My east coast friends don’t often have the chance to come to the Bay Area. So when my friend Yiannis said he was coming for a wedding in Petaluma, I was thrilled.
Flore
We met at this cute place in the Castro for brunch. He was on New York time so he was starving. I wasn’t but I still pigged out, promptly falling off the diet wagon. I had a “sausage scramble,” which had goat cheese in addition to sausage, with a side of potatoes and a mocha. It was all delicious.
Graffiti, San Francisco style
We weren’t heading out to the wedding until later that afternoon so we had time to walk around. Yiannis used to live in the area and wanted to show me his old haunts. Along the way we saw plenty of cool graffiti:
Plus, cactus leaves for sale!
Mission Dolores Basilica
We also had time to visit the Mission Dolores Basilica, which even after six years of living in the Bay Area, I never visited. The stained glass was beautiful:
And the garden out back was lovely:
La Taqueria
After all that walking, we got hungry again and stopped at this awesome place in the Mission. I got a quesadilla, but it was way bigger than I expected, and I only finished half. Yiannis, on the other hand, plowed through three tacos and three (count ‘em) THREE beverages:
Not judging.
Petaluma
The drive out took longer than expected because of the traffic. I loved seeing another part of the area. It was beautiful in a way but quite dry of course due to the drought.
The ceremony was scheduled to start at four, and we got there at 4:20. D’oh! Luckily for us, they were having a late start, as a lot of weddings do, and we didn’t miss a thing.
It was an absolutely beautiful day. Instead of cloudy and foggy, it was sunny and warm-ish for a change. During the ceremony I saw a hummingbird hover over a pot of flowers. Later Yiannis’s friend said she saw one land on their archway as she and her wife took their vows.
The hors d’oeuvres were yummy and I enjoyed half a glass of chardonnay, and half a glass of champagne, as evinced by my red face:
Everyone I talked to was delightful, especially Yiannis’s friend, but except for this drunk woman who cornered us and proceeded to tell the same story about ten times in a row, and kept insisting that Yiannis go to her house for a home-cooked Mexican meal despite his saying that he was leaving early the next morning.
But all in all, it was such a lovely wedding, and such a nice visit with my friend.