Wine, Beer, Jägermeister and cool glasses

So I am sitting in my new 2-week home in the Mission, Valley Street and just finished watching Super Bad (which I would give a rating of say, 76%) and reading the New York Times and tomorrow it is back to work. As you may or may not see by the pictures (thanks again to Mathieu, Doreen and Arlene), my weekend was quite eventful to say the least. Saturday we went wine tasting with a group of like 15 of us in the Santa Cruz mountains which was fun, even though the winding roads were quite tough in combination with all the wine and we went out in the Mission to this place called "Lone Palm", which Ben really likes for its white tablecloths. What started with only Stella on my side ended with shots of Jägermeister (a tribute to Martin M.) and a bunch of drunken people. Place is real cool as you may see by the pictures and it was real fun, first it was Arlene, Ben, Evan and I and we were later joined by David J. and Doreen & Mathieu (top left, other Ambassadors). And myself wearing Ben's glasses (see pic, it is me), in which I look quite clever I find. Not that I would look stupid otherwise, but I think I can just about pull it off.

Unfortunately my next morning was far less fun to wake up to as I was sporting quite the hangover, but then again so did quite a few of us. I did manage to leave my old flat by 1:30 after chatting with back home in Dublin and being totally surprised by a real nice present someone had made for me (helped divert from the hangover) and drove over to Ben's and Sandra's place (my new home). We hung out at this cool Phillipino place which makes funny egg snacks and you can buy small toys. Then we went to Amoeba, probably the coolest place to buy CDs I have ever been to and we spent 2 hours browsing CDs and buying a truckload. I spent like 70$ on 6 CDs (Ben beat me by almost 60$). Worst thing was I bought this one CD of what I thought was from a band called "Adem", it was labelled under that band anyway. Then I came back home and opened the booklet and I had some Nu-Metal idiots glaring at me on a pic and it turns out I bought a CD from a band called "Adema", who are, safely said, godawful (unless Linkin Park is your favourite band). So that was 5$ wasted. Later on we went for some food, good old-fashioned pizza. Hanging out generally with people here is a bunch of fun and I have to say I can count myself lucky that I know a few people here as they just know the cool places and have cars. Like that Phillipino place, that was just really cool and iwould never have found it if it weren't for Ben & Sandra.

So today Mathieu & Doreen and I went wine tasting (again!) in Napa Valley and I managed to be there on time at 8:45 on my day off. It was good fun and I bought some wine and drank some wine and fell asleep on the way home and had a fun conversation with a cab driver on the way home. He was cool, he was like 55 but he talked like me, always saying "hey man, this is a cool place to hang out" and "there are some crazy guys around here, drug dealers and them". Later on I went to a supermarket to buy some Becks beer and bought an absolutely fantastic "wet Burrito", which was just, plainly put, absolutely delightful.

So this is a short week and Wednesday is the next highlight, going to see "Mirah" and "The Blow" with Liz and Ben and Sandra, which should be great. So long. Oh yeah, and thanks to Arlene for the sunglasses picture, they are hers and she arguably looks a hundred times better in them than I do, but it is a fun picture I thought taken by an even more fun girl!