Somehow, and I honestly have no idea how, I stumbled upon an Edmonton food bloggers website today and I have spent hours going through his old archives reading about all these awesome places to eat in Edmonton that I’d never even heard of. Seriously, I was deprived while living there.

I think it all started with signing up for Groupon today. Supposedly Groupon is going to be expanding to include Edmonton soon so I signed up because I still get to the city fairly often. Honestly from there to finding this food blogger I have no idea what path I took, but seriously, Eating is the Hard Part, where were you when I lived in Edmonton? After finding his website I was led to a number of other food bloggers in Edmonton and my head is ready to explode with all the new restaurant possibilities for me to try. I feel like I missed out on so much while I lived in Edmonton by not thinking to search on Google for local food bloggers – I read food blogs from people in other countries, why not my own province!? Fail Nadine, fail!

I have since started a fairly large (and growing steadily) list of places I now must try the next time I’m in Edmonton!

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While I was in San Francisco I started reading Miriam Toew’s Summer of My Amazing Luck and had only really just started to get into it by the time I returned to Canada. With visiting and traveling ahead of me the book got set aside until this weekend. I threw it in my bag for the lake and had a chance to sit out in the sun today reading it. I only had a couple chapters left to finish so I just closed the cover on what was another fantastic Miriam Toew’s novel. She writes with such a clever sense of humour.

What this post really is about though is something that was mentioned in the book. The main character refers once to a song called Show Me The Way To Go Home and seeing the name reminded me right away of my Grandpa. When we were kids he used to sing this song, and another that I’ve never been able to remember all of the words to, but I had forgotten about it until that moment. When I got home tonight though the song was still in my head and I wanted to make sure I blogged about it before I forgot again.

I found a bunch of versions of the song on YouTube but the one that seemed most true to what I remember singing with Grandpa was this one:

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The day I met Lara we went on a scrapbook shopping adventure around the bay area and a fairly large amount of scrapbook supplies eventually made their way into my luggage for the voyage home. One of the things about shopping in the US is that even when the exchange rate isn’t fantastic, the prices are still really good. Scrapbook supplies just cost less in general in the US and I was able to purchase this whole pile of scrapbook goodies for less than $75 CAD.

The best stop was our first one at Jazzy Crafts because they were having a sidewalk sale. I bought three Stampin Up stamp sets, two of which were brand new and hadn’t even been put together yet, for $10 total, plus a set of Stampin Up rub ons for $2 and two Stampin Up ink pads for $1 a piece. Just the Stampin Up stuff alone would have been nearly $100 new in Canada! I also bought a whole pack of Fruit Stand SEI paper that had never even been opened for something like $5! I also got a Martha Stewart border punch that would normally be around $20 CAD for only $8 USD! Great stop!

Of course I found other things to buy at the remaining stops too, but it was fun to keep adding things to my collection. I really need to get scrapping again now that I’ve bought all these new things!

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July 16 to 23 – Met Lara for a day of scrapbook shopping. Got to go on a cable car ride. Had a cream puff from Beard Papa’s. Got to see the Full House houses. Had the best meal in San Francisco for my last night. Flew back to Edmonton. Spent an evening with Tari, Noah, Aunty Carol and kids. Got to see Jenna, Hart, Carol, Traci, Chad and Tyler at a BBQ at Tyler’s. Got to catch up with Chelsea and the kids. Had lunch with Jena. Spent the night at Carol’s. Had lunch with Rebecca and Ryan. FINALLY made it home again. Mowed the entire yard. Had a visit at Greg and Lindsay’s. Headed to the lake. Stopped to take pictures of Dad’s canola crop on the way.

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Lucky for me Caroline was really big into photobooths, as I have always had a fondness for photobooths but have very rarely ever spent the money going in one. I think before this trip to San Francisco I had only ever been in a photobooth once before when I still lived in Edmonton and met Sherise and Andrea at West Ed for supper one night. That was all!

