Mental Health Vacay

So that whole thing about needing to get away from school? Yeah, sometimes it's bad enough I need to leave the area entirely, haha

The weekend before last my mom and I took a girls' trip to San Francisco. It came up because of the California Council of the Blind conference, but we made a full trip out of it. I had half of Wed and all of Thurs and Fri off because my professors were going to a professional conference in Monterey, so Tad picked me up after clinic and stopped by Pick Up Stix for $0.25 wantons and lunch. Mom picked me up from the condo, and decided she needed some wantons as well. Thus we stopped by Pick Up Stix up by home and Borders.

I spent the night at home, and we flew up to San Fran Thurs morning. Since we arrived at our hotel (the Crowne Plaza in Burlingame) a couple hours before check in, I signed in for the convention, we shared a delicious salad in the hotel restaurant, and then we headed in to explore downtown Burlingame. Burlingame happens to be where my family lived when I was born. My dad was in his residency at UCSF and then we moved down to SD when I was 5 (just in time to start school).

We walked up and down Broadway Ave, looking at the different shops and restaurants, and stopped at a cute old-fashioned icecream and candy shop to sahre some rainbow sherbet.

Back at the hotel we had to wait a little longer for our room to be ready. We sat in the lobby and chatted with a fellow convention goer by the name of Sean. My mom was eager to talk to him because he has a dog from GDB as well: a coated German Shepherd by the name of Dupont. Dupont is about 3 times Valencia's size, and a very beautiful dog.

Once our room was ready, we dropped our stuff off and freshened up before going to a reception for the new president of Lighthouse for the Blind (Braille Institute equivalent for northern California). The reception was free, had hot hors d'oeuvres, and a free drink. I saw a few of the people I know from the CCLVI board, and we got free food :o) Following the reception, Mom and I went to a short concert by the California School for the Blind jazz band.

Since we had a late lunch and appetizers, we got clam chowder to go from the hotel restaurant for dinner. I worked on a it of homework, and then got to bed early.

Friday morning I went to the CCCLV session on audible traffic signals. It was interesting hearing about what has been done in San Francisco and working with the city. I worked on mor ehomework while Mom picked up a rental car. When she got back, we went for lunch at a neighborhood favorite breakfast/lunch place called Stacks. We split a delicious club sandwich. After lunch we hit the shops of Burlingame Ave. Mom got a few new items and I got a new shirt. We also stopped by the chocolate shop where Mom took me for my first outing when I was 3 days old.

We went back to the hotel to feed Valencia and freshen up before meeting friends for dinner. Linda dn Joe were friends of my parents from church when we lived up there. They have a daughter who's a little older than me and a son who's about a year younger. It was a fun visit. I remember their son, but was too little to really remember them. We had a nice visit over chips and salsa, and then lasagna and cheesecake for dessert. Back at the hotel, we watched a couple episodes of the Office and then got to bed.

Saturday morning was busy for me. I went to the Blind Students business meeting, and then slipped out early to go to the guide dog users meeting. They had instructors from several different guide dgo schools (including GDB) talking about dog attacks. After the meeting they had a luncheon and some raffles.

My friends Amy and Dave drove up after the luncheon to visit for the day. They hadn't eaten, so Mom and I took them to Stacks. We shared a "Jitterbug" smoothie (java and banana) and looked at Dave and Amy's wedding album. After lunch we walked up and down Burlingame Ave again and stopped by Baskin Robbin's. Now completely full, we went for a drive through Hillsborough and stopped to walk by the Crystal Springs Reservoir.

Dave and Amy went home around dinner time, which left Mom and me to do our own thing for dinner. We went to Hong Kong Flower Lounge, a Chinese restaurant that had been a favorite when we lived there. We shared kung pow chicken and a vegetable clay pot dish. It was delicious! We finished off the night by watching Four Christmases back at the hotel.

Sunday morning we inadvertently missed the devotional service because my alarm hadn't been set, oops. I went to the closing session of the conference. A little after that, Valencia's puppy raisers arrived to have lunch with us. I'll give you one guess where we took them, =D

That's right, Stacks! It was wonderful catching up with them. I'm so glad they got to see Valencia again. They had with them the current puppy they're raising, Kyra. They're a great family, I'm glad we've kept in touch.

After lunch, it was time for Mom and me to get to the airport and back to real life.

I had a great time. It was a lot of fun spending so much time with just my mom. It was also interesting, because there were a lot of Europeans at our hotel who were stranded because of the volcano in Iceland. We got to talk to several of them while in the business center at the hotel.

Now, just a few more weeks until some time off, and a much less hectic semester!