Berkeley Day 3

On Sunday, we decided to head into San Francisco. Mary has a set of 5x7 cards that are walking tours of the city. We narrowed it down to three different walks and decided to go on two of them, because they were only six blocks apart and we could take the same BART stop (Bay Area Rapid Transit). We ended up in the Mission District of San Francisco, which has Latino roots, many murals, has many boutiques and tons of great restaurants. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of the murals, but I did get a beautiful picture of the The Mission Dolores Basilica, which is a historic Catholic church in the Mission District.

We also went down in to the Castro District, which is where much of the Gay Rights movements have started. The Castro is a historical theater and from the outside it was beautiful--I only wish Mary and I would have had time to go into the theater. The Castro District had amazing little shops and also tons of restaurants. It was so much fun to window shop, especially since many of the stores had handmade goods. There were also tons of mouthwatering restaurants. Below are the pictures of the Castro Theater.

After walking in the Castro district, we headed into a nearby neighborhood with tons of beautiful Victorian row houses. Here are a few pictures of the homes and view:

After looking at all of the beautiful homes, we headed back to the Castro District and had a wonderful lunch.

After lunch, we headed back toward the Mission District and decided to walk down Valencia Street. Valencia is full of trendy little shops and coffee shops. It was another fun area to walk around, but it was starting to get dark and we needed to get back to Mary's house so we didn't get to stay long.

After we arrived back in Berkeley, we started to watch a movie with Mary's roommates. Then we headed out to dinner at a local pizza place in Berkeley. After dinner, we went to Mass with one of Mary's roommates at the Catholic Church near UC Berkeley's campus. It was a beautiful candle light service, but it reminded me why I always think I like candle light services more than I actually like candlelight services: I get super sleepy. Overall, we had an action packed day and lots of fun!

Berkely Day 2

On Saturday, we decided to go to Livermore to go wine tasting. We discussed going to Napa Valley or Sonoma Valley but Mary said that those are more commercialized and she had always wanted to go to Livermore. Livermore reminded me a lot of going wine tasting in Walla Walla: all of the wine owners were in their tasting rooms. It was so much fun to go to the wineries and speak with the owners and the wine makers. Everyone was so nice and it is such a great way to learn about wine. For example, I never knew before that one could make port out of white wine. Mary brought a yummy picnic lunch and Jakob was kind enough to be our designated driver for the day!Here are some pictures from the wine tasting.





After wine tasting, we headed back to Mary's house and she made a great butter nut squash soup from scratch--yummy! Later that evening, we looked through my pictures from being abroad and Mary's pictures from her trip to Spain.

Berkeley Day 1

I arrived at the Oakland airport on Friday night at about 7:30. Mary and her boyfriend, Jakob, picked me up at the airport and then we headed to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Then we headed to Mary's house to have desert. It was so much fun to just sit and catch up after not seeing her for almost three years.

PASS!

I passed my first licensing board, USMLE Step 1. As usual, I'm not 100% pleased with my score, but I passed!!!! Goodbye USMLE Step 1, hello really becoming a doctor.

The Davenport Hotel Christmas Trees

On Sunday morning, I went to brunch with my parents, my aunt and uncle at the Davenport Tower. The food was great but the company was even better. After having a great breakfast, we headed over to the Davenport Hotel to look at the Christmas decorations and the charity Christmas trees that were up for auction on the second level.

Above: The giant, multi-story tree in the center of the hotel lobby

Below: Mom, Dad and me in front of the giant tree

Below are the pictures of the trees that are being auctioned for charity.

Above is a tree that has paper flowers on it and below there is a paper flower bouquet. The third picture is a close up of the paper flowers.

Here are the rest of the Christmas Trees:

The Lion King

On Saturday night, my friend Kelly and her husband Gabe invited me to join them to go to see Lion King at the Spokane Opera House. After leaving their beautiful little girl at home with her grandma, we headed to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. After dinner we headed downtown very early to ensure that we got parking. We had a few hours, so we headed to Zola for a glass of wine. Zola is a super cute and classy bar that has live music. Here is a picture:

Next, we headed to the Spokane Opera House for the show. Here is a picture of Kelly and I outside.

Here is the cool curtain that was hanging before the show.

This is a picture of us excited and waiting for the show.
Here is the program.

The show was amazing. I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but this was something else. I can't even describe who wonderful it was. The dancing, acting, singing, costumes, masks and puppets. I assume that the shows in Las Vegas and New York have even bigger ensemble cast, which would mean more beautiful animals. Even if the show is exactly the same, I'd love to see the show again. Click here for a link to pictures from The Lion King.

On Sunday, I went to breakfast with my parents, aunt and uncle at the Davenport Tower. They had some masks on display from the Lion King.

Above: Simba as an adult lion

Below: Zazu

Above: Scar (the evil uncle)

Below: Mufasa (Simba's Dad)

Friday Girls and Guy Night

Friday night I finally got to see my friend Rachel. We went to dinner at Europa in downtown Spokane for dinner. It was packed and the food was great, as usual. After having dinner, we wanted to go down to River Park Square to window shop. There was absolutely no parking: nothing on the streets nothing in the lots. While we were searching aimlessly, Rachel got a call from an old friend so we decided to meet him up north for desert and drinks. We had a great time and had lots of laughs.