Our first photobooth experience was on the day I arrived. We were eating lunch at Cheesecake Factory when Caroline was telling me about a photobooth picture she had taken with friends and then discovered my lack of photobooth experience. Following our meal we hurried off in the direction of Old Navy which is so huge it even has a photobooth in it. This was my favorite of the photobooths we encountered because it was only $3 and it gave us two copies of the pictures!

A few days later when we were in Japantown we hit up a store that was nothing but those crazy Japanese photobooths. They used to have one like this in the mall around home when I was a kid but it always looked insane to use. Thank God Caroline was with me to read the Japanese or I would have ended up with a lot of terrible pictures! This thing was totally overwhelming to use though – I was so slow decorating the pictures, but Caroline was a machine!

Our last photobooth experience was an old school one at Musee Mechanique. They had a cool sepia one but it refused to take our money so we used the black and white one. I think this one cost us $3 too, but we only got one copy of the picture.

Now I’m hooked on photobooths and feel that it is going to be necessary to jump into any that I see in the future!

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I was homeward bound by 10 this morning, but within ten minutes of getting on the road I was stuck in construction which delayed me for awhile. During my delay I decided to see if Rebecca would be free to meet for lunch since I would be in town right around noon. Lucky for me she was free so I met her and Ryan for lunch at Ricky’s Grill. We caught up and made plans to see each other at the lake this weekend!

Highlight of the day? I stopped at Walmart for dog food and ended up coming out of there with the first four seasons of The Office on DVD. They were having some kind of sale and they were $19.83 each! I’ve been wanting to get the Office seasons for awhile but haven’t wanted to pay the original $50ish price tag.

I’m home now and my bed upstairs is covered with things I’m not ready to deal with yet so for tonight I will be sleeping in the spare bed downstairs.

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Tonight I am at Carol’s Mom and Dad’s on the last leg of my week and a half adventure. Yesterday afternoon I arrived in the town where I teach and spent the afternoon catching up. I arrived at Jenna’s and the two of us set off on a walk around town with our first stop being a visit at Jessica’s new house. Her daughter and a friend were both outside playing and were some of my students so they very excitedly greeted me when I walked into the yard. Felt good considering I’m not there at all normally in the summer and usually don’t see the kids at all during the summer. We spent some time catching up with Jess before continuing on our walk around town.

My friend Traci came to visit as well. I haven’t seen her since our last trip together to Calgary and I don’t even remember when that was, so it was good to catch up with her. All of us gathered for a BBQ at Tyler’s and sat around the table catching up. I thought we were going to have a late night playing Bones in the yard, but everyone left early except for Carol, Tyler and I. Carol eventually dropped me off at Jenna’s for the night and her and I sat up for a couple of hours catching up while watching Intervention.

This morning Chelsea called me early and asked if I was coming to visit her at all during my stay in town, so I packed up and left Jenna’s before she had even woke up. I spent a couple hours at Chelsea’s playing with the kids before I ventured off to my other friend Jena’s for lunch. She made me buffalo chicken wraps in a panini grill and I continued with my streak of having really, really, REALLY good food. We spent a couple hours catching up before I had to leave to head to Carol’s for the night.

Carol’s Mom has been like another mother to me since I moved here and we had macaroni and cheese for supper as per my request so I was highly pleased. We spent the evening playing two different card games, one of which was new to me and that I’ll be teaching everyone at the lake!

I’ll have breakfast here in the morning and then I will be finally on my way home. I’ve enjoyed getting to see so many people over the last ten or so days, but I’m really ready to be at home.

