This was supposed to be summer!
We arrived in the Bay area in the afternoon and were in our Prius driving across a fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge in about an hour. It was quite spectacular - even though we felt we were being frozen in the mist tumbling down the Marin headlands. The girls had their first experience of Summer in Mark Twain's city - and Anahita was moved to ask: 'just how cold is it in Winter?'.
The weather did not improve - averaging about 55-60 and no sun for the entire time! So we had to visit Gap to get something warm to wear. Day 2 included walking round the City, taking the cable car up and down the hills and visiting SF MoMA. We saw 2 fabulous exhibits: Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe, and Richard Avedon. Both were spectacular. Katayoun especially enjoyed seeing the photos of 'The Beatles' - she is a real 'fab four' fan.
Nina loved O'Keefe's flowers and landscapes. landscapes and seeing Avedon's portraits. We also visited the specacularly beautiful De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park where we saw the King Tut artefacts and some really lovely Oceanic art (we recommend this one). We had a spectacular trip to see the coastal Redwoods South of San Francisco. These aren't the giant sequoias in Yosemite but they equal them in height and age. We saw a redwood slice that was over 2000 years old! And had a wonderful tour round 2-300-oold trees given by a lovely Docent called Anita. The girls were able to climb inside one of the tree trunks and we even saw a family of redwoods where the trunks had fused together.
Like all our other destinations, we also got to see family and friends. Alessandro (AKA Eskandar) had a reunion with friends from his elementary school in Tehran - we saw Steven, Ramin, Shahram, Nadereh and their children. Beatrice and Ramin were great hosts, both welcoming us and cooking magnificent Persian food. Hard to believe that these guys are in contact since they were only 6 years old.
We also saw Nina's sister Gulshan and brother-in-law Michael in Los Altos.The girls loved the pool and garden and we had our absolutely favourite meal - Michael's flank-steak ( a recipe perfected over 40 years), plus peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and beans from the Garden. we went back for a repeat visit the next day....it was nice to visit home from home and to give Gulshan her early birthday present.
We had some culinary highlights beyond the flank steak. Vietnamese lunch at The Slanted Door - now relocated from small Mission Hill origins to the Embarcadero with a drop-dead view of the Bay Bridge. The shaking beef and cellophane noodles with crab were fabulous and we had a super Riesling with lunch. Our second trip to visit Gulshan and Michael involved dinner at The Red Crane in Cupertino. If you find yourself in the area, you must visit - we really enjoyed the Hamachi, crab rolls, fried tofu banana blossom and crab salad and black cod. The girls had seconds of everything and Alessandro and Gulshan ordered everything that went past. Note to self: restaurants in strip malls in the Valley can have very good food.....
Off to Hawaii - turns out to be an even ore fun trip now that American Airlines upgraded us to First.....