So, we headed out to Cali yesterday morning. Our flight to Newark was uneventful, as was our flight to SFO, although we sat next to a painter and her cat–her husband and her other cat (in a bizarre coincidence, a male named Tucker) were across the aisle.
Her website has some interesting material. She was very interesting to talk to.
We also saw The Bourne Supremacy and Vanity Fair. The Bourne Supremacy seemed a perfectly reasonable film of its type–a reasonable way to pass an hour and a half. Vanity Fair actually left me interesting in reading the book for I wonder how the book itself treats Becky Sharp.
The movie seems to portray her as someone who starts off as a good, if driven, woman who gradually loses her way in the fairly amoral environment she ascends to–her desire to climb socially doesn't seem as calculating as it might have been, and she shows a lot of compassion to a lot of people during the process, perhaps more than she might be expected to.
Anyway, we landed, got to Hotel Nikko, discovered that we didn't have reservations–apparently a fuckup on the part of the conference organizers–but we were able to talk our way in anyway. We took a swim, then went for a fairly early dinner at the Tadich Grill.
While it's probably not a tourist trap per se, it's probably got a lot of tourists going to it. We might not have gone except for Anne's mother who seemed to want to experience it vicariously.
The food was good, although it's a very no-nonsense environment. I had a petrala sole, charcoal grilled, that was quite nice with nothing more than lemon. As a side dish, the spinach with garlic is highly recommended. And we got to see set of twins who are apparently some sort of local institution.
Then we went back to the hotel and slept. Now I'm sitting in a cafe in Sonoma, it's just hit 10am, and I'm about to go hit a bunch of wineries.