22-Hr-Layover

After my amazing five months in Europe, it was finally time to go home. However, I had to get through a 38 hour journey before I arrived in my hometown of San Francisco. Now in case you didn't figure this out yourself, that is not a normal amount of time for a flight. That is because this journey wasn't a simple GVA-->SFO non-stop flight, but instead a Geneva-->Amsterdam-->Boston-->Minneapolis-->San Francisco adventure. Oh and did I mention that I had a 22 hour layover in Boston!?

Luckily, I have friends in Boston, including one of my best friends Rui who I hadn't seen for a year since we went abroad different semesters. So this ridiculously long flight home wasn't a complete pain in my butt, but was also a great opportunity for me to catch up with some friends. 

But it wasn't only a good opportunity to catch up with friends, but also a nice little opportunity to celebrate being 21 in America. I had turned 21 in April and had a little weekend trip to London. However, turning 21 in Europe is kind of a underwhelming experience. To start off my legal American drinking career, we met up with our friend Nicole, who had also just come back from abroad, and headed over to Boston (Rui was staying in a MIT frat house in Cambridge). 

After wandering around, we stumbled on this pretty nice bar with the prices to match the fancy ambiance. Unfortunately, Rui got this great idea to start chatting with these guys so they would buy us drinks. Even more unfortunately, these guys were not cute but rather old, creepy Arab men. So creepy in fact, that one of them asked me if I had ever been with an Arab man and if I would like to....Not particularly enjoying our conversation, I beelined for the bathroom and chatted with some girls as I pretended to fix my makeup. 

After Nicole had come to the bathroom for similar escaping tactics, we decided to leave and took a cab back to Cambridge. There, we met up with some friends Nicole had made in Costa Rica. Quickly, we realized that we had actually crashed a birthday party of some 27-year-old chick....we were most definitely the youngest people there. Somehow, we made friends with some of the guests and we headed over to an 'after-party' at an apartment close by. Mind you, I had just come back from Europe that very day so it was 2am and I woke up at 7am Switzerland time--that was almost 24 hours earlier. And where was I? I was in an apartment in Cambridge with a group of 26-28 year old grad students as I sipped on a cocktail. 

These are some pictures we took after we woke up at 7am (note the 5 hours of sleep) and got breakfast with our friend Suzie.  Harvard and MIT have the best campus housing, right by the river with amazing views. I can only imagine how much these buildings would go for if they weren't disgusting and covered with beer. 

So that's what I did during my layover in Boston. I guess you could say those 22 hours were pretty eventful. 

humid + airplane hair = not cute

Outfit--Shirt dress: Topshop, Flats: Banana Republic, Sunglasses: Banana Republic

Daydreaming About: Prints on Prints on Prints

Lately I've been just obsessed with patterns. Obviously, I turned to my favorite american stores to find the cutest patterned items, Madewell and J.Crew. Honestly, I've just been dreaming about buying some of their perfectly clean and chic clothing since I went abroad five months ago. Here's some things that caught my eye as I perused their websites this morning. Maybe I'll stop by after my haircut tomorrow?

A Day Trip to Napa

Apparently all I do these days is go wine tasting. For a person that admittedly doesn't have the most refined palette for wine, I find this slightly amusing. But as you know, during my last weekend in Geneva I went wine tasting and during my 22 hour layover in Boston I also had a quick wine tasting moment. So here I am my second full day back home and I'm in the Napa Valley wine tasting.
I went with my brother, my niece Malayah, and her mom MJ (who I've known since I was eight years old) to this winery in St Helena called V Sattui. The place was really nice and the lady who did our wine tasting was really nice and super funny. I was a little congested from allergies, which I think is why I liked the super fruity and girly wines more than usual that day. After tasting about 15 wines, my brother and MJ both bought a case of wine each.

 I was pretty hungary after consuming all that wine, since unlike my pretentious brother I did actually swallow all my wine. Luckily, the place that MJ chose had a picnic bbq area. MJ and my brother ordered quite a spread with oysters, bruschetta, shrimp, and pork ribs. We paired that with some white wine, a baguette of Acme bread, and a couple of cheeses we had tried at the cheese tasting. It all hit the spot as we sit in the warm Napa sun. 

It's been rather exciting being able to finally drink legally in America. Although I've been drinking in America for awhile now (I know, big shocker) and I've been drinking legally in Europe all semester, it still wasn't quite as exciting as my new power as a 21-year-old. So my first drink on the plane was a white wine, I went to a wine tasting and went out in my 22 hours in Boston, I had a mimosa after breakfast my first day in San Francisco, and then I went wine tasting yesterday. You know what that means? I just have to go out today or else I'll break my LEGAL streak! Tell you about it later. 

