My Aunt Elaine came to visit this past weekend, it was the first time since moving away from home that I had a relative visiting over the winter holidays and she was happy to pass on Christmas to celebrate Hanukkah with us.
She arrived Thursday evening and I headed down on BART to pick her up at the airport. From there we dropped her things off at home and headed off to Union Square for dinner at Burger Bar.
Friday morning we headed out early to go to the San Francisco Zoo. The weather was stunning and we had a really enjoyable time. The zoo does a series of celebrations for the holidays around this time of year and that day it was time for the lions to open delicious presents, I uploaded a video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjg8h-ZXgYI. It was also fun to see their Nile Hippo out playing.
We met up with MJ for lunch at The Boulevard Cafe in nearby Daly City. Their mac and cheese was delicious, and it’s healthy if you eat it with a salad, right?
The late afternoon was spent at The Walt Disney Family Museum. Having read Walt Disney: An American Original and been a general Disney cartoon fangirl for much of my life, I was at least somewhat familiar with much of what the museum had to offer. The museum is new so they were able to take advantage of the latest in display and touchscreen technologies in exhibits and incorporate them very tastefully with old media too for beautiful exhibits. The whole museum was a delight and I’d love to go back on a day that is less busy so I can spend time reading everything in the galleries. I really wish it was easier to access via public transit, even the drive out there was a bit tricky due to the massive amounts of road construction around the Presidio.
When the museum closed it was dark out and we took a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to show Elaine the view of San Francisco. We also met some raccoons. From there we drove back to the city and had an Irish coffee at The Buena Vista, dinner Brandy Ho’s and came back to wrap up the night with ice cream at Ghirardelli Square.
Saturday we enjoyed lunch at the Ferry Building Farmers Market overlooking the bay. We were fortunate enough to catch the 1818 up the Embarcadero, the one street car on the F line which has been decorated inside and out for Christmas.
We took a walk down Pier 39 to see the sea lions and the view of Alcatraz. We then walked down to Pier 45, Fisherman’s Wharf, where the San Francisco Maritime Park Association has the USS Pampanito submarine docked for tours. It’s a WWII era sub, but Elaine was able to recount some of the time she spent on a ship that serviced some Naval subs in the 80s and 90s. It was a fun tour, and I hope to visit more of the ship museums in the area in the future.
We enjoyed dinner at Bistro Boudin and took the 1895 street car home.
Sunday morning we spent relaxing and watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), which has now earned a spot as one of my favorite romance films (I’m not usually one for romance, but this is a goodie). We spent the afternoon at the Contemporary Jewish Museum which offers free admission on Christmas. Their Houdini: Art and Magic exhibit is well worth the visit, it’s only up through January 16th, and I wish we had more time for the California Dreaming exhibit which explores “Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present” because it had a lot of interesting facts about the Jewish population of the Bay Area that I’m finding fascinating in my new quest to learn more about Jewish culture with MJ, fortunately that exhibit is up through October of 2012 so we’ll have plenty of time to go see it.
Elaine’s flight was in the early evening, so we dropped her off at SFO (sad!) about 90 minutes before her flight. MJ and I ended up at Fang Restaurant for dinner.
More photos from the weekend are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157628578115049/
It was an awesome time, but I have to admit I’m looking forward to staying home this weekend. The only plans so far are for Simcoe who has a day-long vet visit on Thursday for a series of tests and MJ and I have Friday off from work for the holiday so we’ll be bringing both cats for a checkup at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists. We better get used to vet visits, they won’t be decreasing in frequency any time soon!