San Francisco March 13 - March 16

After a 3 hour flight, we arrived in San Francisco at 9:30pm on Wednesday, March 13. We checked into our hotel and settled in for some rest. (San Francisco is 2 hours ahead from Minnesota - where we were coming from - so we were slightly jet lagged.)

First full day was college visits!

UC Berkeley. On the drive to Berkeley, we witnessed some picturesque views.

Once the presentation finished, we walked about 0.85 miles uphill. It was a long walk and by the time we reached the visitors center, we were out of breath. We organized into 3 tour groups. Mom and Chimdi went to go get some food - we hadn't had breakfast yet. During the tour, we talked about the multiple activities, and the housing, transportation, and food. We visited some key points on the campus and discussed Berkeley's rivalry with Stanford. Berkeley was the first UC school which is why they're also referred to as Cal.

When we finished with our tour, we met up with Mom and Chimdi and drove off to get lunch - In - N - Out Burger. After ordering, we ate on the drive to Stanford.  Once arriving at Stanford, we sat through another presentation. We walked out to pick a tour guide. Once we picked our guide, we walked around the campus and discussed many things to know about the school. We learned that Stanford's full name is Leland Stanford Junior University.

We discussed housing, food, the church, the rules that never changed throughout Stanford's history, Stanford's history itself, and Stanford's rivalry with Berkeley. We learned that every year before the big game - Stanford v Berkeley, some Stanford students hold a funeral ceremony for a teddy bear - the bear is Berkeley's mascot - complete with a coffin and go to a fountain and stab the bear on the fountain turning the fountain's water red - the killing of the bear/Berkeley.

After a long day we decided to meet up with our friends son for dinner. We went to Pazzia, an Italian restaurant.

 He went to Stanford so we discussed many things about Stanford with him. He also shared a lot of information about Berkeley, and the key differences between the school communities. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel after saying goodbye and we went to bed.

The next day: sightseeing day! After confirming with the front desk, we walked to Walgreens to buy cable car passes. We got an outside view so we got to look at all the sights around town we were driving past. Once we got to Lombard - a tourist attraction - we took pictures. We viewed how there was a road for residents only. That road had 8 turns going down hill. After taking pictures from above, we walked down and took pictures there as well.

We walked down to a Vietnamese American breakfast and lunch place. After brunch, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf. We saw Alcatraz and seals then walked over to the beach of the bay where we saw Ghirardelli.

After hanging out at the beach and taking pictures, Chimdi and dad stayed behind as we walked to Ghirardelli. We bought some rare chocolates that you can't find anywhere else and soon after discussed a plan for the Golden Gate Bridge.

We went to a bus stop and waited for bus 28 that would take us to the bridge. After about 15 minutes, the bus arrived. We got on and got driven to the Golden Gate Bridge.

We saw the size of the large cables and found out there were 27,572 wires in those large cables. We walked uphill and downhill after visiting the store for a few minutes. We walked to an area where we had a beautiful view and took a few pictures. After we finished with the bridge, we took bus 28 back to Fisherman's Wharf and walked towards the cable car turnaround. There were so many people we had to go to the turnaround to get a spot. After waiting about an hour, we finally made it to the cable car. We got back to the hotel and mom and dad went to Macy's while the kids watched Alvin and the Chipmunks. After a while we decided to head to Chipotle for our final dinner in San Francisco. After a hearty meal, we walked back to our hotel and fell asleep. We had an early day tomorrow.

At 5:45, people were waking, getting dressed, and getting packed. We caught an Uber at around 7:30 and got driven with our baggage to the International Terminal at the airport. We got a good look at San Francisco one more time before thanking our driver and going into the airport. We checked in our baggage, went through security and got breakfast. (We had checked in in advance.) We ate breakfast and went to our gate. This is going to be a long flight, we thought.