"Write A Song About California, He Said..."

(If you haven't already heard of the band Hey Ocean!, you should definitely check them out.)

So it seems like I'm spending a lot of time on the West Coast these days.  First Vancouver-Whistler, now San Francisco.  It's been about 15 years since I was there, which is definitely too long of a hiatus.  My brother, my cousin and I headed over there last month to visit my little cousin and her husband in Berkeley.  When we were growing up together, we used to see each other once a week.  Now we'll be lucky to see each other once a month, and even less now that my cousin traipsed to the other side of the continent, got married, and has been held hostage whilst going through the green card process (US immigration is weird).  So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to gather together and hang out for the first time without the parents.  Unfortunately, my youngest brother couldn't come along, but it actually would have been a little snug in the apartment, so it all worked out for the best.

I have to say, I saw very little of San Francisco itself this time around.  We were there for a couple of days, checking out Ghirardelli Square and the Ferry Marketplace.  We also went out for dinner in Chinatown with some family friends I haven't seen in ages.  The trip consisted mostly of hanging out in Berkeley, which is an absolutely perfect fit for my environmentally conscious cousin, and Napa/Sonoma, where I went wine tasting for the first time ever.  VERY fun.

My brother is considering heading out there next year to take a mechanics course at a well-known training facility in Sonoma, so there will likely be another opportunity for me to head out there.  I guess I almost qualify as being bicoastal now.

"...I think it's something everybody's got to do before they're dead, but I wrote a song about you instead."