• California Part 1, San Francisco and Wine Country.

Last week I flew to California for a working vacation. I went out west for Katie and Danny's wedding in Pleasanton, and since my best friend was a guest, we made a girls trip of it. Kirian and I have been friends for %@ years, since junior high. ;) We've been all over Europe, to Mexico, Montreal, South America, the Caribbean, but never together! The closest we've ever come to traveling together is on a road trip from Denver to Boston, but that's not exactly the most exciting part of the country (no offense). Sure, she's come to visit me for snowboard trips in the various mountain towns I lived in. She's beached it with me on Nantucket. We've driven up to see the Dalai Lama in Buffalo. This was finally a girls only vaca, and we survived!

Wednesday, we flew into Oakland (yawn) and drove to San Francisco in a rented Ford Focus, which proved to be awesome on this trip.

We stayed at the foot of the crooked part of Lombard, in a gorgeous, old world style apartment hosted by our generous friend Suzanne. I've never been so scared as when I parked on her street, which was sickeningly steep. I was literally shaking, sure sign of a tourist.

I fell in love with San Fran immediately. I could never live in a city, (small fish, big pond syndrome) but I do appreciate a good one. It's now on my top 5 list, alongside Barcelona, Chicago, Portland and Paris. Day 1, we had lunch at La Boulange de Polk. Insane mimosas and the perfect Napoleon.

We spent the day touristing about a bit at the Golden Gate Park and Fisherman's Wharf.

I thought I was the only Zofia Roman, turns out this is the scientific name for Queen Palm. Awesome.

"I wish I were BIG."

Next, we went to the Mission District. Our friend Jon was throwing a roof-deck BBQ and hot tub party, where we met up with one of my former grooms, Nick. The view of downtown was amazing. Good times.

Day 2, we headed over the fogged in (surprise) Golden Gate Bridge, making a pit stop at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Sonoma and Napa were next, but we really needed a week or two to hit up all the vineyards we wanted. Instead, we hit up just two. Oops. The perfect oysters at the Domaine Chandon winery made up for it.

That evening, we finally made it to Pleasanton for Katie and Danny's pre-wedding meet and greet. Shopping, pampering and laying out by the pool were on the agenda the next day. The fabulous and fun wedding was Friday night. More on that later.

Enjoy!