NYE 2010
What a fabulous NYE I had! Picture it: Thursday, 12 PM, me and the three coolest peeps I know pile into my tiny little car and head to the California Academy of Science! Woot! No traffic and lots of great conversation made the drive a breeze. We get there and are immediately informed of the wait for the rainforest exhibit (which promised birds, butterflies and all sorts of flora/fauna). So we get in line and chat. We finally get all up in there and it’s semi-bunk: we spotted a total of three butterflies! The exhibit itself is truly fantastic, but beware of the amount of humidity! I went in with straight hair and came out a mess, y’all! We end up in the aquarium section and I love oohing and aaahing at all of the wonderfully strange sea creatures. My faves were the jellies and sea horses/dragons. B especially loved the little cuttlefish, so cute! Sadly we weren’t able to catch the planetarium in time.
By this time the place is closing up and so we head out to West Portal to hit our fave Polish restaurant Old Krakow. We get there and find supreme parking (with tomatoes and sour cream, you know it!). But when we walk up the street we find that it’s now an Indian Restaurant. Boo! Old Krakow’s mushroom soup was calling us! We were beside ourselves with grief.
Walking back to the car, I noticed these gorgeous huge green orchids in the window of a flower shop. Then I noticed the gentleman inside smiling the greatest smile since Ewan McGregor! So J says, “Go in!†and I say, “No way! I’m broke…I can’t afford a thing in there!†But I ended up going in anyway to ask what happened to Old Krakow. Not only did the gentleman know, but he explained the whole story of how the owner was struggling for so long and when the Indian place made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, she took it! Good for her, yes…but sad for us.
So this man was the owner of the flower shop and introduced himself as Christopher. Then he proceeded to simply dazzle us with his charm and wit! He was briskly throwing together an exotic flower arrangement for a client as he continued to chat with us. He was so complimentary and instantly knew who was with whom in our group. He even called me cute and told me to keep it up! He kept saying that we had such a great vibe coming off of us and how he could just tell we were good/fun people (I don’t remember the specific adjectives).
He answered all of our many questions and finally I asked our new friend where we should eat dinner now that Old Krakow is gone. He mentioned a modern Chinese place and then started to describe a Mediterranean place up the street called, “Bursa.†He told us to tell the owner Gihad that Christopher sent us and that he’d take care of us. This just sounded so cool we had to go! We thanked our new friend and bid him a hesitant farewell.
Once inside Bursa we were immediately impressed! Not just with the décor (lovely) but the service and menu, too! Then the owner brought us a bottle or Cabernet Sauvignon…delicious! Our food was fucking amazing! While we were eating our new friend Christopher even showed up with some beautiful flower arrangements for the restaurant. Again, just full of smiles and love! The dessert was indulgent but not too heavy or overwhelming. The prices were beyond reasonable! We can’t wait to go back!
After the happenstance and excitement of the day’s events, we headed back to my place to ring in the new year. Only, we did it by playing video games. Ha! We had more wine and even hit up Taco Bell much later…I think we toasted the new year with our collective soft drinks, but I’m sure it makes no difference. A good time was had by all and that is what truly matters. No one got crazy drunk and no one got sick. Fantabulous! So, happy new year and let’s all hope for peace and prosperity for all in 2010!