An old friend and some new friends

On Friday afternoon, I met my good friend Chelsea as she emerged from the BART station onto the streets of San Francisco to begin a quick visit.

Chelsea is one of my UF college girlfriends, and although she is a true Floridian, now calls Boulder, Colorado home.

As the social media and community manager for a wine company, Chelsea was visiting Northern California to work at the 2013 Wine Sisterhood Gathering in Napa Valley.

What would we do to entertain her in just one night?

That’s easy.  A delicious San Francisco dining experience and a brief tour of some nearby neighborhoods.

Before Chelsea arrived, I asked her what type of food she would like to partake in during her visit, and she chose Asian.

We dined at The House, an Asian restaurant in North Beach, which not only had a line out the door, but also had a very tightly packed dining room full of happy patrons.   I had made a reservation a week in advance, so we didn’t have to wait very long for our table.

While catching up, we dined on tuna tartare, fresh scallops and the restaurant’s specialty — a melt-in-your-mouth entrée of sea bass.

After an enjoyable, and very much San Francisco-esque dinner, we stopped in for a beverage at a nearby bar called Tupelo, where a live jazz band was playing.  Then, we picked up some “to-go” desserts and headed home to hang out on the couch.

Truth be told, I had had a bad day on Friday.  I needed to see an old friend.  It was rather therapeutic to spend time with someone whom I’ve known for a long time.  We not only shared past stories and memories from college, but also from our current “adult lives”, which are running very similar paths.  Chelsea and her husband moved to Boulder just a month before Dave and I moved to San Francisco, so we are going through the transitions of getting accustomed to our new cities at the same time.

Sadly, in the morning Chelsea had to hit the road to Napa Valley.  At least she drove away in a sweet Mustang rental car.

However, our weekend fun continued … from an old friend, to some new friends.

In the late afternoon, Dave and I attended our first BBQ gathering in the City, held at a friend-of-a-friend’s home in Golden Gate Heights, a gorgeous area we had never been to before.

This was not your average BBQ.  It began as we sat outside on a patio overlooking the ocean and City below and had wine and good conversation with all of the new people.  Once the sun went down and the temperature dropped, we went inside for a dinner, which included filet mignon, tri-tip steak and tons of grilled vegetables.  The food was delicious and fresh, and the setting was perfect.

Although Dave and I had met a few people before, the hosts and half of the guests were new to us.  They were a very friendly crowd and provided a true San Francisco party experience for us once dinner was done – complete with dressing up in costumes for a few photos (people in SF are known to have costume collections on hand, just in case they attend one of the City’s many themed festivals), learning to sabrage a champagne bottle with a sword off the back porch under the stars and watching a slideshow put to music of the group’s recent trip to South Africa.

We went home feeling quite happy to have met some new people and spent time with new friends.  It was nice to socialize in a casual home-party setting, since much of our social occasions most recently have been out and about.  The best part was, we made plans with the group to hang out again.  I guess that means they liked us.  Woohoo.

It was a very social 24 hours for this twosome.

And, as they say … make new friends and keep the old.  One is silver and the other gold.