Sleepless in...

Source: art.com 

Did you know Seattle's nickname is the Emerald city? I always thought it was the rainy city, kinda like Chicago is the windy city. Anyway, Andy and I are back from our trip! We had a great time in Seattle, but came back more tired than when we left - our vacations are hardly ever relaxing. We packed our days with sightseeing, shopping, hiking, and hunting... apartment hunting that is!

Andy flew out about a month ago for a job interview and received an offer so it was time for me to go and give my stamp of approval. With the offer signed I can now officially say we're moving to Seattle!

Jamaica, Jamaica, ya mon!

So I've been back from Jamaica for about two weeks and am just now starting to feel caught up on everything. I had a good time in Jamaica, though I was really only there for two and a half days. Four students, including myself, and one doctor saw around 170 patients in Kingston. I got the chance to see a couple diseases I haven't seen back home which was pretty cool for me (less so for the patient, no doubt).

I wish I had lots of photos to share, but I didn't want to bring my camera since I knew I'd be busy and wouldn't be able to keep an eye on it while I was working. Hopefully I can get copies of the photos my friends took and share those later. Here's a photo I took with my phone from the plane right before my battery died - we took off over the water and had a great view of the mountains.

One of the reasons it's been a bit crazy since I got back is because Andy and I are planning a trip on short notice. I can't divulge when or where we'll be going just yet, but I will say it's the opposite extreme from Jamaica, in more ways than one.

Odds & Ends

I know I'm way behind in my posting, so here's a quick rundown of things I've been up to.

• I passed part 1 of the national board exam! They made some major changes to the exam content and format in response to a huge cheating scandal at one of the other schools last year. As a result, scores dropped 13% nationally, bringing the pass rate down to 72%. To say that I was relieved to find out I passed would be a huge understatement. Most grueling and stressful 2 days of my life! I'll be taking part 3 in October and part 2 in November of this year.

• Finals are over and I'm now officially in my fourth (and final!) year. I'm in clinic 5 days a week doing exams and vision therapy as part of my pediatrics rotation. 

• Made two trips to Orlando. Once for visiting family combined with a trip to Universal with friends and the second time to participate in Special Olympics doing eye exams.

• Andy and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. Woohoo! We did a photoshoot with our wedding photographers right before and got some nice up to date photos of us. 

• Just celebrated my 25th birthday this week. As I opened the door Andy blew a noisemaker in my face and Porter rushed up to greet me wearing a lei and a Happy Birthday hat! Andy had flowers waiting for me on my desk, along with some of my favorite treats. It was a very sweet surprise!

    

• Enjoyed brunch this morning with a few friends. We've been together everyday for the last 3 years of school and now we're all doing our own thing with externships so it's nice to get together and catch up from time to time.

• In less than two weeks I'm heading out to Jamaica, provided nothing comes up this time. *fingers crossed*

• I'm considering going on a graduation trip and am trying to think of places we could go. I'm kinda liking the idea of renting out a luxury villa in Thailand, but we'll see. 

Vacation, Day 10

Sunday, May 9th

We heard from numerous people that we chose the perfect week to visit San Francisco since it had been cold and rainy before our arrival. Most days were cool and crisp - perfect for wearing a light jacket during the day and layering up as the sun disappeared. On Sunday we woke up to a dreary looking sky and felt a few sprinkles as we got into our car to go to the airport so it seemed like a good time to head home.

We chose to visit California for two reasons. First, for a fun vacation and anniversary getaway, which it definitely was. The second reason we chose California was because it is one of the places Andy would like us to consider living and I didn't want to make such a big move without having ever been there myself.

All in all it was a great trip! I feel more comfortable about the idea of moving there now that I've visited. It's still far from home and expensive, but the weather is nice, the people seemed friendly, and I love that you can have the best of both worlds - beach and mountains within a few hours of each other. So, while I'm not saying that we will move to California, it is within the realm of possibilities.


Just for comparison, above are graphs of the monthly highs and lows, with our current locale on the left and San Francisco on the right. San Francisco gets about 10-20 degrees cooler in the winter, but even in the coolest months the lows are still well above freezing. In the summer, it gets to be in the 90s here (it's currently 91 degrees and I feel like I just opened the oven door when I step outside), but it's in the 70's there! Oh, what I would give for 70 degree weather right now!

Vacation, Day 9

Saturday May 8^th

Our last full day in San Francisco! We started the day with breakfast at Café de la presse (so good we had to go back). This time we split pancakes and French toast which was absolutely delicious!

