Early birthday present for Brendan...

So I bought these clocks at Target to make an early birthday present for Brendan, and added the city/ country names.

They say: San Fran, New York, India and Aotearoa. The reason for these particular places is that Brendan has colleagues in New York and India, with whom he has 5am meetings every morning, and we are forever having to calculate time between NZ and here. So it's useful. Brendan also wanted London, but we ran out of black clocks.

Also, I ran out of 'N's to make "Wellington", and I thought "Welly" was probably too casual.

Brendan loves them - they're already on the wall. I should mention that his birthday is actually in July.

The Coastal Highway and windy roads...

On Saturday we went for a drive out to Half Moon Bay, along the Coastal Highway and down to Pescadero Beach, coming back across the mountains. With our trusty Google driving directions, guidebook, camera and 'exploring hats' on, we headed first to Half Moon Bay sharing a winding road with (what felt like) half of San Francisco. (And then we had BK for lunch - see the post below.)


Side note: Thanks so much to my ex-colleagues at the Commerce Commission for this guidebook - we have used it many, many times and it's helped us a lot. I anticipate it will be even more helpful when we go on our honeymoon. :) So thanks once again, it was a fantastic gift.

The beach cost $6 to park for the day, and was packed with families enjoying a day on the beach. But it was foggy along the entire coast - very foggy. So what had been a brilliant day here in San Jose quickly turned into a slightly cold, sticky grey one. The sand was a beautiful yellow colour, and huge waves crashed on the shoreline. We walked along the beach and played chicken with the waves. Brendan decided it would be funny to push me right as a wave came! But several times we both had to run away before he got wet feet from rouge waves!


Next, we drove to San Gregorio Beach, and wandered around at the parking area there - it was quite pretty. We watched a guy performing an improptu singing concert in German, while people videoed. A plaque commemorated a Spanish explorer in the 18th Century who had camped at this beach, lost and looking for Santa Cruz Bay. Instead, as the plaque wryly stated, he found San Francisco Bay!



We continued on down the road, passing miles and miles of gorgeous hidden beaches. Eventually we arrived at Pescadero Beach. This beach had a remarkably different feel to it - it had rocks smoothed and rounded by the sea instead of the fine soft sand of Half Moon Bay. A rocky point extended into the sea.



A fisherman stood at one end, where the waves crashed into the rocks around him. Suddenly, a large wave broke over him up to his waist, almost sweeping him off the rock - dangerous! He quickly moved to higher ground. So many fishermen (and women) in NZ have been drowned at places like Castlepoint for just this reason.

The township of Pescadero itself was a tiny village with church, post office, oversized American flag and a few shops. Very cute.

We drove on, further into the mountains. As we climbed, the road became more and more narrow and winding, so much that I half expected it to end around any corner (or for us to meet someone coming the other way!) The trees started to grow hanging lichen and moss, and the fog closed in around us.

Finally we turned right at Alpine Road - even more narrow, extremely windy and one-lane in most places. Was this really where we were supposed to go? I checked the Google directions several times, but here we were, going right at Alpine Road. So we shrugged and continued on.

When we got to the top of the ridge, the sun started shining again and the fog cleared, since it was above the hill level. The forest turned to tall yellow grass waving in the sun. Further away, a bank of fog literally poured over the lower mountains. It moved slowly, much like a river of cream.

We stopped for a break at a small "open space" park at the top of a hill. Signs warned of rattlesnakes and mountain lions - I kept watching by my feet carefully for movement, and in the surrounding bushes. I don't particularly want to meet another mountain lion.


We felt increasingly lost as we continued on the road, since the directions given were slightly different in one or two crucial places. Were we ever going to find the right way back to Palo Alto?

Finally we found a sign which pointed that way, and gratefully followed it back to the 280 Freeway. (Everything in the US is navigated by which freeway(s) it's near.) Coming back down the mountains, we saw a great view of San Jose and the surrounding area. It always has a haze over it, though. I do notice that about NZ - there's no washed-out haze of pollution most days.

The link to our webshots page for the full album is here.

On the downside, I suspect our CV joints are going. Geoff says we can leave it for a while cos it won't break - any other thoughts?

Hummingbirds....

As I walked back from church today, tired and hot and needing a nap, I heard a small "vit! Vit!" noise at the road entrance to our apartment complex. Looking around, I spied a tiny hummingbird perched on a palm tree.