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July 9 to 16 – Came home from the lake to pack for my trip. Took Uncle Kenny to Lloyd and then drove to Edmonton. Had supper and spent the night with Carmen at Tara’s. Went to Ikea. Saw Grown Ups with Carmen. Spent the night at Carmen’s. Flew to San Francisco. Met Caroline. Saw City Hall. Ate at Cheesecake Factory. Bought a Fossil watch. Went to the Legion of Honour. Walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. Went to the Academy of Sciences and the deYoung. Met Caroline’s friend Elaine. Had ice cream at Bi-Rite. Had lunch with Carly and Matt. Walked through Clarion Alley. Went to the SF MOMA. Went to Japantown. Saw Toy Story 3 in 3D. Went to the Ferry Building. Saw Cupid’s Span. Took a walk around Treasure Island. Went to Pier 39. Took a cruise in the bay. Had supper at In-N-Out. Met Elaine for desserts at Candy Bar.

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I got up at 6:30 this morning to get ready to head for the airport. I used Super Shuttle to take me to Caroline’s from the airport and I used it again today for return to the airport. My flight didn’t actually leave until 11ish, but the latest the shuttle would pick me up was between 7:35 and 7:50 and it arrived right on the dot of 7:35. When I got to the airport though I was glad I was early – although there was no line at Air Canada the line for American Airlines wrapped around the building which meant that security did too. I got through security like lightning though and then had time to peruse the airport shops. I picked up a few more souvenirs and had intentions of continuing to shop at the airport but my poor tired feet had another idea and I eventually had to just sit down for awhile. In hindsite now I had enough time to have slowly worked my way towards the other shops which I wish I would have to have found a few more souvenirs for people. Too late now!

Thanks to my early morning rise I was ready for lunch by 10:30 so I went to Subway wanting to try out this new turkey, bacon, avocado sub. I was highly disappointed as the sub was a total mess to eat and the avocado was smeared on the bread an inch thick as opposed to a light covering and it overpowered every bite. The Subway was right next to my gate so I sat with my feet up writing in my journal while I waited for my boarding time.

I finished watching Valentine’s Day on the plane and again laughed out loud numerous times. The majority of the plane ride to Calgary was uneventful, except for the last five minutes or so coming into Calgary when we flew through a big thunderstorm and encountered quite a bit of turbulence. I have never been sick on an airplane, but this felt close because we were jostling back and forth so much. I was relieved when the tires finally touched ground to stop moving sideways and start moving forwards!

In Calgary I had to go through customs and then back through security for my next flight to Edmonton. By this point I was really tired, kind of hungry, and really not wanting to be in the airport anymore. As I was walking through the airport to security I saw a Tim Horton’s sign that said “Welcome Home” and I almost cried, so the first Tim Horton’s I encountered on the other side of security required a stop from me for a mocha ice capp and a donut. I had talked to Shane and Michelle about meeting me for coffee at the airport, but by the time I got through customs it wouldn’t have left time for much of a visit, at least not one to make it worth them driving 40 minutes to the airport. As it turned out however my plane to Calgary was delayed half an hour and we would have had plenty of time to catch up. Oh well.

Carmen and Maddy picked me up at the airport and greeted me with a hug and my flip flops! Thank God for comfortable shoes! I picked up my car and stuff from Tara’s and then headed to my cousin Tari’s for supper. I’m spending the night at Aunty Carol’s tonight and in the morning I’m off to my teaching town for a night to catch up with friends there!

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I think today was probably the highlight of my day – it included the best food I ate the whole trip, some shopping, a rest for my feet, special tourist treatment and the opportunity to meet my friend Lara!

We got up early and headed out of the city to meet Lara. This adventure involved catching BART at a station in San Jose which I had no idea was so close (or a part of, really) San Francisco, followed by an hour on the train. (Edited to add that Caroline has informed me that we were not in San Jose, just on a street called San Jose, which makes so much more sense to me now.) I’m not sure that I could use this as my means of transportation everyday – I found BART to be really loud underground and any time we stopped for a few minutes in one of the tunnels I immediately began to feel claustrophobic. I can’t imagine being on it and actually being stuck! Anyways it got us where we needed to go in a fairly fast fashion so when we arrived we met Lara at the farmer’s market across the street from the BART station. Unlike the farmer’s markets at home the ones here all seemed to offer up samples of their fruits and vegetables for you to try while you shopped – I hadn’t eaten much for breakfast so this was fantastic!

