Wednesday, January 4, 2012

This year lets resolve to make better bad decisions.

10:30 a.m. January 1st, 2012... I am gently awoken by the soft voice of Hannah. "Valarie, are you checking out today, or do you want to stay another day?" I roll over and lift my head to see the mess thrown all over the floor by my bed. "Sign me up for another day, I'm not going anywhere quite yet." As my throbbing head collides with the pillow once more. I was supposed to go check out this other place to live today at 11 am, but I had to push that back as well. I was exhausted from the late night activities. Luckily the place I was looking at was owned by the hostel, and was not even a block away. It wasn't bad. Cheap. Thats for sure. Now it was just down to choosing which place did I want to stay at. The one that was more pricey, and further from my work, but I have more privacy and kitties? Or... cheaper, 13 people living in one house, and closer to my work. After talking to my dad we decided the more expensive was the way to go. it was still under my budget, and the area was nice. I called Joy to let her know that I would like to move in on the 2nd if that was ok, I just needed to get a rental car. She said no worries, you're not far from the house, we will just come pick you up! Perfect!


After going to look at the home stay, I went back to the hostel to meet up with Aileen, Ashley, and Jeneba. We were off to hit the town! We walked around for quite sometime looking for a little place on Columbus Street to grab some lunch. Everywhere was packed! We ended up at this place called Mo's. WOW. This place was the bomb. When we walked in you saw a grill rotating over volcanic rock, a pile of produce near the door, a counter full of people eating, and tables full. This little place was packed. We didn't wait long though. We got a seat up at the bar where we ordered burgers. Jeneba ordered an ahi tuna sandwich, and Ashley got some eggs and a pancakes with her burger. 




We ate till we had not just food babies, but triplet food babies. So finally towards the end of our meal, Ashley decides to dig into the pancakes she ordered. Blueberry pancakes covered with powdered sugar. We all sampled the pancakes, and all we have to say is.... this was not a pancake.... this was a crackcake. The heavens opened up and God placed these magical pancakes on our plate in front of us. These pancakes were at least... AT LEAST a half inch thick, fluffy as a cloud but perfectly crispy on the outside. I am absolutely sure it was crack sprinkled across these things, not sugar. You didn't even need syrup.. IN FACT! Syrup would ruin these magical confections that were placed in front of us. 





After our feast, we continued to walk around, going in lots of little stores. Jeneba had other arrangements so she parted her ways. Ashley, Aileen and I had decided the previous day that we had yet to ride a trolly, and that we were going to do it together. So we set out to find a stop. After we found one, we sat for a while taking silly pictures awaiting the trolly..... . . . 


Finally we decided to call a number. Everyone is so nice here. The person on the phone told us exactly where we needed to walk to  for the right stop. A trolly comes and was absolutely packed. We asked the guy if there was anyway we could fit, and he said no there should be another trolly coming soon but he can't guarantee how packed that one will be either. So we just kinda stood on the corner, and continued to talk trying to decide what we wanted to do slash not really caring. Then were looking at the building were standing next to and we are like "oh! look at that its the trolly museum." I realize my headache finally went away. Just being silly girls. So I don't if this was luck, or if it was the crackcakes we had. But we all turn around to see this trolly coming out of the trolly museum. Stock empty. 


We holler at the guy to see if we can get on this thing or if its being tested for repairs. He responds with "Happy New Year" Of coarse! We are so rude. "Happy New Year as well" we respond. The man on the trolly informs us that we can get on the trolly but he is going to the wharf. We really wanted to go to Union Square, but ya know what. We honestly just wanted to ride one of these things. So we jump on. We introduce our selfs to Carlos the Gridman (Gridman is what the trolly drivers are called). What an absolutely beautiful ride. You could see the whole entire city. If you ever visit San Fran I suggest you take this route down to the wharf because the view is amazing, we were so excited! Our first trolly ride was a private one! We didn't have to share it with anyone... that is till some people got on. Carlos was laughing at us, that we were so excited we didn't stop talking. We took pictures. I got a video of me singing the Rice-A-Roni song! So when we finally reached the end of our stop, Carlos instructed that everyone pay the man at the back of the trolly. We walked towards the back and no one was there, so we walk back around to find him now sitting on the trolly. We hold out our money, and he looks at us and says "What is this for?" We go "Well our ride of coarse!" The man instructs us to put our money away that this ride was free, and he hopes that we had a wonderful new year. What!!! We were so excited we started to hug him and hug Carlos. "That is so nice of you guys!" Then Carlos tells us to get on the trolly and he will take some pictures of the three of us hanging off the side. Wow. Our first time on a trolly, and we get a practically private ride, for free, and he was nice enough to take pictures for us. 




