bopping around San Francisco

So on my first full day on the West Coast, we got up and ate breakfast my cousin cooked, we dashed out the door with a friend to catch the train to the bike shop, where we rented 2 bikes for those of us who are just temporarily in town, met up with another friend who biked there to meet us, and set off on a bike ride across San Francisco and to the Golden Gate Bridge! which we crossed. Then we biked doooooooown the hill and found a place to park and lock our bikes, with some difficulty, and sat down to a delicious lunch which was more or less seafood for all of us. Then we went back to take the ferry back across the ferry... I mean across the bay, guess I am a little sleepy. But apparently we needed tokens and tickets to get on the ferry and there was not time to get that hour's ferry. So we got ourselves tokens and tickets for the next one and then went and sat in a little restaurant place and got something to drink and sat and chatted and bonded for a while. Oh yes, after locking up our bikes before that. so then we went and picked up our bikes again and waited in line for the ferry! And we got on it and enjoyed a nice chilly super windy ride. When we got back we rode our bikes through downtown traffic to my cousin's office because we had to wait for the next train. Oh yikes, that ride was a little interesting. Then we hung out in the office and warmed up for a while. that office is AMAZING! nothing like the cubeville I am used to. when we left, we said goodbye to one of our friends and then it was the four of us walking back to the train station. Well I said something, joking, about racing. Two of us had bikes, two of us didn't - me and the friend. The friend seemed to think I was mostly serious and that started me running and then we both started running breakneck down the sidewalk, then we were just about ready to slow down when my cousin and his wife on bikes started passing us! So we ran again really hard and just managed to run into the train station ahead. We were very excited about that. Hahaha!! These little impromptu adventures... Then we took the train, then we got home, the friend left to go to another even he needed to attend, and I and my cousins went out to a VERY cool Mongolian restaurant (are you reading this Derek??)  where you have a hot plate in the middle of the table and a pan of broth there, kept at a rolling boil, and you order different kinds of meat and vegetables and other things that you want, and you take pieces of them and dip or leave them in the hot broth to cook for a minute or two, then eat them... totally new incredible experience! I have to learn how to do that. Probably not hard, just takes some prep. If you ever get the chance to have Shabu Shabu (i think that's what it's called), please do.

And now we're back home chilling, Natalie and I are watching the first part of a movie (Little Miss Sunshine),, and I should really go to bed. It is 12:40 here and 3:40 Indiana time. Yikes! But a very fun day. Tomorrow should be more relaxing, although, I would totally take another day like this.