In order to be able to stay in France for so long, I needed to get a visa. For some reason, I had to go to the French Consulate in San Francisco to get a special au pair visa. It took a while to figure out how I was going to get there and where I was going to stay, but right before I left, everything fell into place.
Marie, Ange, and I all went on the San Fran road trip together, and the whole excursion was crazy. Like I mentioned before, we didn't know how everything was going to work out, but we ended up renting a car to drive and staying at Ange's cousin's house. The drive was supposed to take about 12 hours, but poor Marie ended up driving about 15 hours because I left my wallet and phone on top of the car at a gas station in Dixon, and forgot about it. After we turned at an intersection, Marie, Ange, and I all heard a thud on the car, but of course we didn't stop. An hour after the Dixon stop, I realized I didn't have my cell phone, and during my search, I noticed my wallet was missing too. So then we drove an hour back to Dixon, had to pay a toll, and we didn't even know if would be able to find my wallet! It was the longest hour of my life. I needed that wallet in order to get my visa! While Ange and I were running around the intersection, looking for my wallet, a cop pulled over to talk to me. I was nervous that I was somehow in trouble for running around like a crazy person, and somewhat hopeful that he would stop traffic to help in the search for my things. After explaining my situation to the officer, all he said was, "Good luck. There are drunk drivers out tonight." Then he drove off. You can imagine how comforting that was to hear... About two minutes later, Ange found my wallet! It was in the middle of the road, open, and face down.
Yeah it got ran over a few times, but it was completely camouflaged in the road! It is a miracle that everything was still in the wallet and not completely destroyed. As you can see, my wallet and cards are dented and scratched, and the wallet can't even close anymore... Unfortunately, I could not find my phone, and I lost all my numbers with it. But let's be honest here, my wallet was the only thing I really needed to find.
The next day, I had my visa appointment. Of course I had a copy of every document, except for the one thing I actually needed a copy of. My passport. Seriously, if Marie did not have her iPhone, the whole trip would have been a complete fiasco! The appointment just made me feel like an oblivious American. I was one of those people that make Americans look stupid and slow. I didn't know what to call each document, because some of them were only in French. I had to ask him several different times if I had the right paper. And since I was so nervous, I had trouble listening to what he was telling me. I think I replied, "What?" after everything he said. It didn't help me feel better when he would stop to say something in French to the guy next to him and they would start laughing. I am almost positive that they were making fun of me. Which is understandable. I got over it though. Besides, I liked being able to bask in the attractiveness of the two French men. And I wish I took pictures of the area around the French Consulate building. I loved the squeezed together buildings that towered over the tight streets.
After the appointment, Marie, Ange, Carrie, and I went to Pier 39. We explored the little shops, stopped for some grub, and saw some seals! Oh, and Alcatraz was there too. We passed a lot of street performers on our way to Ghirardelli Square. There were some interesting people in the side shows. Rainbow man, silver/gold men, creepy skeleton guy, armless guitar player, attractive acrobats, and my favorite, the homeless-looking guy that held a sign that said, "Need $ 4 Weed." It made me laugh, but hey, at least he is honest... Don't worry! We did drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was super foggy so the whole bridge was never in sight. This gave it an effect similar to scary/action movies when the fog comes in just before the people driving on the bridge get attacked by a monster that sneaks in, invisible, thanks to the fog.
Later that night, Marie, Ange, and I went to China Town. Every store looked the same to me, they all offered pretty much the same things, and the vendors all looked similar. So when Ange realized that she was missing her diaper bag, at first, I wondered how we would ever find her bag. I remembered looking at the bag sitting on a pile of Chinese things, thinking I should tell Ange not to forget to pick it up again. But of course, I got distracted and forgot. Don't worry, we ran back through China Town and found it. The ladies in the store saw it and decided to put it behind the counter for safe keeping until the owner returned.
Well, that pretty much sums up the San Francisco trip. And after losing two different, very important things, we started joking around that Marie was the next one to lose a possession, but luckily, that never happened. If you want to see more pictures from San Francisco, click on this link --> Facebook and it will lead you to my Summer 2011 album on my Facebook account.
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