In which Captain Crunch gets me drunk and I finally get my visa

Earlier I talked about my dad's pizza, right?  Well these past two weekends I've gotten the chance to sell them at the Auburn Farmer's Market.  That was a total blast!  The only thing I don't like is how early we had to get up and get to Auburn.  The market starts at 8 but it takes about an hour and a half to get dad's oven up to temperature and you can't really drive with a fire.  So we set out before dawn.

The person taking the picture is high on Monster and not awake otherwise

The first week was fantastic.  The weather was great, we completely sold out of pizza, the market people were friendly, I got a smoothie from the local coffee shop and I got to hang out with my brother.

 

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Tucker is a music geek and a hipster.  He tries to deny the hipster part, but then he dons these horn rimmed sunglasses, pours into skinny jeans and talks about how he already knows about all the music I like.  But he's a great kid and I definitely miss having him around.  I love all my siblings but I feel like I can geek out with Tuck a bit more.

The second weekend of pizza it was just me, dad and my stepmom, Mel.  The market wasn't as busy, but it was still cool for the three of us to hang out.  Mel and I spent a lot of time sitting behind the stand in the sun, she read a magazine and I feasted on these ABSOLUTELY AMAZING strawberries.  Like.... I can't even describe them but these were the best strawberries I have ever tasted in the history of ever.

After pizza was done, the parents decided to take my on my first wine-tasting!  They're members of a wine club at C.G. Di Arie.  The man who runs C. G. Di Arie, Chaim, is a food scientist and a pretty famous one!  Apparently he invented Cap'n Crunch, Power Bars, wine coolers and Hidden Valley ranch dressing.  The coolest part?  When we walked into the building, Chaim's wife (an energetic, wonderful woman by the name Elisheva) greeted my parents by name and

 

This is a terrible picture, but here's part of the winery

Now he makes wine, and BOY does he know how to do it!  I tried 11 wines and I loved every single one, which is odd because I'm not a wine drinker.  I was feeling a little tipsy by the time we left (not drunk by any means but let's say that I'm glad I didn't have to drive) but there was more to come!  We went to a small liquor store and had a wine tasting there with another one of their friends and that was it for me.  So now I've been drunk with all of my parents.  Awesome!

That night they put in a terrible movie (I think it was Renee Zellwiger and Paul Rudd but I can't remember what it was) and I just collapsed into bed.

Monday we went to San Fransisco to get my Visa.  The office opened at 9, so we set out incredibly early (dammit!) to get there on time.  We figured it was better to get there at nine and turn the paperwork in by 9.15, giving us five hours to kill, than to show up late and end up standing in a long line and not making it.

Well, we almost didn't make it.  Because of traffic we weren't able to get to the Consulate until 9.30.  By that time there was a line out the door and down the block.  Once we got through that line, we had to pull a number and wait for it to call.  We didn't get out of there until about 11.30.  The office closes again at noon, so it was a bit of a close call.

We wandered around, visited a book store, ate lunch at Max's Opera Cafe and bummed the city until 1.  Then we got back in line, picked up the visa and rushed back out onto open road, hoping to get there before traffic hit.

Let me tell you something about California traffic- it's a completely different animal than Minnesota traffic.  It took us an hour to get a little over 15 miles.  There's a toll before the bridge and it seems like nobody knows how to pick the right lane and stay there.  We had trucks weaving in front of us, people trying to merge into lanes when nobody's going over 5mph, some jerk honking like that's going to help anything... it's crazy. 

However we got the visa and I'm all ready to leave on Thursday.  Day after tomorrow, baby!  This'll be my last stateside transmission, stay tuned for when I turn into a real-live expat!

Woo hoo!