farm stand on the way home, and picked up a bunch of good produce for the next few days. I think I am finally undertanding why so many people want to live here.

Sports!

We have been keeping busy in San Francisco - we have a lot of friends here we rarely get to see, so we are taking advantage of these three months to get maximum bonding time in. We had a social event four out of five nights this week, which is pretty unprecedented for our usually introverted selves. Tonight we met friends for a baseball game in Oakland - it ended up being a really short game (the whole thing was over an hour and a half after we got there!), but it was fun to see friends and eat hot dogs and ice cream.

It's crazy that our time here is already a third over - just two more months to cram in as much Bay Area as possible!

So far the biggest difference between Philadelphia and San Francisco are:

1. San Francisco is way more expensive.
2. There are palm trees here. Palm trees! In a city!
3. You can buy alcohol here pretty much wherever - including in the grocery store and basically all restaurants (even cheap ones). This is very unsettling for someone who is used to only being able to purchase beer in cases from official beer distributors, and wine from state-run spirit shops, and to having all restaurants be BYOB because it's too complicated to get a PA liquor license.
4. Hills. Everywhere.

To the fourth point, here is the view from the nearest intersection to our apartment:

Hill in the foreground, bigger hills in the background!

Over the weekend we met up with friends and walked to the top of one of the larger hills in the city - Corona Heights Park. It was a surprisingly steep climb, but yielded a nice view of the city from the top.

Wind is the best hair stylist.

We are going to come home from this summer with really toned calf muscles.

California!

I don't think I've mentioned this here yet, but Ben and I are living in California for the summer while he does a summer internship. While I am generally opposed to living in California because I don't want to die in an earthquake, I have made peace with spending three months here. For our first week we're staying at a temporary place in Mountain View; next week we'll move to a place in San Francisco that we are subletting for the rest of the summer. As far as we can tell, Mountain View is colossally boring, so yesterday we took the train down to San Jose and visited the Winchester Mystery House.

It is weird seeing palm trees in front of a Victorian mansion.

The house was under continuous construction for 38 years, since apparently  that's what Mrs. Winchester thought was necessary to appease the spirits of everyone who had been killed with a Winchester rifle. She had nightly seances with those spirits to determine what to build the next day, and the house ended up pretty much how you would expect for a Victorian mansion designed in daily increments by an old woman consulting with ghosts and no architectural training - all kinds of crazy. There are staircases that lead to ceilings, doors to nowhere, windows that open to walls on places where the house turns in on itself, all kinds of odd-sized doors and windows, staircases that abruptly change direction multiple times, and the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and sitting parlors are scattered about the house seemingly at random. There's a room with four fireplaces, a storage room with hundreds of Tiffany stained glass windows that had yet to be installed anywhere, and a room on an upper floor with windows that allowed Ms. Winchester to spy on her servants below. Also, since Mrs. Winchester was 4'10" tall, everything is built to suit a person of that height. There was a lot of stooping as we went on the tour.

Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the house - although there is a pretty decent gallery here. We spent some time wandering around the outside and taking pictures, although it's hard to convey how massive it is in one shot.

One side of the house.

Another side - the opening you see in the rightmost part is one of the doors that open to nowhere.

Ben is impressed at yet another side of the house.

All in all, if you're going to go crazy I guess it's good to have an unlimited amount of money to invest in the endeavor.

PIFA returns!

That's right, it's once again time for the biennial Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts! Last time the theme was France (or maybe Paris?), this year it is time travel. So not only is our backyard trapeze back (yay!), but there is also a dinosaur in front of our building.

His arms and head move, and they even trucked in sand and little palm trees for his environment. In other parts of the street, they brought in lots of sod and flowers to create pop-up parks.

This usually looks like this.

You can also see some of the street performers in that picture, those ones were dressed like giant sparkly insects. There were also some on stilts "riding" metal bird-horse creatures:

They could even make the creatures' mouths open and close

The coolest street performer was one of those living statue people, who danced to operatic music. She was the only living statue I've seen with a water feature.

Water streamed out of her fingertips, and even out the top of her head!

In addition to the street performers, there seemed to be a decent number of Renaissance Faire people, I think as part of the "time travel" theme.

A knight

A guy with a portable bellows-driven bubble machine

Lest we forget that time travel can take us to the future as well as the past, there was a robot that drove around talking to people.

Other things in the street that aren't usually there included a Ferris wheel:

And a bunch of guys welding something unidentifiable:

The centerpiece of everything was an elaborate "time machine" inside the Kimmel center, but it was probably the least interesting part of the festival, given that it was basically just a  walk-through tube that lit up and played odd noises.

Ben about to enter the "time machine." Time did pass inside it, but only at the usual rate.

Happily, there was another time machine that was much cooler:

Complete with flux capacitor!

Springtime in Philly

Most houses in Philly don't have yards, so when it's spring people show off their green thumbs via elaborate window boxes. It makes going for walks up and down random side streets very pleasant this time of year.

My favorite house

Spiral mini-trees

Not sure what this is, but it looks neat

Not a window box, but still pretty

There are also lots of community gardens scattered throughout the city, which also make for nice scenery.

This one is right by the Schuylkill

The only downside to this season is Philly's abundance of Callery Pear Trees, which have a certain distinct and unfortunate smell when they flower. Happily, my spring allergies usually make me too congested to be bothered by it.

Friend friend friend

Our friend and wedding officiant visited us last weekend! It was the first spring weather we've had, so we spent a good 6 hours just walking around the city.

By the real bridge

By the mini-golf bridge

Seriously, we walked all over. Google maps says 8 miles, but it was probably longer since we took lots of random detours down interesting-looking streets.

Home, Penn's Landing, Elfreths Alley, Reading Terminal Market, Franklin Square, Logan Square, Art Museum, City Hall, and home again. Whew.

Triumphant atop the art museum steps at the end of the day

All that walking totally justifies the ginormous ice cream cone I had from Bassett's in Reading Terminal, right?