Just a note...

I know you've all been reading a lot...however, I just wanted to let you know that I will be doing a recap of life in 2006 - not to worry - it won't have too many words :)

San Francisco...Part II :)

The famous Inmates and I'm so amused with self portraits! :)

Dawn's First In'N'Out BURGER!! - Steve - are you jealous?







Dawn - on way to prison :)

I don't think I would do well in prison.....

This road was built on top of Horse tracks that would have to go from one end to the other in order to make it down the steep hills.
Sorry the photos are in a bit of a random order but it's late and I'm too tired to rearrange them. :)

Hi again :) So, after our Monday of touring the city it was time to celebrate ms. Dawn's Birthday on the 21st of November. So, in honour of her birthday - I took her to prison. Alcatraz - the former home Al Capone and other notorious Gangsta's. :) I thought Alcatraz was pretty cool - we took an audio guided tour which was great as it gave you quite a bit of history - though the sound of all the doors closing at once was probably the most eerie. After the closing of the Prison in 1963 the island was mainly abandoned until 1969, when a group of Native American Indians claimed Alcatraz as Indian land with the hope of creating a Native American cultural center and education complex on the island. The "Indians of All Tribes" wanted to show the country and the world the troubles faced by Native Americans. After spending a few hours wandering uphill again (which was nothing compared to the 10 hills of the first night - and for those of you scoffing at the 10 hills - go to San Francisco and walk them and then we can chat) we returned to San Francisco to head out of town...seeing as it was Thanksgiving weekend approaching we thought that getting on the road would help us. Wellllllll, it would have - but then of course I decided to be adventurous and completely focused on getting to Santa Cruz before the sun went down - that we ended up on a crazy mountain drive!! The roads were so narrow that my little YARRRis seemed large! So, our 5 hour journey up, took us almost 8 hours back - oh and the seat belt on the Passenger side broke! I thought Dawn was just being a wuss when she said "Victoria this thing keeps getting tighter and tighter" - well then suddenly it just got stuck...very strange indeed.
The trip was absolutely lovely!!!! We returned late Tuesday night and then continued on with the visits!!!! Ms. Dawn has yet to send me some pictures - therefore this next section cannot be completed until then! :)

San Francisco....

Hello lovely people! So, now that we've all mourned the loss of my beloved camera, I thought that rather than leaving that sad post - I would continue updating with current photos! :) I still haven't covered Dawn's visit so let me begin :)
My lovely friend Dawn arrived in LA on a friday evening. After chatting the night away, we spent Saturday on a bit of a car tour before leaving for San Francisco early Sunday morning. By early - I mean early! Most of you would be shocked to know that I got my bum out of bed at 6:30am. We made kick ass time and arrived at our hotel exactly 5 hours later! :) It started off being a beautiful morning, sun shining, warm...then as we were driving suddenly we noticed a cloud so low that it could have been a fire cloud - from then on, the fog never lifted!!! It was so foggy that we could barely see out the sides of the windows - but lucky for Dawn she could still see enough to say "what kind of plant is that? What kind of plant is that? What kind of bush is that?" - yeah I didn't know. Apparently she likes agriculture. :)

Okay, on to San Fran: We hopped on a lovely bus to tour the city shortly after our arrival which was great! We got a great overview and decided that we would eat dinner in the Italian part of the city. Ate a lovely meal and decided to hit a bar nearby. We spotted this place with music oozing out and wandered in! It was a little dive bar where all of our drinks were only $3!!!! We sat at the bar enjoying the strange patrons...perhaps strange is putting it nicely. After a couple of drinks we were exhausted so we thought "well, we're not far from our hotel so we can just walk this way" - umm yeah, "that way" did not work!!!!! We ended up walking UPHILL on at least 10 of the 43 hills in San Francisco that go straight up! My thighs, calves and heart were so tired - It took us 1.5 hours to get back to our hotel - but we had a lovely walking tour. The next day we spent wandering around Union Square, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and more wandering uphill :) okay time for some pics - more in the next entry...

Notice that something is missing?

space left open for pictures...





Well lovely people it is the end of an era! At the screening of "The Good German" at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Building, my Camera was stolen. It is particularly sad as there was never any notice of "No camera's" and as people were taking pictures on their camera phones, I wasn't so sure why they made me leave behind. I believe, they could have busted me if I used it, but as George Clooney graciously posed for photos, I think that the loss of my camera was extremely unnecessary. Plus as most of you know, I carry it around with me anywhere so it was quite "used" looking :) Plus the staff was extremely rude - but that's a different story :) So, no pics until I can afford a new one!

Happy Holidays!

Dawn's Visit...Coming soon :)

Catalina Island...

So, most people I've talked to in LA haven't even been to Catalina Island! I'm appalled by this - yes that's right, I'm appalled! :) It's only 1 hour away by Express Fairy and definitely worth one trip. Apparently there are two destinations and one of them sucks (Two Harbors), but we ended up going to Avalon which was quite lovely. There are no cars allowed on the island - although there are a few exceptions for workers and such, so everyone drives around in Golf Carts! :) I laughed as some people had pretty pimped out golf carts on the road. We enjoyed a lovely tour around the island (on a rented golf cart - how many times can I say golf cart??), ate dinner at a steakhouse overlooking the ocean, sang karaoake - got kicked out by 11p because there weren't enough people in the bar...then went to another bar where a woman hit me in the face and (accidentally) shoved a straw up my nose. Ah yes Catalina...'twas lovely!

Go Sharks!

I have decided that I am good luck for the San Jose Sharks. Both times I have seen them play now - once in San Jose at the "Shark Tank" and once at the Staples Center - they have won. Not by one or two goals, but by 4 or 5! So, this was my second hockey game ever. My first one was when I was 12 and I saw the Minnesota North Stars play against the Chicago something or other - well I felt bad that no one was cheering for Chicago so I started...not knowing that it was a huge rivalry. I was 12, I didn't speak much english but I certainly understood when a very drunk man hit me in the back of the head with a beer. That's right - BEER! Well, this excursion was much more pleasant. I could actually see and there was no beer tossing...just lovely food and cheering. :) Go Sharks baby!

This is definitely the longest...

...I've ever taken to update this blog. Sorry! Things have been so busy here and I've done so much that the whole thing seemed a bit overwhelming. So, I'm doing it in small steps...a couple tonight, perhaps a couple more updates tomorrow with one enormous one of the last week! :) Let us begin...

NY NY!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's taken me such a long time to write anything. Perhaps the trauma of buying a new car was too much and I hid in a hole? Or, I've just been driving around non-stop because my car is so cute. :) I wanted to post a THANK YOU to all my lovely friends in NY for an amazing trip! It really was such a wonderful long weekend. I loved that most of it was spent in my old neighbourhood. We chatted, went on walks, ate Indian Food, Turkish Food, Pizza, had brunches, Coffee and Cake, walked around some more, partied the night away at a lovely champagne bar after stuffing ourselves full of amazing food and uh taking pictures with billboards. :) We even played some Taboo! See? We're sweet and innocent! It was exactly what I needed after getting a bit lost in la la land.
On top of all that, my Mom was in town which was lovely! I got to see our friend Deirdre with whome she was playing for a Memorial. I listened as they practiced through their pieces and enjoyed my private concert! :) THANK YOU SOO MUCH and I MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY ALREADY! So, here are some pics from the weekend!