If you're going to San Francisco...

To say that I had a great Halloween weekend would be a drastic understatement - it was a fantastic weekend. My roommate Alissa and I, along with another JV from a different LA house, made the 6-hour journey up to San Francisco for the weekend. And boy did we make the most of it!

We spent all of Thursday night driving and most of Friday morning catching up on sleep. But once we roused ourselves out of bed, we put on our tourist caps and ventured out into the city. We stopped by Pier 39, where we watched the sea lions as they barked at each other and flopped around on bobbing docks in the water. Though it was foggy, we caught a few glimpses of Alacatrez and even saw the outline of the Golden Gate Bridge from where we were. I think we may have even passed by Jon Heder (the guy who plays Napoleon Dynamite) as we made our way through Fisherman's Wharf to explore more of the area.

Our meter was about to expire, so the three of us climbed into the red Toyota Paseo we borrowed from DM and started driving toward the Golden Gate Bridge. We didn't intend to actually cross it but one thing led to another and soon we were flying through the toll booths (it costs $6 to get back into the city via the bridge! Six dollars!) and beginning our love affair with that famous red suspension bridge. We were sure to make the most of our time on the other side - took tons of "glamour" shots with her and then drove up into the Marin Headlands where we basked in an incredible view of the whole city.

It was amazing, but you can only stare at a bridge for so long before it loses its allure, so we ventured back to the city. We had justified the $6 toll by this time: Really, it only cost us $2 a person to see this famous piece of architecture and it was worth it. As we crept forward in the toll booth line, we gathered our fee, and proudly presented it to the toll booth operator who pointed to the star on his shirt and waved us through. Without taking our $6. The day couldn't have gotten much better!

After a bit of a rest and some dinner (delicious Pakistani/Indian food in the Mission part of SF), all 10 of us (the 3 of us from LA and then the JVs we were staying with) put our costumes on and headed out to join the celebration!

And a celebration it was indeed. I was dressed as an "oxymoron" (I wore a sign that had the word "oxy" and then a picture of G.W.), and at first I was a bit nervous about such a politically charged costume, but the people of SF are FANTASTIC and it was a HUGE hit! It was a lot of fun to pass someone on the street and a few seconds later have them yell out "OXYMORON!"

I passed lots of interesting characters on the street myself. Captain Jack Sparrow; Aladdin; Barack Obama; a guy dressed up like a baseball player from the movie 'The Warriors'; a mormon or two; lots of men running around in their underwear...or less (did I mention we wandered around the gay district most of the night?)

After another day of recovery on Saturday, we headed over to the JV house in San Jose and hung out with them for a while. As the evening neared, we geared up for Round 2: Halloween at the Haunted Convent. The JVs who live in San Jose had planned a huge party for anyone and everyone who wanted to come, and they had a great turn out. I don't doubt that some of the people who showed up are still recovering from it today!

Sunday was a pretty chill day - we woke up, ate delicious m&m pancakes for breakfast, shot the breeze for a bit, stuffed ourselves back into the Paseo and ventured home.

Overall, a VERY successful weekend. And I'm looking forward to this coming weekend, when I can stay home, go to bed early and watch lots of movies. Or something like that ;)