the matt + margaret project: Road Trip Part IV: Sunnyvale/San Francisco

So back to our trip...we finally got back to Sunnyvale on Sunday around 1ish. We figured out that I have Directv at my house, which means I don't get the local channel that plays the Giants baseball games, so we decided to go to a bar. We drove to downtown Sunnyvale and found a place called Murphy's Law, which has happy hour all day on Sunday. Coincidentally, it was also the first real season game for the Niners, so the bar was packed. I officially love Murphy's Law...the TVs are HUGE, the drinks are cheap (I got a Guinness for five bucks), and everyone loves the Giants there. The only downside is that they don't serve food (but they do allow you to bring food in from outside). We hung and watched the game for a few hours with my friend David. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a camera, so instead I'll just post a picture of the Giants. We beat the Padres that day, 6-1.

via http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com

On Monday, we took my little brother Kery shopping to get new clothes for school. Seeing as how Matt is such a fashionista, I dragged him along to help us out. We hit up the Great Mall in Milpitas and started with Old Navy. Since Matt gets his 30% off discount there, we figured we could pick up a few basics from there. My brother ended up getting a few pair of jeans, a jacket, a thermal, a couple tshirts just from Old Navy...for only $75 bucks! It is so incredibly not fair how much cheaper it is buying clothes for guys than it is buy clothes for girls. He also picked up some tshirts from the Nike Store, where I got a Giants Hat and a Giants zip up hoodie (which you will see me wearing to the Giants game below) and Matt also picked up a Giants tshirt. We found my brother a fresh pair of kicks...and Matt got himself a new pair of moccasins. Matt and I also picked up matching black polos from the Polo store...try not to laugh at us if you see us wearing them together. Overall, I think it was a day well spent. You have no idea how much my mom appreciated us taking him shopping! Later that night, Matt and I used a groupon I bought to an Italian restaurant called Vaso Azzurro in downtown Mountain View. If you've never been to downtown MV, it's just about the cutest place ever with all these adorable restaurants. I love it there...it's great for date night! We ended up eating outside since it was so nice and Matt ordered a delicious chicken dish while I opted for a spaghetti dish. He also got to try a new beer, which I have forgotten the name of...but we all know how much Matt loves beer. Our meal was delicious, and I highly recommend this place if you are ever in the mood for Italian. We decided to skip dessert there and instead opted to get gelato from a popular gelato-ery called Classico Foods which has officially convinced me that gelato might be one of God's most awesome-est gifts to the world. Again, this place is also highly recommended by us. Afterwards, we called up my friends to see if any of them wanted to go bowling. There's a bowling alley right next to my high school (where coincidentally you could take a PE bowling class and just bowl during first period of high school every day). Only David responded, so the three of us headed over to Homestead Lanes. On Mondays, you can rent shoes and play a round for $2 each. We paid for 2 rounds each, 3 pairs of shoes, and a pitcher of Bud Light. Of course, I ended up losing every round, and I think that David crushed us. Matt ended up somewhere in the middle. As you can tell, I don't really plan on having a future in bowling. Overall, it was a successful night and very typical of Sunnyvale.

As you can tell, the night got progressively
darker until we were eating in the dark...