From there we walked through part of China town.

On our way to Coit tower we realized how out of shape we are. We had to walk up a very steep road to get to the base of the 210 foot tower and by the time we made it there we were totally winded. However, the walk was well worth it.

 

Inside at the base of Coit tower are a number of murals done as part of the Public Works of Art Project.

 

An old fashioned manned elevator takes you to the top. From there a short spiral stairway leads to an outdoor rotunda with amazing views of the city.

Our next destination was Lombard Street, also known as the crookedest street in the world.

A charming house near Lombard Street.

From there we walked down to the Pier 39 area and rode a street car back to our hotel.

This was our view as we walked from Lombard Street towards the Pier, with Alcatraz in the distance.

A Segway tour group passed by. After all of the walking we did we were feeling a bit envious! 

Seeing the street cars pass by always made me laugh - they look so old that it makes me feel like I've gone back in time! Every car has the city where it was made stamped on the side. The one we rode on was made in Milan, Italy and it was packed! There were 2 rows of seats on either side of the aisle and 2 rows of people standing down the middle. 

And of course, no trip to San Francisco would be complete without a ride on one of the famous cable cars, which we boarded at the cable car turnaround right next to our hotel.

 

We hopped off at Mason Street and toured the cable car powerhouse and museum which was very interesting. Inside, the winding wheels can be seen pulling the cables along their tracks.

The cables for each of the 3 lines are pulled along continuously. If one of the strands in the wire becomes frayed an alarm sounds and that night they must cut out the damaged part and splice in new wire. They have a window of a few hours each night in which they can make repairs to the lines.

We tried nearly every means of transportation while we were in the city: subway, taxi, bus, street car, cable car, rental car, and towncar. And to say we did a lot of walking would be an understatement!

In the evening we took a 45 minute bus ride to Twin Peaks and took photos. From the top of the hill the wind was so strong that we had to hold onto everything to prevent it from blowing away. Our new, lightweight tripod, while perfect for carrying around, was no match for the wind and most of our photos came out a bit blurry. In addition to the strong wind, the temperature had to be in the 30's. As a true Floridian I was wearing thick socks, leggings under my jeans, tank top, long sleeved shirt, 2 jackets, mittens, and a scarf and I was still cold!

Where I'm At

I'm in the process of finishing up my last post about our vacation and hope to have that done within the next couple of days so keep an eye out for that! Tweaking the photos in photoshop, resizing, uploading, and aligning everything is the time consuming part of things.

In other news, I will finally be able to take down the "Coming Soon" sign that you see when you click on that little DIY link at the top of this blog since I finally finished the DIY project I've been working on for the last month or so. Phew! Naive me thought I would have it done in a weekend! Maybe if I had properly done my research I would have, but I'm more of a dive right in type of gal. Now I just need to take the after photos and write it up! Annnd...I've already got another DIY project in mind, but no promises as to when I'll get started with that. 

And on a sadder note, my trip to Jamaica has been cancelled! I was really looking forward to going, but there were safety concerns due to the current violence that's going on in Kingston. There's still a possibility that we may go later, once the violence has died down, but it's still up in the air. The upside to all of this is that it frees me up to possibly go with Andy to visit some of his family out of state. (Andy and I have known each other for 9 years now - we started dating over 5 years ago and have been married 1 year and there are still a lot of family members I have yet to meet! Can you believe that?)

Vacation, Day 8

Friday May 7^th

Most of our day was spent exploring Golden Gate Park, which spans more than 1,000 acres and is 20% larger than New York City's Central Park. It's so large that we only managed to see a small fraction of it during the time that we were there.

One of the first things we did was walk through the Japanese Tea Garden, which Andy had really been looking forward too. It was nice, but Andy left a bit disappointed. We had to pay to get in to the Tea Garden (the rest of the park is free) and it didn't seem to be worth the money.

Here we are standing in front of one of the miniature trees.

Then it was off to my pick - the Rose Garden, where I snapped tons of photos. There were so many beautiful varieties! One thing I noticed during our time in San Francisco was that roses are very popular there. I was always stopping to admire the large, beautiful blooms.

Then we headed across the street to the Botanical Gardens, where were just in time for a walking tour. The tour was wonderful - the guide was very friendly and told us many interesting things along the way. (It was what we were expecting to get on our tour of the Palace of Fine Arts)

For dinner we went to New Delhi, and Indian restaurant just down the block from our hotel and afterwards we indulged in desert from Coldstone. The Coldstone was right next to our hotel and the sweet smell of freshly made sugar cones was too much to pass up!