After our amazing trolly ride, the girls and I go to Ghiradelli Square. It was like Willy Wonka! They handed us all a free square of Peppermint chocolate as we walk into this treasure room filled with bags of chocolate squares individually wrapped in different color foils. It was beautiful. We continued our way through a room of wall to wall people laughing and talking while eating ice cream cones and sundaes. We travel up the stairs where we have our ice cream order taken. Aileen gets this triple chocolate sundae with mint chip, Ghiradelli chocolate, a thick dark chocolate fudge on the bottom, hot fudge on the top. Ashley gets a Berry sundae with all different types of berry's and cheesecake inside the ice cream chocolate covered blueberries and whipped cream, and I got a Ghiradelli hot chocolate. We passed the ice cream sundaes and the hot chocolate around, savoring each bite. Nothing was left untouched. "We should be food critics" we discuss. I could totally do this everyday, traveling the world eating crackcakes and ice cream.




We discussed how amazing the day had been, and how we have a feeling that this year is going to be amazing. It's not often that a new year begins and you are excited for what it is going to bring. Majority of the time we celebrate the new year, and then continue our lives without really thinking about what is in store for us. These past few months, or even years have been extremely challenging. But every cloud has its silver lining. I believe that everything happens for a reason. Take everything with a grain of salt. It takes too much energy to be negative. You only live once, so you might as well have more smiles than frowns. If something doesn't work out the way you may have wanted it to, its because there is something greater waiting for your. Even if it maybe a death, or a job you didn't get, or a hardship during that time of your life, that detail makes you who you are... It puts strength in your heart to help you handle new situations you will have to deal with. 


After we got done eating our ice cream, we headed back to the hostel. However we got sidetracked by Willy "Woo-Woo" Wong's playground. For a bunch of girls in our late 20's we sure had a blast. Woo-Woo... you know how to build a playground. This thing had fun slides, monkey bars, even a rock wall! We had a blast... in fact we couldn't stop talking about it. When in doubt, woo-woo it out. We finally made it back to the hostel where we all broke out in song of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin. You would have thought it was planned. It was like a spontaneous flash mob. Kat was on duty and was cleaning the bathroom at the time we did this, she ran out of the bathroom holding her sponge and spray bottle with a look of amazement on her face. It was perfect. 



We ended up going out later that night, we ended up at a bar called Delirium. They had a DJ in the back spinning reggae so we danced for a while. It was only 2 am and we were bored because we didn't  even get out until 12ish, damn Florida and NY girls used to drinking all night. We attempted to go to a strip club because someone in our group had never been. The club wanted to charge the guys 30 dollars so we said forget it. We went back to the hostel where I attempted to take a 15 minute cat nap, but people kept waking me up. So we decided to go back to Woo-Woo. This time the gates were closed so we were bad and just hopped the fence. We were determined to show the guys this gem of a playground we found. We ran around for a while, then decided to go grab some snacks. We hit up a local 7-11 for some cheese puffs and corn nuts, then talked until 6 am. Aileen and Ashley had to catch a bus at like 6:30 am. that was the only real reason we stayed up. We weren't even drinking, just enjoying each others company. 



The girls packed their stuff, I retired to bed for a few hours. Aileen snuck through the room and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Ashley gave me a big hug, and they were off. Joy and Dan were picking me up in the morning. The party was over.


... for now

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