The City of Enchantment

Well, I'm back from my latest adventure. I was in San Francisco for five days and it was so much fun! I took 12 HPU students to a Model United Nations conferencce and we had a great time! I really feel like I was able to see so much of the city and it quickly climbed the charts as one of my favorite US cities! I also got to see my sweet friend Cassie. She lives in Redding and came down for the weekend to see the city with me. We had a great time laughing, getting lost and catching up! She's my first travel buddy and I love exploring new cities with her!

Here are some things that I loved about The City of Enchantment:

The Bay:

Can I just say that San Francisco Bay is gorgeous? It truly was breathtaking. I think I could have sat along the water for hours and just stare out at the water, the clear blue skies, the mountains and all of the beauty that God created. I loved eating at Fisherman's Wharf, walking along the water, grabbing chocolate at Ghirardelli Square and riding a little cruise boat across the bay (it was SO windy, but I highly recommend it!)

North Beach:

I think this was my favorite area! This is the Italian district and it is so cute! I loved sitting in Washington Square Park and soaking up the sun, eating at this cute little Cafe Delucchi, seeing the San Fran original musical "Beach Blanket Babylon" and getting confused on the crazy streets.

Golden Gate Bridge:



I literally flew over, rode under, walked across and traveled around the Golden Gate Bridge. I think I got a pretty good look at all sides of that architechural wonder! I loved walking across the bridge with Cassie and getting a feel for how enormous it really is! It's also a chace to get a great view of the city! It's almost 2 miles long, so it takes a little while to get across, but I think it was well worth it!

Walking the streets



I think my favorite thing to do when I visit a city is to walk the streets. That's the best way to really get a feel for the culture, do window shopping, admire the houses and parks and people watch. I ended up walking from the Pier all the way to Union Square three times on this trip, which was quite a trek, but I loved it every time! I saw so many things - Chinatown, Washington Square Park, Lombard Street, cute homes and cafes and so much more.

Other highlights:

Some other great things I saw included Coit Tower (a great view of the city!), Cliff House (gorgeous restaurant on the coast with an awesome view of the Pacific Ocean), cable cars (although I didn't actually ride one, tragic, I know!) and Market Street (lots of shopping and fun buildings).

San Francisco is a great city! I highly recommend it! I would go back in a heartbeat. It has a very international feel. It was funny because I would be riding a bus or walking down a street and be surprised when I understood English all around me. At first, I thought it was only because I'm just used to touring international cities, but I think it is also because San Fran feels international. The people are very helpful and friendly. It's just a great city! I <3 San Francisco!!!

Blogiversary

Monday is my one year blogiversary. I must admit, I enjoy blogging a lot more than I thought that I would. It's so neat to look back over the past year and see all of the places I've been, the things I've learned, people I've seen and how I've grown.

Believe it or not, here are all of the places I've been in the past year - Orlando, Florida; Galveston, Houston, Amarillo, Dallas and El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, Missourri; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; New York City, New York; and Taipei, Taiwan. (I provided links so you can read about the adventures you may have missed out on!)

Some other big changes include a job promition to Director of Media Relations, moving offices from the Harrison House to Packer, moving out of my apartment and into a house with a new roommate and my family moving from Canyon to El Paso.

I feel like this past year I have grown a lot in my relationship with the Lord. I'm learning more about who God is and how He loves me. I'm also working on figuring out His plan for my life. That's definitely a process that I know will continue the rest of my life, but God's given me a new confidence in who I am in Him, which has really changed my perspective.

Lots of new people have come into my life - new friends, a new pastor in my church, a new president at my school, a new Sunday School class.

Not to mention I joined the Quarter Century Club in November - being 25 has rocked my world! I'm in my mid-twenties. Whoa.

It's definitely been a pretty big year in the life of me! Thanks for being a part of it! I look forward to the next year of blogging - sharing about my trips, my thoughts on God and life in general, updates and just for fun stuff too.

So, here follow me as my Tales of Wanderlust continue...

Hot Dog-O! I'm headed to El Paso!

One night this past Christmas my dad, Phil and I were watching a great inspirational sports movie - Glory Road. (In case you didn't know this about me, I don't like sports, but I LOVE inspirational sports movies! They always make me cry!) Well, if you aren't familiar with this one, it's about this coach, Don Haskins, who moved to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and brought in all of these new players to the school, many of which were African American. Well, he proceeded to play the first full starting line-up of African American players and they ended up winning something. Haha, ok, I really don't know a whole lot about the story, but there is this part when one of the players was going through the line in the cafeteria and he was offered a taco, burrito or nacho. He asked for a "hot dog-o," but they didn't have any. My dad and I started joking about that all of the time. We had no idea that just five months later he would be going to El Paso in view of a call to become the next pastor for the First Baptist Church.

I'm so excited for Dad, Mom and Madie as they embark on this new journey. I never really imagined them moving to a place like El Paso, but I know that God has great things in store for them! I'm also so thankful that I get to go with them this weekend and be a part of this exciting time in their lives. I'm so glad I get to see this new place that will soon be my family's home.

I don't know if we are going to find any hot dog-o's while we are there this weekend, but it should be exciting nonetheless. I'll be sure to tell you all about it when I get back!

Packing idiosyncrasy

When preparing to go on a trip each person has their own priorities for packing. Some, like my mom, start packing weeks in advance, intentionally planning each article of clothing and accessory. Others wait until the very last minute and are pulling their clothes out of the dryer and throwing them into a suitcase while everyone else is sitting in the car ready to go (this would be my dad). I think I fall somewhere in between the two. I like to start thinking about what I'm going to bring in advance, and sometimes I make lists to ensure that I don't forget things, but I'm usually still throwing things into my suitcase at the last minute.

Clothes, accessories and toiletries are all important but here's my packing idiosyncrasy: the very first thing that I consider when I start preparing for a trip is what books I'm going to bring.

This may seem trivial to some, but books are so important to me. I love reading and trips are a great time to get in some good books. I usually remember what I read on a trip and associate them with my traveling. Picking the book up again reminds me of wherever I've been and memories come flooding back.

When I went to Italy with my friend Cassie I brought Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. I had been wanting to read a Dan Brown book for a while and this one turned out to be great. It was set in Rome and so as I traveled around the city I was able picture the book so much more vividly, because I was seeing what he was describing! Sometimes I like to bring challenging books with me that I wouldn't read otherwise and other times I bring fun books that are just enjoyable and make the time on the plane pass quickly. When I went to Milwaukee over Labor Day I brought Same Kind of Different as Me because I had heard great things about it, but couldn't make myself sit down and read it. Being on a plane with nothing else to do, I opened it up and couldn't put it down. It was incredible! On my spring break trip last year to England I brought Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic and it was so much fun because it was set in London and I could identify with a lot of the references because I was there. I ended up buying the second and third book in the series on my trip because I couldn't get enough of them!

I usually bring two or three books to make sure that I never run out things to read - haha, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I think one of my biggest fears is facing a plane ride without adequate reading material.

So, in preparation for my trip to Taiwan, (which keep in mind is a 13 hour plane ride each way) I'm already thinking about what books I'm going to bring.

Here are some of my options -

Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Love walked in by Marisa De Los Santos
The Gospel According to Lost by Chris Seay (my new Thomas Nelson book review book)
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Sparkles by Louise Bagshawe
Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

This is quite the compilation, I realize, but they are all books that I have bought or received recently and want to read. I'll let you know what I end up picking - probably a combination of fun/fluff and interesting/challenging. While you are laughing at me and thinking how crazy I am, ask yourself this question. Do you have any packing idiosyncrasies?