Lara arrived and we were off for a day of scrapbook shopping! We met online through 2Peas (at least I’ve known her for long enough that I assume that is how we met, since I can’t actually remember now) and today was our first chance to meet in person. I met Caroline through 2Peas as well when we were both younger and part of the teen/college thread and have been in touch for years. It’s hard to believe that through a simple hobby like scrapboooking I was able to come to San Francisco and meet these girls, have a place to stay and have people to play tour guide for me. I may not be published in many magazines or very “known” in the scrapbook world but I have loved all of the amazing things I’ve been able to do because of this hobby.

Lara took Caroline and I to three scrapbook stores – the first being one called Jazzy Crafts that was having a sidewalk sale! I stocked up naturally considering prices in the US are always so much cheaper than in Canada, especially when they are on sale! We headed out next to Brentwood which provided some picture taking opportunities of the country! It was totally weird seeing bales piled up under palm trees and hills covered in golden grass, not to mention all the wind turbines! We also had a chance to stop at a farmer’s market on the way to Brentwood just so I could buy strawberries and take pictures to use with some of the new paper I bought! In Brentwood we scrap shopped again (and began to encounter some unbearable heat) and had lunch at a delicious Mexican sort of taco stand where I thoroughly enjoyed my tacos but realized immediately after ordering them that I regretted not ordering more. I ordered soft tacos which in Canada are normally quite large so I thought two would be more than enough, but these were teeny tiny little soft tacos and I could have devoured many more. Delicious though, however I forgot to take a picture!

Our next stop was at Scrapbook Territory in Berkley. I liked Berkley as soon as we exited off the freeway into it, although I guess Berkley is kind of a college town so it’s got that laid back atmosphere, at least I sure felt like it did. Caroline had talked about it highly and after being there I can see why she did! Of course I managed to find a few more things to buy and the three of us got a picture taken together in the store.

We headed for downtown next to meet Lara’s husband for a cable car ride! We got there with some extra time so we stopped for a cream puff at Beard Papa’s. I’ve heard of this place before and saw one in Vancouver but never stopped and now I’m wishing that I would have had one in Vancouver back in November and that I would have enjoyed this treat everyday I was in San Francisco. SO GOOD! I had mine filled with chocolate cream and every bite was fantastic.

Lara’s husband drives cable cars and I got royal treatment today. We met him downtown and were able to get on his cable car before the cable car turn around and AHEAD of the hundreds of people waiting in line to go for a ride! It was awesome! We got to ride at the front of the car with prime seating so I could take some pictures. When we got down to fisherman’s wharf we again got to skip the line and jump on the cable car to head back to downtown. This was such a fun experience. When we got back downtown and went to get off the cable car our driver, Bling Bling, asked me where I was from, and when I said Canada he told me to come and get really close, and then he told me I could ring the bell! I understand that ringing the bell isn’t something that every cable car rider gets to do so this was extra exciting! The cable car was so much fun!

We said farewell to Lara and drug our bags towards the bus stop to catch the bus to Alamo Square for my chance to see the Painted Ladies! They are rather cute and immediately brought me back to my Full House loving days! We grabbed a couple shots before heading back down the hill to meet Elaine again for supper.

We first tried a German communal dining style restaurant but the wait was long and our stomachs empty so we ended up down the street at Patxi’s where we once again had a meal of champions. We ordered a wedge salad to start, beer and a mushroom and spinach Chicago style deep dish pizza. Words can hardly describe this meal – it was an outstanding final meal in San Francisco. The salad came with like a pound of bacon so that was an immediate hit, of course, and the pizza was so.damn.good! I could have eaten that pizza again and again. I normally am a meat eating pizza person, but this was so good I didn’t even notice the absence of the meat. I could seriously go on and on about the goodness of this pizza.

Now that we’re home it’s time for me to pack up my bags and get ready for bed. So long San Francisco, it’s been a slice!

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