New York, California and Happy Holidays.

Happy and successful New Year 2013 to everyone! Let's honour the old year with a December-themed photo post!

New York, New York

I had the pleasure of spending a weekend in New York with my family. Stopping over there on their way to California was a fun move, as I got to see a bit more of the US as well and it breaks down their long journey nicely. New York was huge, and everything seemed so big after little old Davis. To get an idea of the city, we did a hop-on-hop-off ride around Manhattan and went up to 30 Rock to look at the views on our first day.

 View to the south from Top of the Rock. 

It was rainy and visibility wasn't great, but it made me understand just how big Manhattan alone is!

 Central Park from Top of the Rock.

 There was something fun about the architecture...

 ...even when buildings took a whole block and were made of gray concrete.

We barely saw the Statue of Liberty or had the stamina to sit at the top of the bus for good views, as the weather got colder and rainier when we reached lower Manhattan. There's always the next time to see all of that! We finished the day off with a delicious seafood dinner at Blue Water Grill. On our second day we debated visiting various museums, and ended up walking through the Central Park to the Guggenheim where black and white Picassos were on display.

 Upper West Side residential street.

The layout of the Guggenheim was very accessible - it's just a long spiral corridor.

We attempted some shopping on 5th Avenue, but the type of shops wasn't exactly what we were looking for. We ended up checking out Grand Central station and the metro system, which was an inherent part of visiting New York just like the yellow cabs. And let's not forget smoked salmon bagels and the New York Times crossword in the morning!

After a quick rest, we walked down the Broadway and to the Lincoln Centre. We had tickets for Nutcracker at New York City Ballet, and I really enjoyed the production. It was somehow more accessible and exciting than the previous versions of Nutcracker I've seen, so it was a good and Christmassy choice!


California road trip

My family spent a couple of days looking around Davis, but as it is such a small place, there is not much to see. But luckily in the area there are many many interesting sights, so we rented a car and had a week-long road trip planned.

Our first stop was Sacramento, the capital of California. It's only 20 miles or so from Davis, so it was nice to first do a practice day of road tripping and return home afterwards. The Capitol building was pretty, looked lot like the one in Washington, and was surrounded by beautiful gardens. We also did quite a bit of shopping at the Westfield Downtown Plaza.

 California State Capitol. (c) Boyfriend.

Next day the road trip proper began. We drove from Davis on the Lincoln Highway (Historic Route 40) to Napa Valley via Lake Berryessa. In the hilly forests there were a lot of lichen growing on the trees, and the views were stunning. In Napa we had the most delicious lunch I'd had in all of America at Kitchen Door: the beef carpaccio was the best I've ever had. From Napa we drove through the Napa valley -full of wineries- to St Helena for afternoon coffee. St Helena was a picturesque little town and reminded me of Mediterranean holiday towns. We finished our first day with a drive to Beltane Ranch, where we had booked rooms for the night. It apparently has been chosen as the "US's best vineyard stay", and we really enjoyed the homely atmosphere.

Lichen near lake Berryessa.

 Beltane Ranch in the evening.

Beltane Ranch breakfast area.

 Beltane Ranch vineyard.

From Beltane Ranch and town of Glen Ellen we drove to the Pacific and enjoyed the views from Highway 1. We had seafood lunch at Nick's Cove, which became a contender for the best lunch I've had in America. The oysters were delicious, and the eggs benedict with Dungeness crab was just heaven. I think my parents' presence allowed us to stumble upon the tastiest food in California!

From Stinson Bay we took the scenic way through redwood forests to Muir Woods National Monument. The redwoods were still stunning and still awe-inspiring. I don't think their essence can be captured on camera, so I recommend anyone who has a chance to visit a redwood forest! And just after sunset we arrived to San Francisco and caught the beautiful city view with Golden Gate Bridge on the foreground just after heavy rain.

 Oysters at Nick's Cove.

 Bracken growing on a tree, and some redwoods to make us all feel tiny.

