It was time to go!

I hadn’t had the weeks of excitement building up to this trip, as I’d other stuff to ‘get past’ before we left.  With choir, Helena’s visit, Christmas etc the trip was upon me before I really knew what was happening.  It meant that when the excitement DID hit, I was like a kid at Christmas!

The alarm went off at 4.30am, neither of us managed to raise ourselves, so we snoozed until five.  En route to the airport, we had to pit-stop at Magz’s to pick up the charger for my net-book that we’d left there on Christmas day.

Once we hit George Bush Intercontinental, chaos struck.  All rhyme, reason and common sense had gone out the door! The place was hiving!! The queues were crazy, everyone was in the wrong queue, and, by the time we got through security, it was pretty much time to board, but, since we’d not eaten, we made a point of stopping and grabbing a grilled chicken wrap to share on-board.

The flight was ok, I slept for at least half of it.  I was sat next to a royal douche bag.  He was rude to the stewardesses, he had no concept of personal space and sat with his leg pretty much on top of mine and his elbow buried in my waist for the whole flight.  I should have taken the offer of an upgrade to First class that they extended prior to the flight.  I didn’t, however, cause they could only upgrade one of us – and I didn’t want that (aren’t I a nice wee wifey?!)

We landed at 11.20am, slightly earlier than scheduled.  However, the ‘ahead of time’ success didn’t last long.  Baggage took over 40 minutes, we were the only flight there (though they announced that ‘a number of flights arrived together’) and it took FOREVER to get our bags – so much for priority baggage!!

Trying to find the hire car place, wasn’t very intuitive.  It was poorly sign-posted (if there was a single sign), but when we got there, the guy at the desk was lovely.  He offered us a car upgrade (from a Sebring/Mitsubishi to a Chevy Camaro) for $15 a day, which my petrol headed hubby snatched up faster than I could say ‘what do you think?’  Thankfully, I did get to chose the colour, otherwise we’d have ended up cruising around San Fran in a bright yellow Chevy!! LOL!

While we were sorting out the car, a guy was walking back and forward to each of the car hire desks asking if they had a reservation in his name.  Turns out, he’d no idea where he’d reserved his car! LOL!

Got the car and hit the road, in search of food.  I don’t know where Californians eat, but holy crap it was hard to find somewhere to stop for lunch.  Thankfully, Lucy SatNav took us the more scenic route and we stopped at a Chilis in Livermore for a quick lunch.  I know, I know, Chilis isn’t exactly something ‘new’ since we live in the States, however, it was the best Chilis we’ve had in a long time, if not, ever.

From there it was an hour or so, on to a town called Stockton, where we dropped in on the Stockton Arena to see a friend of Col’s from home, who’d moved to California a few years ago.  He used to be a linesman for the Elite hockey league in the UK, so I knew him to see, but I’d never really chatted to him.

We found him sitting in the stands, sat and had a good long chat with him (where he offered to let us come and stay with him next time we were in town) before he had to go and referee a game (there was a kids tournament going on) and we were on the road again!

This time, another hour or so, took us to the State Capitol.  Now, those of you who have read this blog for a while, know that Col and I love State Capitol buildings, we try and factor them in to our trips if we happen to be nearby.

This one, Sacramento, California, makes our third one (after Austin, TX and Olympia, WA) and as Amber reminded me, we’ve not even done the Iowa Capitol and we’ve been there a bunch of times! LOL!

The place was decked out for the holidays, it was gorgeous, the architecture was lovely and we got in for a dander.

Most of the building, however, was offices and out-of-bounds to members of the public, not a whole lot to look at, unlike the other two Capitol buildings we’ve been to.  But it definitely had a good view, and looked lovely at night time!

Next up, we headed to Old Sacramento, where, I’d been told, was the place to check out if you’ve never been to Sacramento before.  It didn’t disappoint (other than shops started to close before we got there, so not everywhere was open).  It was very quaint and ‘olden style’ there were streets lined with a variety of shops.

We started in the Rocky Mountain chocolate shop, where we agonised over our selection and finally settled on a few pieces of chocolate.

Other places I enjoyed included the sock-shop (though, for me personally, $15 for a pair of socks is ridiculous!!) I DID however get a cheaper pair, slipper socks, with grippers on the bottom that’ll be good for our tiled/wooden floored house in Houston.

The Taffy Shop was pretty cool, I enjoyed looking around at all the flavours and really had to use some self control and discipline not to buy anything at all.

We also hit upon a ‘California shop’, where everything was 50% off, store-wide.  I came out with a magnet (we buy a magnet in each city we go to), a floppy swim-hat and a calorimetry wooly headband thing that I have barely taken off since!! Great shop!

It was definitely a nice dander, especially with all of the Christmas lights lit up etc.

Around 7.30pm, we met up with Twana and Devon.  For those of you who don’t know, Twana and I have known each other at least 6 years, we met on Livejournal, the same place I met Amber, Nikki, Nicky and many other friends.  But, I’d never met her before.

Today was the day! She lives in Sacramento and we decided to go out to diner together.  We went to a Mexican restaurant in Old Sacramento called, ‘La Terraza’.  The place was nice, though the server was the only guy on, he said they’d run out of chips and salsa (WTF!), he got our margarita order wrong (which, by the way was a HUGE freakin’ margarita) and, as such, we ended up with TWO ma-hooooosive margaritas at the table (guess that’s not such a bad thing that he got wrong) and he got Devon’s order wrong.  He DID however, let Twana steal me a glass (not the humongus glasses the margaritas came in, however, but a little brandy glass that I shall cherish forever! LOL!)

The food and drink (man, it was delicious drink!) was definitely overshaddowed by the fun and conversation we had with Twana and Devon.  We got along just as well in person as we have done online for all those years and I with we could have spent more time here, just to hang out with her!

I drank the majority of one of the margaritas all by my self.  UGH.  I ended up feeling sick (I even grabbed a sick-bag in the car, just in case) but after about 10 minutes of the wind blowing in my face, I was fine and the hour-long journey was quite enjoyable (except for the fact that the Chevy has blind spots the size of the moon!)

We arrived at the Double Tree hotel around 10.50pm.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the Double Tree, but the service here, was not the service I’ve come to expect from a DT hotel.  Both ladies at the desk were occupied, one was on the phone (then moved to a guy standing at her desk), the other, was dealing with a guy who was pricing rooms, then ran out to the car to talk to his wife, then came back, suggested a change, and got another quote before running out to the car again.  When the first lady had finished with both the phonecall and the guy at her desk, she just walked off, leaving us standing there, behind mister to-and-fro.  GRRR!

When we eventually got seen, she checked us in (giving us a King instead of two doubles), but she said an upgrade to Marina view would be an extra $20 a night – had we been spending a lot more time in the room, we’d have gone for it.  But not being around much to enjoy it, made it a waste of $60 – plus my cookie was cold.  NOT the DT standards I’m used to! LOL!

The room wasn’t bad, though the AC/Heating unit sounds like an engine blow-back when it kicks-in, making it difficult to sleep.

Parking may be free (which is why we stayed in Berkley and not in San Francisco – cause all hotels in SF charge for parking) but there’s no fridge, no microwave (which is pretty much standard for any hotel over 3 stars in the States), the breakfast buffet is overpriced, the walls are thin and, a big one, the internet isn’t free.  In an age of increasing free WiFi and most hotels that we’ve stayed in, in the US giving free internet, having to pay for internet was a bit crappy.

What made it WORSE, is that the $10 per day for internet, is that it’s PER COMPUTER, NOT per room!!! Are you friggin’ kidding me?!

And there ends my Double Tree rant, and our first day in California!