A Canadian Weekend

On Friday night, we made our way into the City (SF, San Francisco) and hung out with Jeff's friends who he went to grad school with at UofT. It was fun going to 3 pubs/bars and a yummy taco/burrito place in the Mission District with a bunch of Canadian engineers!

On Saturday morning, Jeff and I decided to try our luck again with lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. The story is: since October, I have been in SF three times. Each visit, we want to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory which sits atop a Macy's and overlooks Union Square. It is ALWAYS packed with wait times of 3-3.5 hours! But this time, there was no wait and we got to eat outside on the rooftop! Finally!

View of Union Square from The Cheesecake Factory (iPhone quality)

As you can see, the weather in SF is not the most appealing - often windy and overcast - so we quickly drove back to SJ. It's amazing: after driving less than 10mi out of the City towards SJ, it was clear blue skies and sun again!

On Sunday late afternoon, we had fun catching up with another Canadian friend, Scott, over dinner on Santana Row in SJ. Santana Row is SJ's equivalent of Yorkville in Toronto and has an amazing pizzeria! Anyway, Scott and I know each other from the LoTGrad committee back home, and we worked together until he moved out here in the Spring. He now works on complex electrical engineering stuff at Fujitsu Labs in Silicon Valley - very close to Nvidia (where Jeff works).

Me and Scott at Pizza Antica
Photography by Jeff

After amazing dinner (we all had one pizza each!), Jeff and I drove to Oakland to participate in a Canadian activity. What kind? Well, every Sunday, a group of people in the Bay Area organize pick-up hockey! Yes. That's right. Hockey. In California. In June.

A superstar warming up for the game

Most of the players are from the East Coast and a handful of them are Canadian! My job is to keep score and I do a pretty good job, considering this is what I have to work with:

Fancy score-keeping technology

So all in all, it was a nice weekend with warm reminders of home =)

-ange xx