What a week(end).

Last week was crazy stressful, mostly because of work. I logged pretty ridiculous hours and then was trying to do other stuff at the same time and it didn’t work out so well. And I did NOT get a chance to relax this weekend. But it’s okay because it was mostly fun things! Friday I got to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: attend a GrubWithUs dinner!

GrubWithUs is a company that organizes group dinners for 8 people, usually. You sign up on grubwithus.com and your meal price (usually between $20-30) includes all the food, tax, and gratituity, so once you get there you only have to pay for booze (separate checks). Then you just show up and meet 7 other interesting people! I’ve been wanting to go for a while and finally got the chance. I was especially excited because it was at one of my favorite restaurants in the city: Firenze by Night in the adorable neighborhood of North Beach (little Italy).

I got there a few minutes early so I wandered into a candy shop across the street (oops). Everyone was SO nice who worked there and you could taste their fudge (delectable) and sample the salt water taffies for free! My kind of place. I bought $3 worth of candy on impulse including a really huge roll of Smarties I’m saving for a special time.

And I got free caramel corn with purchase. Ridiculous. Not the best place to go for my new lose-5-pounds resolution, but hey, it’s free.

Then I headed over to the restaurant for dinner. I had a great time! There were a few guys there who worked in the tech/capital world (that’s what most people are at these things in San Francisco, young tech people—such as myself!), a PhD student from Stanford, an engineer from Chile, and a man who worked at UCSF. I love meeting new people, and it’s really cool to do so in such an environment. And it didn’t help that the food was DELICIOUS.

(UGLY AND BLURRY IPHONE PICTURE… I am aware this does not look yummy at all. Pic below is from the first time I went)

This place has the best gnocchi I have ever had. Literally melts in your mouth. And the fish of the day was ridiculous. I cannot even explain it, it was that good. When people say things like that on blogs I usually roll my eyes, but no, this really was THAT good. And the best part was I got to take home a bunch of leftovers so I’ve enjoyed that fish again on Saturday and now Sunday. Triple win.

All together it was a really fun meal and I hope I can sign up for another GrubWithUs dinner soon! You should definitely check it out if you’re in SF, LA, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, or DC.

Also, can I just say that a nice Friday evening dinner out, great food, sparkling conversation, no booze, and home and in bed in jammies by 10:30PM tired with a full belly is the BEST way to spend a Friday?! Maybe I’m old, but man. That wins now, every time.

Saturday came and I planned to run 16 miles. It was my last real run before SFMarathon. Basically, I intended to head out super early which didn’t happen, but I tried my best. I ended up getting stuck in cold and wet for most of the time. That’s really the only way to describe it. The bridge was foggy but once I was on it it was legit raining and then by the time I made it to the other side this was the view of downtown SF.

Beautiful, huh? Brrr. Then, for the THIRD time, I tried to follow the SFM course through the Presidio (because I know that is going to be the hardest part, at least for me) and I got lost! I cannot figure out how to get to Lincoln Boulevard from the pedestrian side of the GG bridge! So my entire plan got foiled and I ended up running a kinda sucky route and only doing 14 miles at a 10:30 something pace so it was a WEAK and not fun run but hey, you’re always going to have days like this and I’d rather get them out of the way now so I can hopefully actually finish SFM!

Saturday I had a meeting for AIDS Walk SF (I was a “key volunteer”) and then got on a bus downtown to the Metreon for… Harry! (source)

I saw it with a friend in IMAX/3D (except I can’t really see the 3D part of it) and it was AMAZING. I had heard all good things and I couldn’t believe how much I loved it. I cried so much it was ridiculous. I actually appreciated having the unwieldy 3D glasses because it hid the downpour of tears running down my face. It was a very emotional movie and I’m already thinking about when I can see it again.

Sunday (today) I was up at 5:30am for the AIDS Walk! One of my friends is on the committee for it so I offered to volunteer. It’s a cause near and dear to my heart; as many of you know I spent the last 2+ years doing AIDS work in Africa. I ended up sitting on a street corner for about six hours and working with a park ranger and other volunteers to frequently stop the walk to let the cars go through (we were on the only open road in GG Park). I took NO pictures of the mass of walkers (they predicted 25,000) because it was a pretty stressful job. Most people were super nice, but others got angry at me when I asked them very nicely to wait for a minute so we could clear out the traffic! People kept grumbling that if they had to stop walking for a minute they wouldn’t be able to go again. I didn’t know how to react to that, but needless to say, the time went by pretty fast. It was cool to be a part of the event and brought me back hardcore to my UCLA days of being an RA (all the chatter on the radio!) and on the steering committee of a huge HIV/AIDS fundraising event called Dance Marathon. It was a good time though, but I was very ready to move on from that corner once it was over

Home and planning out the ridiculousness of the week ahead—work, food, workouts, runs, SLEEP, blog—and trying to get in a little mini-workout before I go out to dinner tonight. I really want to take a nap. Very, very bad. Fun weekends are great, but not when they leave me saying at the end, “man, I need a weekend.” Though next one looks pretty open, so hopefully I can lay low.

Hope everyone had a WONDERFUL weekend!

Courtney

What was the best part of your weekend?

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