Friday/Shabbat – Day 299/Day 300
Posted on 27th May 2013
Friday was mostly insignificant as it was in the most part comprised of a nine hour drive down from the Redwood Forest to the city of San Fransisco.
The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the Bus
Despite packing our bags in under an hour, we arrived three hours behind schedule. Waiting for me at Wharton West, the graduate MBA campus of Penn, were my parents who I hadn’t seen now in months.
Me and Mum
After hurriedly loading our bags into a side room, we piled into the MBA Orientation Reception to sing what would be for me, my last full set with Glee.
My parents stood at the side, dad mildly uninterested and mum almost beaming. Overall I think they were more glad just to see me and to be given the opportunity to spend time with me. From there we headed to the hostel to dump my bags and then to dinner nearby. As the sky was quickly darkening, we left in a hurry to buy me some food for the next day and the rest of my night was spent reading in bed till the roommates came home and shut off the light.
The next day was lazy in the morning as it wasn’t till eleven am that I was due to meet with Flora Franklin, a dear childhood friend who I had last seen over five years ago. Fun fact: her grandfather is none other than Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse and internet pioneer.
The day with Flora was spent walking around the city, visiting sites such as Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf, One such enjoyable location, Pier 39, had multiple shops of interest, including a Ghiradelli Store and a Left Handed Store that stocked scissors, guitars and the like. Flora had many surprises in store for me, and her life had taken a few interesting turns, but I’ll leave that for another time.
My afternoon was spent reading more of cryptonomicon and trying to figure out what on earth was going on in it. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, waking just in time for dinner again with mum and dad at their hotel before walking back home and heading to sleep for good.