California Americana

Living abroad gives us wonderful traveling opportunities. Europe, or "The Continent" as it is called, is just across the English Channel from us. Having lots of school holidays here means we travel even more than we would in the States. During the recent week-long October break, we journeyed to the exotic location of....
                                                  California!

Sometimes you just crave a taste of Americana, and we certainly got it!

Pleasanton Main Street

We met a wonderful family last year through the American school. Lexi and Maggie hit it off like giggling magnets. (They were drawn to each other, get it?) Unfortunately they moved back to California this last summer. So Lexi and I decided to spend the break visiting them in their charming hometown of Pleasanton, near San Francisco.

Maggie's mom, Amy, and I both started our blogs about the same time. We had attended a talk at the school on "Maximizing your Strengths". It dealt with identifying those activities that make you happy and that you do well. Instead of spending time trying to improve your weaknesses, it's more effective to focus on your strengths. It turns out we both enjoy writing and had both been wanting to start a blog to share our England experiences. I like the name of her blog, "Sunny Spells", a familiar weather forecast phrase in England. You definitely have to enjoy those sunny spells because they don't last long, similar to their one-year adventure here.

Friday Night Lights

While visiting them in California we got to enjoy a taste of home, things we can't experience in England. We went to a high school football game, which happened to be the homecoming game, complete with the queen being announced, crowned, and driven around the track in a convertible. We got to see the high school marching band practice its performance. I so miss high school band shows. There was a parade of area high school bands marching down Main Street on Saturday morning, I love parades. We went to the Saturday morning Farmer's Market and sampled farm-fresh produce including bite-size miniature kiwi fruit, plums, and English peas right out of the pod. To think I travelled all the way from England to eat fresh English peas in America.

Homecoming Queen

Lexi got to experience a day at a huge public high school, quite different from her small private school. When Maggie told her schoolmates that her friend from England was coming for a visit, they mistakenly thought Lexi was British. To have some fun with it, the story was created that Lexi was Kate Middleton's niece, which some even believed!

Here's a bit of trivia about the town of Pleasanton, California. It was named after US Civil War Army officer Alfred Pleasonton. A Post Office employee mistakenly changed the spelling but I think the name fits the town well, it IS a very pleasant town!

Monterey

Venturing away from the charm of historic Pleasanton with its tree-lined streets and kids playing outside in neighborhood parks, we also took in other sights of the San Francisco area. Maggie's grandparents have a house on a hillside in Monterey. They have built what looks like an infinity-edge deck into the side of the hill to be able to enjoy the stunning view. Their house is a 15-minute drive to the beautiful sandy Carmel beach.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a beautiful, artsy village with no stop lights allowed in it. Clint Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel in the 1980's.

Chillin' at Carmel Beach

Fisherman's Wharf, Monterey

The girls enjoyed the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is located on the former site of a sardine cannery. Maggie's grandma is a volunteer at the Aquarium.

Cannery Row mural, Monterey

Monterey Aquarium

Pebble Beach Golf Course

We drove along a stretch of the scenic 17-Mile Drive that hugs the Pacific coastline. It goes through Pebble Beach where we stopped to have a look at the famous golf course. The Lone Cypress Tree is also found on this route. My previous post has a photo of it.

Scenic spot on 17-Mile Drive

Eventful Day

Thursday, October 20, was an eventful day. On that day:

• The Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed
• 2 medium earthquakes hit the San Francisco area as well as San Antonio, Texas
• Amy's car keys that had been lost for 3 days were found!!!

We were in San Francisco that day riding on a cable car so we did not feel the earthquake but that was my first time to be in the area of an earthquake. The epicenter was close to Berkeley where we had toured the University of California just the day before.

The keys were found in an open bag of kettle popcorn but that's another story!

San Francisco was a fun touristy day riding on the cable cars, eating clam chowder at Fisherman's Wharf, getting scared by Bush Man, and indulging in Ghirardelli chocolate.

San Francisco Cable Car

Riding on the cable car

Friday included a tour of Stanford University's beautiful campus near Palo Alto and Silicon Valley.

Rounding out our visit were shopping trips to Target and the good old American mall, where we shopped at, of course, American Eagle.

A day in California

Lexi and Barbara on October 18, 2011 in California

sea lions
otters
harbor seals
Pleasanton
Monterey
Carmel
17 mile drive
lost car keys
Castroville, artichoke capital
cypress trees
Pebble Beach
ocean breezes
Lone Cypress
fog
sun
egret
tide pools
Gilroy, garlic capital
John Steinbeck
Salinas
marinated artichoke
tortilla soup
Highway 1
kelp
marching band practice
Hamilton
day at Amador public high school
seagull
spare car key
On the Road Again

Lone Cypress

"Thatches"

In England, houses have names. For example, we live in Briony House. In the nice neighborhood where I like to go for walks there is a property with the name of "Thatches". Sure enough, located on this property are at least 2 thatched-roof houses.

Thatched-roof house

House Name of "Thatches"

Wikipedia tells me that thatch was the main roofing material available in the United Kingdom countryside until the late 1800's. The development of canals and railroads eventually made other materials more readily available. Gradually, thatch became a mark of poverty and the number of thatched properties declined.

Fast forward to now and we find that thatch has become much more popular in the United Kingdom over the past 30 years. It is now a symbol of wealth. Thatching is becoming popular again because of the renewed interest in preserving historic buildings and using more sustainable building materials.

I learned something new just from a house name catching my eye.