My final day/night of 2011 was spent with two of my absolute best friends in one of my favorite cities. We went in to the weekend knowing two things: 1. We were going to watch the Bruins play Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. 2. We had a hotel in the city (What up Holiday Inn?!) and therefore our night would be spent out in SF. Everything that happened after that was unexpected and unplanned which made the night so much better. Get ready for quite the photo dump in this post!
Bethany and I decided to take the CalTrain in to the city instead of driving so we packed up our backpacks with our NYE attire and set off for the city. Taking the train ended up being an awesome choice since it dropped us off literally right down the street from AT&T park. I wish I had gotten a pick of us with our back packs since we probably looked like total dorks (especially while sipping Bloody Mary's in an Irish pub while waiting for Jo to get in to the city).
Our seats were in the bleacher section set up in right field. We got in to the stadium just in time to see our new favorite country cutie, Hunter Hayes, sing the national anthem; read we RAN to our seats to catch a glimpse of him on the field.
The Bruins ended up losing the game, but we still had a ton of fun and got to see a bunch of friends from UCLA that we hadn't seen in awhile.
After getting lost multiple times on the way to our hotel (seriously SF- you may only be 40 some square miles but your streets are so confusing!) we finally parked, checked in, and made plans for dinner. Jo is an awesome Yelpper and discovered the just around the corner was a great little diner called Grubstake, which has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives!
After a quick trip to the liquor store, it was back to the hotel to prepare for our night! We (obviously) played the obligatory "Holidae Inn" by Chingy since we were in fact "chillin at the Holiday Inn." Then it was off to our friend Danielle's apartment to celebrate the New Year and her 23rd birthday!
We rang in the new year at a karaoke bar called Silver Cloud, and then were joined by a couple of friends from UCLA where we closed down the bar and then trekked back to the hotel for some more drinks and conversation (though Jo missed this last part as she fell asleep less than fifteen minutes after returning to the hotel). In the end we said goodbye to our friends and drifted off to sleep around 4:30am. We certainly did not waste a minute of our last hours of 2011 nor our first few hours of 2012.
Pizza for lunch on our first meal of 2012 sealed the weekend, and it was back to Mountain View and then on to Fresno.
If NYE is any indication, 2012 is going to be an amazing year. I can't wait to see what is in store for me, my friends, and our epic adventures together!
