Isabel returns!

Great news! Remember my awesome friend Isabel? The one I had some of the best fun with but who left to go on a mini-trip around America a few weeks ago? Well, she has returned back to San Francisco for two days =)

As soon as she arrived we met up and were off on our first adventure immediately. Our plan? A monster 9 hours of public transport... yay.

The reason for this was because Isabel used to live for a month or so in a town called Santa Cruz, about 1.5 hour by car South of San Francisco. To lighten her carrying load she left a suitcase worth of stuff at the house, intending to pick it up again before her return home to Portugal. Well, today was to be the day that she went to pick it up again. While Santa Cruz is 1.5 hours by car... it is over 4 hours by public transport one way which is not the greatest way to spent a day but as if I could let her go all that way alone, plus I was more than happy to accompany her as I was really happy to see her again.

Two trains, a bus, and 4 and a bit hours later and we had finally arrived in Santa Cruz. It was just meant to be a short stay once there, just a quick grab of her suitcase then head back. But we couldn't leave without lunch of course, which then lead to a 'quick' look at one of Isabel's favourite stores in town, which then without realizing turned into a whole day spent wandering around, cool. Santa Cruz was awesome actually and reminded me of my home town back in Australia quite a bit, it had a very coastal feel to it.

Santa Cruz

We spent at least 2 hours in town, despite knowing there was still another 4 plus hours of public transport waiting for us to return to San Francisco. Yikes! But I was not to worry because despite the combined effort of 9 hours of sitting on trains and buses, it was still just a really awesome day and I had a lot of fun the entire time. I guess the right company makes all the difference =)

The following day we had planned to go see the Golden Gate Bridge as we had both already seen it before but didn't really have have any good, memorable photos of the area. Sounded good to me! The last time we explored the city when Isabel was last here was one of my favourite days, with this one again being no exception.

And the rest of the day was spent shopping for gifts for Isabel's family and friends back home, so that was good. The following day I forget what we did, and then all too quickly it was time for her to leave once more. Although this time was to be for good as she was flying home to Portgual.

I think I have already mentioned how much fun I have had with Isabel as company on my trip over the last few weeks, so I won't repeat myself here yet again. Although suffice to say that she will definitely be high on my list of the great people I have met on this trip, right up there with the memorable friends from Los Angeles like Julia, Lewis, Manuel, Mikael, Jon-Paul and Vanessa, and of course the more recent legends met while in San Francisco, Vincent and Mardy.

I have never thought to visit Portugal or Spain before, but now I think I have a pretty good reason to. One day perhaps =)

Thanks again for everything Isabel!