Blogs from California, United States, North America - page 1146

Woke up feeling ruph after partying till the wee hours with Chang. Resolved to possibly nap and talk to Pop about the itinerary. He beat me to the punch. Grandpa David is apparently about to depart this world, and I am feeling that familiar disorienting mix of guilt, numbness and distraction that have accompanied the passing of my other two gramps. Your-grandfather-is-dying conversations are uniformly awkward and unpleasant, particularly when you hate telephonic communication as much as I do. The upside is that my tickets are booked and the railpass is on its way. I shudder to think of the jagged cavity left in my modest bank account after those charges book. I am really being diligent about reassuring myself about this leap. It seems to have some calming effect, but I am pacing a lot ... read more

Look at him - He's a beaut! After 10 weeks of playing phone tag with Peter Molnar, I finally have a date and time to talk to him about the Old Country. Although I barely know the man, I consider him my best contact in B-P, because his family is networked in to the HU wine industry on several levels. While I don't have any intention of becoming a wine buyer in Eger, it's good to know people who love classy tipple as much as I do. Peter M has a expansive reach, as he has his hands in pies from Buda to Berkeley, from Lake Balaton to Lake County. I may be exaggerating his interests, but in talking to him, I recognized the notes of overcommitment and nuances of frazzle in his voice. His story ... read more

I spent a month where everyday I was under God's dispensing, living a corporate life with other sisters and brothers. Praise the Lord for teh opportunity to be trained!... read more

The last couple of days we have seen a whole heap of LA. We went on a tour on Thursday of LA and visited Beverly Hills, Farmers Market, Hollywood (with the stars on the path and the footprints e.t.c) we have even been to Venice Beach - where it rained for the half hour that we were there! On Thursday night we went to a Medieval Times Dinner which was awesome!! We cheered on our knight as he fought the others in sword fights and jousting and the best part was we got to eat our dinner with our fingers - as they had no cutlery back then! Yesterday we hired a car and tried our luck on the LA freeways...Very scary....But worth it to get to the Alan Jackson and Sara Evans Concert. HA HA. ... read more

This was actually my second visit to the bustling Californian city of San Francisco, but from my prior visit as a naive 14 year old boy all I remembered about San Francisco was the scary trip to Alcatraz Island, the crazy maximum security prison that stopped being used in 1963 and is now a museum. However once we were hanging off cable cars going up and down the incredibly steep streets (including the winding Lombard Street) of San Francisco the previous memories came back to me. We stayed a block from Union Square, which is an incredibly busy and bustling places full of buskers and scammers looking to get a few bucks out of some naive tourists. The Fisherman's Bay area is nice for a wander and we also went to the Pink Ladies, which are ... read more