Day 6 7/12/07 - USA

San Francisco -> Napa -> San Francisco

Highlight

• Breakfast at a “scone” (the American scone as opposed to the English “jam and scone” scone) place. The American muffin was moist and soft, but the scone were really disappointing.
• Tried the morning coffee at the hotel (not great), before heading to wait for my tour.
• Gray Line didn’t have a chip machine, so I couldn’t test out the theory of whether my Go pass was for 1 day or 5.
• There was quite a large group of more than 30 going for the tour. Our driver/tour guide had been doing this for over 45 years! He gave us a running commentary and lame jokes the whole way.
• Glorious blue skies, beautiful green running hills with orange vines.
• Stop 1: Napa Valley Visitor centre for tastings. Of note was an Orange Muscat.
• Stop 2: Drop people off at the wine train.
• Along the Silverado trail, to St Helena and Sutter Home estates. We couldn’t stop at a lot of places as they don’t take coaches…hehe, don’t want a big bunch of free loaders stopping off, I don’t blame them.
• Stop 3: Sutter Home – really cheap but really bad wine. I tasted 3 and then gave up.
• Stop 4: Yontville – home of yuppy and gourmet dining, including The French Laundry. I went back later to take pictures.
• Had lunch at the Bouchon bakery as I didn’t want to get too full for the party tonight. The restaurants sounded very appealing though.
• The pastries were wonderful, I enjoyed them in the garden of Bouchon with a Belgium couple who were doing some sort of religious study in Orlando. They were just complaining about the size of American meals the whole time.
• Walked around the shops, looking for shoes to got with my dress. There were lots of nice stuff on sale but they didn’t go with my dress.
• Stop 5: pick people up from the Wine Train.
• stop 6: Madonna Estate. Got a talk and cellar tour. The best thing was being taught how to taste wine (yeah I know I was told this before, but I can never remember…), so here it is: swirl, sniff, roll around, gulp air, taste, spit (if desired).
• The wine here were, finally, quite nice, but I didn’t buy anything as I didn’t really want to lug it.
• We got taught how to check the cork as well….but I can’t remember that already :p. Screw top is the future anyway.
• They had some cool wine opening gadgets on sale, but as we had already just invested in a bottle opener, and more because of the fact that we almost never drink any wine, I didn’t buy it.
• A long bus back, the traffic was not too bad.
• I did a mad dash around the Embacadero Centre to get stuff for the party.
• I needed metallic shoes, which were quite hard to find. If it had been black shoes I needed, I would’ve been done already. I found some I liked at Banana Republic but they couldn’t find the other shoe!
• Managed to pick up a pashmina and beaded bag at Georgino at 25% off only. I don’t think I’ve shopped that just in my life!
• More transport to City Hall. It was a bit strange to be all dressed up to go on public transport, but it was Christmas season, so people are probably used to it.
• The venue was excellent, it had been lit up by lots of different colour lights (haha, sure beats the drinks in a bar for HSBC). There were different rooms with different food and music. The best was the Mexican. The desserts selection was small and too sweet for my taste.
• Lined up to get photos taken. They put them against a background of snow and the Golden gate. We chatted to some interesting people while waiting in the line.
• I don’t know about the rest of the USA, but San Franciscans are definitely stylish and skinny! I thought it would be a pretty relaxing kind of party, but people were dressed really formally.
• Met Slokky’s workmates and his boss, and generally had a great time. It was freezing by the end of the night though, so my pashmina was money well spent.

Food

• Specialties breakfast:
  • cranberry and yoghurt muffin
  • mocha scone
  • blueberry and lemon scone
  • choc chip and yoghurt croissant
• Bouchon bakery lunch:
  • cream cheese danish with ginger
  • pistachio brioche
• BGI Christmas Party dinner:
  • cold cuts
  • olives, eggplant dip
  • bruschetta
  • pasta – ravioli, tagitelli
  • corn chips with salsa
  • mole with corn
  • pumpkin mash
  • country style stew
  • vegetable and salad
  • cranberry juice
  • chocolate, caramel and vanilla cupcakes
  • caramel slice
  • apple turnover
  • marinated mahi-mahi
  • candy bar