The next day, Tuesday, was our San Francisco day trip. This was the best day ever. Amber, Matt, David and I got on the Caltrain at 11:30 and arrived in San Francisco at 1:00. Since I had made a sign for the game, we had to lug it around San Francisco. Our first stop was Chinatown because we wanted cheap Chinese food for lunch and Matt wanted $2 tshirts. We walked from the train station to Chinatown, which took a good 30 minutes, so by the time we got there, we were starving. We picked the second place we passed called Snow Garden or something like that. I think secretly we all chose this place because it had orange walls! The lunch specials were decently cheap, about $7 bucks each and the food was yummy. Amber ordered egg rolls on top of her meal, which was an excellent choice! We all chowed down our food (except David, because it was his first meal of the day and he rarely eats very much for that first meal) and paid. I was a little irked to find out that gratuity was already added on our bill...what kind of place does that for lunch for only 4 people? Regardless, we decided it was time to shop! We stopped in this mega store that sold almost everything you would never need...like orange hair (wait til you see the picture of David's getup). We bought these poppers that you throw on the floor...they make a loud popping sound upon contact. The boys pretty much spent the rest of the day throwing them at our feet. We finally found a place that was selling tshirts for $1.88. That's insanely cheap. Amber and I each bought a "I heart SF" shirt while Matt bought 2 San Francisco shirts (that sort of have the Giants logo on them). After we finished shopping, we decided we would go bar hopping. After walking another half hour to get back onto 2nd street, we decided to stop in a bar called Steff's. They didn't have happy hour, but beers were only 5 bucks...so we figured why not? I'm glad we stopped here because they have free popcorn and free darts. It was definitely an older crowd, mostly guys who just got off work or guys who didn't work at all...seemed like a bunch of regulars. We each got a beer and chowed down on some popcorn (I would go to this place just for the free popcorn). The next bar we went to was an irish pub called Kate O'Brien's. Amber and Matt, in honor of the irish pub, got Guinness. It was Amber's first time drinking Guinness since Ireland!! I got a Boddington's, which is like a cream ale...delicious! It's like cream soda + beer. We decided to grab a snack here, since it was happy hour. Amber and I shared an order of potato nachos...we probably only ordered a snack because we wanted to know what the potato nachos were like. It turns out that it's just like regular nachos, except they use potato chips instead of tortilla chips. I think I'm going to start making my nachos like that! Matt got an order of wings, which turned out to be 3 wings total...slight disappointment. Next, we went to a thai restaurant called Ozone, because they had ten dollar pitchers of blue moon. We got a pitcher and some more food, since we didn't want to buy food at the game (which we definitely ended up doing). The food was yummy, and this place was packed with Giants fans, so it was a fun experience, but nothing spectacular. My favorite was a bar called 21st Amendment. In honor of the Giants game, they were having a beer garden in the alley. The beer garden just turned out to be an outdoor area where you could buy beer...not that exciting. What was exciting was the beer...they have watermelon beer! It's absolutely my new favorite beer now, and you get a slice of watermelon with it! It's like a wheat ale with watermelon flavoring. I highly recommend it. At 21st Amendment, we saw some people wearing Dodgers apparel....we really had to refrain ourselves from yelling mean things at them. By the time we finished our bar hopping, it was time to get to the park. Amber ended up buying an orange hat from an outdoor vendor...definitely pricy, but worth it! When we got inside, it was packed. I can't believe that there were people brave enough to wear Dodgers apparel. We definitely heckled some of them. David ended up buying orange socks, because he was freezing. Amber and I each got a hot dog, which was exponentially better than any hot dog I've had at Petco Park...but that could be my bias towards the Giants. Unfortunately, this was the first game against the Dodgers, and it was our only loss against them. Of course, as we were walking out, we were surrounded by Dodger fans, who tried to heckle us and make us feel bad...but when you've got an entire stadium on your side, it's hard to lose. Plus we just kept reminding them to look at the standings...and that we'd make sure to say hello to them from the playoffs. Gosh I just hate Dodger fans. On a side note, one of my professors told us that if anyone wore Dodger gear to class, he would kick them out...he's definitely my favorite professor!! Anyways, the game was exciting and Amber and I got to hold up my sign!! Speaking of which, I got so much free stuff because people saw that I had made a sign. Some guy at the Caltrain station gave me his lucky coin, because he said I would need it if I wanted Buster to marry me. The caltrain man, who checks your tickets, gave us Jolly Ranchers and Butterfingers because he saw that we were Giants fans. And when Matt and I went to pick up our tickets from the will-call, the ticket man gave me a free pin...Giants fans are the best people ever :) Overall, this was my favorite day of our entire trip. Good friends, good food, good beer, good baseball, and the best city in the world!!!