Normally hummingbirds are zipping around all the time, like a four year-old sans Ritalin. This one was just sitting on the palm leaf. I watched it for a bit. It didn't move. This was surprising - perhaps I could get a photo. I hastily fumbled in my bag for my little camera and took several photos. The hummingbird just sat there on its branch, unconcerned.

But I was getting tired again and really needed my nap. I walked back home and grabbed Brendan and the big camera on the tiny chance that the hummingbird would still be there. I didn't have much hope - for one to stay still-ish for ten minutes is nothing short of a miracle.

So I fully didn't expect it to be still there 5 minutes later. I walked very close to the tree, and it seemed unconcerned while I snapped photos. Eventually it started flying in circuits - from the palm tree to the tree across the footpath, then to another palm tree, then back to the first, several times. It moved so fast I could hardly follow it with the camera, making its "Vit! Vit!" sound. It had a dark olive-green /brown body and a red head, but another we saw by the gym didn't. So maybe it was the male one, I think it's an "Anna's Hummingbird" species.
The rest of the photos of it from our webshots album are here.

The BK Post

We finally went to BK (Burger King) in the US, and snapped a few photos for the benefit of those who love it most (i.e. Geoff). They do have some pretty mean stuff going on, take a look.

Burger King, Half-Moon Bay

The Basic Menu

The new BK Stacker

Drink Guides for the Soda Connoisseur

The Meal


Other Random Photos

My work permit is here....

I am seriously impressed. It arrived in the mail this morning.

American food....

We're having a week of "American cooking" using only American recipes. We just got back from Albertsons supermarket tonight, having bought all the ingredients. It was much more expensive even buying the generic versions of the food. We also bought a lot more than we normally would in a week, just to make the dinners. And this doesn't count breakfasts or lunches. And I haven't even been to the markets yet!

Will go and try out this ridiculously-bad-for-you American dessert which is like a frozen chocolate mousse - the main ingredient is something called "Cool Whip". As far as I can make out, "Cool Whip" is an all-purpose concoction of vegetable oil and sugar and a few other unhealthy ingredients all 'whipped' together with air to make fluffy white stuff not unlike whipped cream. Americans use it to make icing for cakes, chocolate mousse, and any other time you need something with lots of puffy volume and no substance. The main annoying thing about the recipe is that there is no way to substitute more healthy ingredients for any of it: it all comes from packets. To be precise, the ingredients are: 1 packet Oreos, 2 packets "Instant pudding and pie filling", and 2 cups "Cool Whip". What's even in these things?!

I'm also making watermelon sorbet with half a watermelon. Now that is much healthier.

There is a lot more I could say on American food, but that's another post, as Fia knows. This is only a short comment.

Other happenings... like Memorial Weekend

Went to see Shrek Three the other day with Alex and others from his flat. Good movie. Recommended if you liked the other two.

Memorial Weekend here in the States which is a huge national holiday and a long weekend on Monday. Apparently the number of American flags outside houses increases hugely on this day. Trying to think of a way to take advantage of this - I thought it was ages away and we wanted to visit a friend in Arizona and go see the Grand Canyon. Everyone else has already gone away for the weekend. Alex is in LA, but we'll probably all go down together sometime to Disneyland etc. I want to go!

Our only other thing is that this weekend we need to take some time to stick to our polyphasic schedule, so we can't go too far or we'll end up (not) sleeping in the car again. Brendan's getting overly excited and wants to try the harder sleep phases, but I told him he's on his own for those! I found it enough of a struggle at times to be motivated enough to get up with a 3-hour core sleep - I couldn't imagine what not having one would do to my mood.

Problem is for some of the stuff we wanted to do this weekend, there will be vast crowds of people, no matter where we go. This rules out any of the theme parks or the more major tourist attractions around here. Maybe we should go up to San Francisco... I feel lonely. Brendan doesn't work with the rest of the interns, so he's also a bit isolated. He doesn't mind, though, compared to me. I wish Ida was here. Actually, I wish lots of people were here... come and blow $5k on a visit - I can guarantee you'll enjoy it!

We've decided to find a Toastmasters here to keep up our public speaking practice, since it's been so useful while we were in NZ. And also to meet some new people. We need to pick up all our hobbies again, which have been pushed aside while we sorted out our wedding.