Hello, hello! This past week Phil came to visit and it was the perfect excuse to finally take a few days off from studying after working pretty hard the past few weeks. I have a lot to recap for you guys, so bear with me during this long-ish post.
Wednesday + Thursday: Phil Visiting
If you are new to this blog, Phil and I are super close friends from working together in NYC, although we both agree that since day 1 we’ve been just “friends” over “work friends”. We’ve even taken several trips together (we both LOVE to hike!). To say I was beyond excited to see Phil again was an understatement 🙂
Phil had a lot of friends to see, but I got to monopolize him on the weekdays since we both have study time from our firm. We basically ate our way around SF at all my favorite spots and some new ones as well. We stuffed our faces with ice cream, coffee, tacos, poke, Korean food…jumping all the way around the Mission/Castro/Marina/Japan Town and more. I think it’s safe to say Phil got a good taste of SF in our few days of hanging out.
Eating aside, I also met some of his friends from college as we watched the Michigan game on Thursday. I’m not usually interested in college basketball, but this is the first year that I’m actually pretty caught up as a lot of my friends here in SF went to these top schools playing (UNC, Michigan, etc).
We also went on a small hike on my favorite trail in the Presidio, passing by the Golden Gate bridge; Phil said it was the first time he could actually see the bridge – it’s usually very foggy!
Talking with Phil felt so effortless and was a sweet reminder of my life in NYC. We had so much to catch up on and he’s one of my few friends who we share experiences from all angles (work, life, etc). I sure miss being in the same city as him. So grateful for the few days we got together this time! ❤
Thursday: Happy hour with Julia and Rahul
There was a big conference in town last week for Julia’s job where she got endless free happy hours/dinners/and more. I joined for one of them and caught up with my favorite couple. There was even a photobooth and we may have had a little too much fun 🙂
Friday: me time + march madness + chill night with Whitney
After a pretty packed two days, I unwinded on Friday with some me time at the Off the Grid food truck fair right next to my apartment. Off the Grid was gone for the winter but just started up again, which means my favorite Friday solo-tradition is also back! (Last summer I went almost every week :P). The highlight were these donuts from Johnny Donuts.
Then, I caught the tail-end of the Syracuse vs. Duke basketball game at a bar here in the Marina with Karan. We did not know what we were getting ourselves into upon entering the bar – it turned out to be a huge Syracuse bar and we made friends with complete strangers over cheering for them. Sports are definitely the easiest way to bring people together.
On the personal front, this was kind of a rough week for me…I was definitely glad to have all the fun activities during the week to help keep my mind busy, but on Friday when things calmed down, the weight of it all settled in, and so I invited Whitney over and we had a chill night in together. We watched Master of None and caught up on everything, and it was beyond soul-cleansing to talk everything through with her. I’m SO thrilled with the amount of time Whitney and I have been spending together lately. She is such a good friend and being with her instantly brings my spirits up – she always makes me see a point of view that I didn’t see before; the night was just what I needed ❤
Saturday: adventures with Karan and Matt + more March Madness + Lane 8 Concert
I’m finally back to running/feeling active again! Last week’s insomnia/lack of appetite seemed to just be a phase, and I’m so happy to be feeling myself again. 6 miles to start off the weekend 🙂
Then, I wanted to fit at least a little bit of studying in, and so I headed over to Matt/Karan’s apartment next door as they were chilling/reading as well. After about only one productive hour, we of course got distracted and ended up having a completely unplanned afternoon adventure inside their apartment and also outside in the Marina. You never know what’s going to go down when hanging with these guys 😉
Whitney joined the fun later in the afternoon. We first watched a basketball game at the guys’ apartment, followed by transferring to the same place as the night before, which magically morphed from a Syracuse to Michigan bar. We shared rounds of pitchers and enjoyed the bar’s super high energy. The whole afternoon was completely impromptu and unplanned, but turned out to be a blast.
The last stop of the night was seeing Lane 8 in concert with Phil and Scott. Flashback to my New York days when the three of us would sit next to each other 5 days a week at work and we went to these concerts almost every weekend too. It was so much fun and pretty nostalgic being together again at one!
Lazy Sunday feat. OJ Simpson
A few weeks ago, I found myself in a wikipedia hole reading every detail I could find on the O.J. Simpson trial, and so when I saw a show on Netflix called American Crime Story that dramatizes the entire trial, I knew that would be my entire Sunday :P. I marathoned episode after episode and am completely hooked. I especially love how the show portrays the struggles of the prosecution’s D.A. as a female lawyer in the 90s. The soundtrack is also A++. I highly recommend!
Aaaand I’ve hit over 1000 words so should probably cut this here. I hope you have a great Monday and rest of the week!
I Run Like A Girl 