 Golden Gate Bridge just after sunset.

On our first day in San Francisco we checked out Lombard Street - previously the crookedest street in America before Wall Street gained that honour. The eight hairpin turns were easily navigated and we could carry on our journey to Berkeley. In Berkeley we went to NorthFace sales, had the best pizza in town at the Cheese Board and toured the UC Berkeley campus. We caught the stunning views over the Bay all the way to San Francisco from the Berkeley Hills before heading back. After getting bored in the traffic we decided to go and see the Hobbit and parked our rental car in a public garage. The movie was more or less what you'd expect, but our car wasn't - it had been broken into. A couple of calls later, we were set for a replacement car for the next day and a police report, but unfortunately we lost some very good photos from the Wine Counties with the cameras of me and Boyfriend.

 Winding section of Lombard Street.

Rest of our time in San Francisco contained a lot of sightseeing. Fisherman's Wharf, Height and Ashbury with "hippies" and beautiful houses, Golden Gate park, Alcatraz, Cable Cars, Chinatown, the usual San Francisco fare.

 Victorian houses in Height and Ashbury.

 Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

 Oink, oink, oink! At Fisherman's Wharf.

After San Francisco we drove south. Our first stops were Palo Alto and Silicon Valley, where we checked out the campuses for Stanford, Facebook, Google and Apple. I had not appreciated earlier how widely everything was spread in Silicon Valley, or the long distance from the Stanford campus to Palo Alto and nearest grocery store. Then we returned to Highway 1 and Pacific views. We drove through Santa Cruz and to Monterey, where we stayed the night.

Hoover Tower of Stanford University.

 

Campus views from Hoover Tower, including the Main Quad.

 Facebook campus.

In Monterey we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium which was just plain stunning and left me wanting to go back soon. The best parts in my opinion were the jellies and the "open sea" pool feeding with plenty of fish, including hammer sharks, huge school of sardines and some turtles. The afternoon we spent driving the 17-Mile Drive with some more stunning Pacific views. We even spotted some whales spouting water! At the end of the drive we drove back to San Francisco and dropped my family off to the airport. Our wonderful Christmas vacation had come to the end, and we waved goodbye. Later that night it turned out that their flight had been cancelled, and after many hours on phone, the airline decided to bring up a new flight for them and in the end they got home safely just like planned.

Jellyfish!

 The Pacific Ocean.

 Views at the 17-Mile Drive.

More views at 17-Mile Drive.

Happy Holidays

As my family left a bit before Christmas, it was down to me and Boyfriend to start some Christmas traditions of our own. As the actual holidays crept on us very suddenly, we ended up decorating our Ikea lamp instead of trying to find a last minute tree. Our Christmas Eve was for two of us and a dinner with salads, couple of different types of fish, ham and a delicious sweet potato casserole. Christmas Day we had a pleasure to dine at a friend's house: the hostess cooked yummy baked brie, duck, and homemade ravioli, and the other guests contributed tasty onion soup and blackberry crumble. It was lovely to spend the holiday with people close to us.

Our Christmas lamp and a Santa's little helper that appeared with way too many presents.

Santa brought us a chocolate-making kit, so we made some chocolates! (c) Good Friend.

Having taken my winter break a bit beforehand, I worked through most of the holiday period. Still there were a lot of festivities; a huge board game night at our place, a friend's double birthday party (one to bluff, one to surprise) and of course the New Year's Eve. We celebrated with friends and Wii Rock Band, and to our surprise, near the midnight the thing to do was to switch the TV on to watch a recording from New York's midnight with the the ball drop. In previous countries I've lived in, everybody heads outside for the midnight to watch fireworks and open bottles of bubbly!

So the year 2012 ended on a happy note, and I wish that year 2013 will bring a lot of peace and happiness to all of my readers!

This time the copyright of pictures goes to me, my mum and my dad unless otherwise stated. As always with blogspot, click the pictures to enlarge.