Higher Grounds

I spent my first night and day in my old neighborhood of Glen Park, where I grew up in San Francisco. After awakening at 5am and just lounging in bed for the next five hours, the crew (my brother, my niece and me) all headed down the hill to the 'village' to get breakfast. We went to my favorite breakfast spot when I was little, Higher Ground. Back in the day, I would just get a basic cheese omelette with a Mexican hot chocolate (you just add cinnamon), but these days I'm older and have a much more mature palette. So this time, I decided to actually try what Higher Grounds is known for: their savory crepes. I think the crepe I got was Alla Toscana? It has a large variety of cheeses, egg, and spinach. I rather enjoyed it. I also got a large fresh-squeezed orange juice that was only like $3, which I'm pretty sure is a good deal (or I'm still confused by Geneva prices)

I completely recommend Higher Grounds. Recently, Glen Park has been on the rise and the 'village' has gotten a bunch of snooty new restaurants and markets. But Higher Grounds has been around since I was little and Glen Park was still an area of the city people didn't know how to get to (no seriously, the amount of friends' parents that got lost dropping me off). So this isn't like those yuppie brunch spots that are littered around San Francisco (although don't get me wrong, I do love those). Instead, Higher Grounds is an authentic unpretentious family owned breakfast spot that will probably be around longer than all the new computer geeks who just moved into the neighborhood. What I should mention though is that because it's so authentic and unpretentious, They don't take credit cards and there's no wifi. So bring your cash and bring a book if you're planning on sticking around to enjoy the rustic ambiance.

After breakfast, we headed down a couple doors to pop into Chenery Park and say hi to the owner Joe. My brother automatically went to the bar and made us all some mimosas and we all chatted as they prepared for the graduation party that they were having that afternoon. Back in the day, Chenery Park used to be the fancy restaurant in the neighborhood. These days, it's pretty much at the same fancy level as every other restaurant in town besides the old chinese restaurant, mexican taqueria, and the diner. If I go back before I head back to the east coast, I'll snap some pics and tell you allll about it.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

My last weekend trip of my semester abroad was to Istanbul, Turkey. Although I don't think it's the traditional European destination, it was one of the main places I wanted to visit during my semester abroad. Apparently, the rest of the Geneva crew wanted to see it too because I went with a group of five other GSGers and two other groups had already gone for spring break. By the end of the semester, all of but one of us made a little trip to good ol' Constantinople.

Istanbul was so different from all the places I had been during the rest of the semester. The first two days reminded me of my summer in Jerusalem actually. It was pretty reminiscent of that summer when I went to the Grand Bazaar, the merchants were extremely aggressive, just like they were in the Old City of Jerusalem. Although, I didn't feel quite as unsafe as I occasionally did in the Old City. But I just think that's because it was constantly jam-packed, while the Old City had some empty corridors. Also, we had a guy this time. Sadly, that does make a difference sometimes.

Generally, my time in Istanbul was very enjoyable. I finally got to see the Hagia Sofia, which I had heard about since Western Civ at UHS.

We saw the beautiful mosaics of the Blue Mosque and got some pretty cute photos with our headscarves.

Ventured over to the largest mosque in Istanbul....

Wandered through the Grand Bazaar and bought plenty of presents for the family back home....

Ventured over to Asia for a quick stroll...

Watched some dervishes whirl...

Ate some kebabs...and then some more kebabs

Out of everything, I think one of the coolest experiences from our time in Istanbul was sleeping on the roof of our hostel. Our hostel was located in the old area of Istanbul, right by the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. So close in fact, that you could see the Hagia Sofia from the roof. It was so cool to wake up to the 5am call to prayer and then later watch the sunrise behind the Hagia Sofia.

Honey, I'm HOMEEE

I just got back to San Francisco last night. Although it's a beautiful 70 degrees outside, I'm mainly stuck inside because I came down with a cold during my 32 hour journey home from Geneva. I'll tell you about my last weeks in Geneva, my journey, and my quick stay at home later (maybe even today). 

I did have a little drive around the city, along the beach, through the presidio, etc to get back in the swing of driving. I really do love this city, and can't wait to recover and have some little San Francisco adventures.

This picture is from Tank Hill, which is down the block from my house. It's actually from a post I did way back in 2010!