![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Leeds is back to feeling as familiar as an old sock today (there's nothing like grey and gloomy skies to smack you round the head with a dose of mundane reality) and the other head-things are in the realms of Doing Things rather than talking about them. So, in the absence of anything else, back to snippets of California...
The right wrong Italian
One of the reasons my brother chose to live in Mountain View is that it's got the closest thing you can get to a European style town centre within the San Franciscan urban sprawl, with shops and restaurants all sat in the open on the streets instead of huddling together in the safety of a mall. In fact, the vast majority are eating places, making it easy to find somewhere to grab a meal, but harder to track down the specific Italian Mum and Dad remembered visiting the previous year. In the end we failed completely to find it, but accidentally discovered an even nicer one. (I jotted this heading down mainly because I meant to make a note of the name for next time Mum and Dad visit, but I forgot.)
Salsa verde
And yet more food places. Hobee's is Gavin's favourite breakfast spot, and ever since my first visit it's been mine too. Not only do they serve salad AND cake with breakfast, but they also create the kind of throw-everything-in-in-bizarre-combinations omelettes and scrambles that I cook myself. (And of course, there's always tabasco.) So we descended on the place for a very late Father's Day breakfast. Every time I go I discover a new favourite, this time it was an omelette covered in a green sauce that was somewhere between a salsa verde and a chili verde and either way was delicious.
Sanctuary
I knew Shoreline Amphitheatre mostly as the location of the arena where I got totally and utterly drenched during a concert the previous year. But it turns out there's also quite an impressive park there, with a lake, and a big wildlife sanctuary along the edge of the bay. (For some reason, there were also people wandering round dressed in Victorian clothing.) Went for a wander with the camera in the sanctuary bit, snapping pictures of empty dunes and flocks of large, unidentified birds, and felt a million miles from anywhere, even though San Francisco proper was just the other side of the bay.
Sweet red beans
Met Alice's family for the first time, and they took us for a meal at one of their favourite Chinese restaurants. (And we're back to food again.) It was strange seeing the difference between the two generations - while her parents are completely fluent in English they still speak Taiwanese at home, and had a beautiful genteel reserve, whereas Alive and her sister are loud and bouncy and Californian through and through. (Alice did study Mandarin though, which could be quite useful as it's one of the languages on my list... need to get webcam set up so I can chat to her. Although admittedly that's less to do with language and more because it's the sacred duty of big sisters to gang up with girlfriends against their little brothers!) Anyway, had lots of fun working out what were genuinely new dishes and what were old familiar ones called by different names. One genuinely new experience was the red bean soup, which is served sweet, for a desert. It's quite a strange taste, but not unpleasant, but most importantly it's a strong memory - whenever I think 'red bean' I can taste it on my tongue, and perfectly picture everyone sat around the table.
Logic explosion
That same day was also the 4th of July, which is apparently a big deal to colonial types. There were massive all-singing all-dancing events happening around the city (and in Shoreline Park) but we ended up trekking along to a local firework display in Cuppertino Park. So instead of an all-American extravaganza, the experience was strangely like the Bonfire Nights when I was young, with clumps of people in wellies and scarves waving sparklers around and eating hotdogs. There was a very small brass band playing the Stars and Stripes, though, and the display seemed to go on for longer, with a definite red, white and blue theme running throughout (sometimes all within the same firework). My brother and I were trying to work out how many ignition stages the more complex ones must need, and concluded that all fireworks can be defined as 'blowing things up in a logical manner'.
Smiley face
There were also fireworks that painted big smiley faces across the sky. (Blowing things up in a cheerfully logical manner.)
[previous] [next]
The right wrong Italian
One of the reasons my brother chose to live in Mountain View is that it's got the closest thing you can get to a European style town centre within the San Franciscan urban sprawl, with shops and restaurants all sat in the open on the streets instead of huddling together in the safety of a mall. In fact, the vast majority are eating places, making it easy to find somewhere to grab a meal, but harder to track down the specific Italian Mum and Dad remembered visiting the previous year. In the end we failed completely to find it, but accidentally discovered an even nicer one. (I jotted this heading down mainly because I meant to make a note of the name for next time Mum and Dad visit, but I forgot.)
Salsa verde
And yet more food places. Hobee's is Gavin's favourite breakfast spot, and ever since my first visit it's been mine too. Not only do they serve salad AND cake with breakfast, but they also create the kind of throw-everything-in-in-bizarre-combinations omelettes and scrambles that I cook myself. (And of course, there's always tabasco.) So we descended on the place for a very late Father's Day breakfast. Every time I go I discover a new favourite, this time it was an omelette covered in a green sauce that was somewhere between a salsa verde and a chili verde and either way was delicious.
Sanctuary
I knew Shoreline Amphitheatre mostly as the location of the arena where I got totally and utterly drenched during a concert the previous year. But it turns out there's also quite an impressive park there, with a lake, and a big wildlife sanctuary along the edge of the bay. (For some reason, there were also people wandering round dressed in Victorian clothing.) Went for a wander with the camera in the sanctuary bit, snapping pictures of empty dunes and flocks of large, unidentified birds, and felt a million miles from anywhere, even though San Francisco proper was just the other side of the bay.
Sweet red beans
Met Alice's family for the first time, and they took us for a meal at one of their favourite Chinese restaurants. (And we're back to food again.) It was strange seeing the difference between the two generations - while her parents are completely fluent in English they still speak Taiwanese at home, and had a beautiful genteel reserve, whereas Alive and her sister are loud and bouncy and Californian through and through. (Alice did study Mandarin though, which could be quite useful as it's one of the languages on my list... need to get webcam set up so I can chat to her. Although admittedly that's less to do with language and more because it's the sacred duty of big sisters to gang up with girlfriends against their little brothers!) Anyway, had lots of fun working out what were genuinely new dishes and what were old familiar ones called by different names. One genuinely new experience was the red bean soup, which is served sweet, for a desert. It's quite a strange taste, but not unpleasant, but most importantly it's a strong memory - whenever I think 'red bean' I can taste it on my tongue, and perfectly picture everyone sat around the table.
Logic explosion
That same day was also the 4th of July, which is apparently a big deal to colonial types. There were massive all-singing all-dancing events happening around the city (and in Shoreline Park) but we ended up trekking along to a local firework display in Cuppertino Park. So instead of an all-American extravaganza, the experience was strangely like the Bonfire Nights when I was young, with clumps of people in wellies and scarves waving sparklers around and eating hotdogs. There was a very small brass band playing the Stars and Stripes, though, and the display seemed to go on for longer, with a definite red, white and blue theme running throughout (sometimes all within the same firework). My brother and I were trying to work out how many ignition stages the more complex ones must need, and concluded that all fireworks can be defined as 'blowing things up in a logical manner'.
Smiley face
There were also fireworks that painted big smiley faces across the sky. (Blowing things up in a cheerfully logical manner.)
[previous] [next]
