Such tips as: “don’t hand out cash to dinner guests” reveal what foreign tourists findsurprising about coming to America.


Sarah and I are back from a short Christmas visit to California. We spent the days around Christmas with much of my
extended family in Sacramento many of whom I had not seen in quite a while. It was nice to see everybody again. I ended up taking a few pictures on Christmas in order to add to the digital photo
frame I gave Grandma.
We flew in and out of San Francisco on Virgin America which was really nice. The staff is trying their best to be hip
but accessible, the safety instructional video is entertaining, there's mood lighting, and all seats have entertainment systems as well as
power outlets and USB ports to charge your electronic devices. They don't have many flights which appears to mean shorter lines. And it was cheaper to fly with them and then rent a car and drive to
Sacramento then to fly in to Sacramento. I'll for sure be flying with them again given the opportunity. Before flying back Sarah and I spent a day in San Francisco, where we decided that if we
don't go back to Fisherman's Wharf again in this lifetime that would be acceptable, saw the Golden Gate Park and met up with my friend Jake who I haven't seen in at least four years. Next up, happy
new year!
The weekend before last was Sarah's birthday and as part of
that, last weekend we took a trip to Victoria, BC. I've got a map of our trip locations and photos. Not all the
photos are on the map but they're all in the trip photo set on Flickr. It turns out there's a lot of tourist intended
activities right around our hotel which was in the inner harbor and downtown Victoria area. As such we didn't get a rental car and did a lot of walking.
On the first day we checked out the Royal British Columbia Museum which had
some interesting exhibits in it and the Undersea Garden which was interesting in that its like a floating aquarium but was a bit grimy. There was a group of Japanese tourists next to us during the
undersea show in which a diver behind the glass in the ocean would pick up and parade various animal life. The group all repeated the word starfish in unison after the show's narrator and one of
the tourists was very excited to see the diver bring over the octopus. The diver made the octopus wave to us while it desperately tried to get away.
We flew in and out of the Victoria International Airport
which is a smaller sized airport. Although we needed our passports we didn't need to take off our shoes -- what convenience! The US dollar was just a bit worse than the Canadian dollar which was
also convenient. The weather was lovely while we were there and I only got slightly sun burned.
This past
Saturday Sarah and I took the Savor Seattle Tour of various food shops in Pikes Place. Sarah had suggested it at one point and when Jesse and Nicole
brought it up again when they came up to Seattle we decided to go. Surprisingly our tour group consisted of mostly locals. Except for the fish market I hadn't been to see any of the places on the
tour. I particularly enjoyed the chocolate cherries and the tea. Our tour guide Tim was funny and overall I enjoyed the tour and would recommend it. I've made a map of our tour including what free trials we got at each location. Yum!
Two weekends ago it was actually sunny and kind of warm so Sarah and I went down to Spud Fish and Chips and Juanita Beach Park. We ate fish and chips on the dock. I took a few pictures and this
time actually put some geographical information on Flickr so now I've got a map of my tiny fish and chips journey. On the map click on the floating marks to view the associated photos.
Flickr provides access to the geo data associated with your photos via GeoRSS feeds. And Google Maps displays GeoRSS feed content on their maps allowing you even to edit the data but doesn't appear to let you easily export the GeoRSS. Live Maps does the inverse, allowing you to create and export GeoRSS data but not import it. I'd like both please. Oh well.
Sarah and I went down to California at the end of last month for a Thanksgiving visit with my parents. We visited the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium (fun fact: the aquarium scenes in Star Trek IV were filmed here) and saw many jelly fish. We wandered around Capitola where we visited many local
shops and ate on the wharf. We shopped in Carmel and ate at the Forge in the Forest (fun fact: Clint Eastwood was the mayor of this city in the late
80s). We visited the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk which was very cold and closed.
My parents took us out to dinner on the first night and the rest of the nights we ate dinner at their house. They had the Shelton's over and I got
to see Chris and Alison. It was fun to talk with them and catch up since its been quite a while since I'd seen them.
We stayed in the lovely beach house of our family friend's the Goodwins.
My parents have been helping them fix it up and decorate it and it looks great. It was quite a treat staying in a house right on the ocean. Also of note, this was the first trip on which I was old
enough to rent the car and accordingly I did all of the driving. This trip was very fun and relaxing.