Vacation, Day 7

Thursday May 6^th

We spent our afternoon driving back to San Francisco, with a little detour through Berkeley along the way. We drove up a very steep hill hoping to see some of the best homes. The houses that we saw had great views, but most were very close together and minimal parking meant that many cars had to park along the already narrow streets, sometimes parking on both sides and only leaving enough room for one car to pass. Our impression was that it's a charming, but a crowded and overly expensive place to live.

On our way back into San Francisco we drove across Bay Bridge. At one point the road was 10 lanes wide (all in the same direction). After checking into our hotel we walked to Miette, an adorable French themed candy shop (although their sweets come from many different countries), where we picked up a number of tasty treats, including macarons, chocolates, caramels, and salty licorice. The store was so cute that I actually busted out the camera...

Those sardines are really chocolates! Adorable!


Mast Brothers Chocolate - had to buy one of those! Apparently the flavor Andy bought was salty.


These cute cookies matched the wallpaper (see below).




Graham cracker, Gingersnap, and Chocolate Wafer cookies.


Pastel colored malt balls.


Macarons, gumballs, jellybeans, and more!

Unfortunately I didn't get a photo, but Andy also got some chocolates that looked like little pebbles. It's a really good thing that I don't like chocolate because everything looked so good I'm sure I would have wanted to try one of everything!

In keeping with the French theme we walked around the corner to The Crepe House where we had crepes for dessert. After being on the go for so long we decided to take it easy and spend the rest of the night in, resting our tired feet and enjoying a movie.

Vacation, Day 6

Wednesday May 5^th

We left Fresno in the morning and headed out to Yosemite National Park. The park itself was beautiful, but overcrowded and it wasn't even the peak of the season when we were there. Our first stop was at tunnel view, where you can see El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Falls.

After that we went on a hike along Mist Trail. We made it close enough to the waterfall to get a little wet, but after seeing that everyone walking back was drenched we decided that we had gone far enough.

We debated going on another short trail, but with the sun behind the mountains already we thought it might get too cold. On the drive to our hotel in Mariposa we came across an area where there had been a rock slide which left the road completely covered and impassable. A street light was set up to allow alternating one way traffic across a nearby bridge as a detour. After seeing signs warning about the possibility of rock slides the previous days I was shocked to see how much damage could be done. 

Vacation, Day 5

Sorry for my lack of posting this week. I was preparing for seeing my very first patients. I could go into all the interesting things I saw, but my guess is no one would have a clue what I'm talking about or even care. In a nutshell, I have glaucoma service on Tuesdays so I see only patients that have glaucoma or are at risk for developing it. However, most of these patients are older and have other things going on with their eyes as well so it can definitely be a challenge. Fridays I see "regular" patients, although they can come in with anything, including glaucoma as one of my patients did yesterday. Thankfully I survived my first week, woohoo! Now, back to the story...


Tuesday May 4^th

Andy woke up to a very unpleasant surprise - a tick latched onto his side! (You'll be glad to know I don't have any pictures to share) I tried to remove it, which involved lots of squealing and shrieking in disgust, but I was only partially successful in my endeavors. We spent two hours waiting at a walk in clinic to get the remainder of the nasty parasite removed and to get prophylactic antibiotics for Lyme disease. Since we missed our continental breakfast at the hotel (which Andy had been very much looking forward too) we grabbed a quick lunch at Rally’s, an equivalent to Checkers (hard to believe we still had an appetite after all that!).

We set out to Sequoia National Forest which involved another very windy drive through steep mountains.

I pulled over at the first sight of snow along the side of the road so we could get out and play. I was totally excited, even for this small amount. As we continued to drive up the mountain the snow went from a few inches to a few feet!


I didn't see snow until I was 20 and even then it wasn't much so I had to get out and frolic some more.

Andy took this photo as I was driving so it's a bit blurry, but if you look on the left it gives you an idea just how much snow there was.

 Part of a fence post and a sign peeking out of the snow.

A stream running through the trees.

Here we are standing in front of General Sherman, the largest tree in the world. It stands 275 feet tall and the diameter at it's base measures 36.5 feet! It's estimated to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.


We wanted to go to Moro Rock, but it was still closed due to the snow. Instead we went for a short hike and came across some deer. We also saw a brown bear, but didn't get close enough to get a shot like this!

This was a beautiful spot so we hung out here until the sun set.