Busy Weekend

We had such a lovely, but busy, weekend. Luckily Sunday turned out to have down time so it wasnt as tiring as we thought it was going to be!

Saturday we had tickets for a play in SF. Bought those a couple of months ago, so unfortunately we had to skip an engagement party (congrats Danielle and Steve!). And you know, we love SF so much we can't just go over to the play and leave, we always find something else to see or do.

Since it was Sat. we decided to start our day off by getting off BART at the Embarcadero and going to the Ferry Building . You can go here to read more about it http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/

We love the Saturday Farmer's Market there. We attend the one in town every Thursday evening during summer when we can, and Saturnday mornings year round there is one in the next town over. But the one in SF is humongous with turnout from all over northern and central California. All the tasting you can do, you dont need to buy a meal! Their prices are a bit high there - but with the price of gas, and bridge tolls, I can understand - and everything is organic so that raises the prices too. Of course we had to splurge as soon as we saw that the Italian market inside had their bombolini's! These are delicious sweet filled donut rounds - filled with raspberry (YUM!), chocolate, custard, I thought we had had lemon before but not this week.

Then we walked all the way down to Union Square - no shopping at the Disney Store, cause that is gone, but a quick stop at Borders to buy some magazines, use the washroom, and get something cold to drink. Yeah, it was supposed to be in the low 60's that day but it was gorgeous - sunny and warm! I had a sweater set of a tank top and cardigan, and I only wore my cardigan while at the play! And then we walked all the way tot he theater - happily we took a bus back down Market afterwards to dinner (at Buco di Beppo - we had the other half of that dinner last night!)

This is what we saw. Never heard of this play before, but it sounded cute when I read about. So took a chance. Read a review on it a few days before which was all good. Well, we started laughing as soon as the lights went down and did not stop ... well, we are still giggling at it! Georgia Engels was in it and played a very good stereotyped self! This is a little synopsis: "For the 2006 Broadway season, The Drowsy Chaperone received more Tony Awards than any other musical. It stars "Man in Chair," who sees the 1928 musical comedy "The Drowsy Chaperone" unfold before his (and our) eyes onstage.'

And then Sunday we decided not to go to Toys R Us and decide on a present for grandson - we decided we are going to give him a giftcard and let him do his own shopping! After all, with 2 boys in the family and lots of generous family and friends - much better to let him get what he wants, then take the chance of duplicating a present! So we got some down time to catch up on laundry and water the plants and stuff before we.....

Headed out to the Niles Canyon Railway (http://www.ncry.org/) in the cute little town of Sunol to ride the train tht afternoon. Something we have been meaning to do every since we learned about it. This was a special wine and cheese tasting ride, with our own sommelier on board, Sean Andrade (see below - I only wish I had that bottle to drink!) from the Andrade Wine Group. I was impressed when we found out that he volunteers his time to do this on the special trains!

It was a 2 hour train ride to Niles and back on a very beautiful day - sunny and warm, but not hot or windy! And we tasted - and they were generous pourings too! - 5 local wines: a champagne, viognier, and 3 reds. All paired with cheeses, except for the last one which was with dark (gag!) chocolate. And we learned a lot. Got to see the traditional French way of opening a champagne bottle by whacking the cork and lip off with a broad knife....guess they get too impatient to open it the usual way?

And I was surprised completely by how certain cheeses make the wine taste better, and vice versa. The cheeses were from Trader Joes - and there was one cheese that I bought, brought home, and threw away cause I hated it. But when paired with the viognier, the cheese was very good!

And as much as I hate dark chocolate (and ended up spitting it out and giving the other 1/2 of my piece to DH) I did learn something - did you know that you are not supposed to chew dark chocolate? Chewing releases the bitterness (this is what he said - it tasted bitter to me even without chewing) and you are supposed to let it melt on your tongue to enjoy its full flavor...

Anyway - for the ticket price you get the 2 hour train ride, a chance to meet some new people, learn some new things from the sommelier, get a bottle of water, a commemorative wine glass (not tht we need any more but hubby is thrilled cause it has a train on it!) and a plastic cheese plate - you know the kind that has the cut out to hold the wine glass? I have to take hubby off the farm more often - he said he has never seen one of those before and was just so impressed with the idea of it!

We did learn one thing for this - and we plan on doing it again next year - bring a cooler with some snacks because you literally one get one piece of cheese/tiny baguette with each wine! So the people we saw get on board with a cooler had done this before and knew!