While at the Embarcadero in San Francisco today, we sat on a bench near a street performer playing folksy music.
Me: This area reminds me of [Disney’s] California Adventure park.
Mark: Don’t you mean the other way around?
Me: …oh yeah…
For those who are unfamiliar with California Adventure theme park, there is a large section of the park that replicates famous buildings and landmarks from San Francisco. (Hence the irony that the real thing would remind me of the replica.)
We finally packed up and moved out. It’s a strange feeling, being homeless. We don’t have anywhere to go to, and we’re essentially bumming around other people’s homes.
It also feels weird to not have any house keys. We’re pretty much living out of my car for now, which seems like the only consistent roof over our heads.
From a 735 square foot apt, to a 55 liter backpack.
Flight to San Jose booked! Leaving Sept 1st at night on Virgin (I’m excited) after Mark finishes his last wing-chun class. Charleen has kindly agreed to take us to LAX.
We’ve also decided to go ahead and fly Delta round-trip from SFO without any stopovers. Sucks that we won’t be taking advantage of the free stopover, but I’m sure we’ll get chances later. It’d be too stressful to visit another location while we go towards Boston, and we’ll be too busy settling back into our Cali life to think about visiting another place. We’ll need to find an apartment again and grab our vehicles from Sam’s. Hopefully Mark will still have his job, and I can find one once I return!
At least we are taking advantage of our free US stopover on AA, we’ve decided to go to Miami for 3 days.
We also decided to reshuffle our itinerary a bit, since we have to depart from Barcelona anyways, we might as well go to Spain last after Turkey. We’ll most likely fly to Morocco after France and cut Salzburg, Vienna from our trip, since we are almost maxed out on Schengen days and need some buffer room.
Went to my local AAA branch and applied for my international driver’s license, just in case I needed one. It was super easy, just had to fill out a form, take a photo, and pay $23. Much easier than applying for a visa or passport, and I get it on the spot. Granted, it’s a booklet and somewhat cumbersome, but still handy to have.
We also bit the bullet and rented a storage unit near our apartment for $55/month. It’s a simple 5’x10′ that should fit our needs. We plan on leaving our large, replaceable items there, such as shelving, mattress, miscellaneous toys. My friend Samantha was generous enough to let me store my car in her garage, along with Mark’s motorcycle.
Less than a month to go!
+2 to TRAVEL 