Oh man.

Sat: This vacation started as all vacations start, the alarm not going off and having to jump out of bed and scramble to get everything together. Of course I hadn’t packed so I had to run around like a crazy person and grab anything and everything that I might need for the next week or so. Alas I made it to the airport on time and was off to meet up with Al in SF. Lucky for me Alex’s mom got me on First Class and it was smooth sailing. Arrived in SF probably around noonish and I had the craziest shuttle driver ever, it took almost 2 hours for him to get me to Avalon. Ugh so ridiculous. When I got to the room it was basically the coolest place I have ever stayed in though. It was an apartment and the top of this super nice building. So bad ass. We hurried and got ready and just started walking on our way to find our first adventure. Lucky for us it wasn’t very far. We stayed across the street from the Giants stadium and decided to watch a game, them versus the Red Sox! We got a pretty good deal on tickets (thanks scalper dude!) We had the best veggie dogs ever and watched a way fun game. Red Sox won, even had two home runs! It was a good time. After that we got some food and took a power nap. We heard on the street that the place to be this weekend was Pride. Of course we didn’t want to miss out on anything so that’s where we went. I guess it was called Pink Saturday; mostly everyone just wore pink apparently. We walked hella far to Castro Street and there was some craziness going on. We found out later that there had been some fatal shootings just prior to us getting there. Kinda crazy. People were still acting buckwild though example: The ambulance was trying to get through and every time it would do the siren (woo woooo) the whole crowd in unison would yell woo wooo. There was also a very nice gentle-homeless-man that was serenading me and Al… “I got 5 on it…” On our way back after the madness we ended up getting off the train which we weren’t supposed to and being stuck at the muni station as it was closing. We started walking home but I think this driver felt bad for us and ended up giving us a ride home in a limo… for $15! It probably would have been cheaper in a cab (if we ever found one) but it was well worth it.

Sun: Woke up and went to an appointment early then got some delicious food at this place called Herbivore. It reminded me a lot of Sages here only with a little bit more variety. It was way good though. Went home and got ready some more and put on our summer dresses because the weather was soo nice. On our way to more Pride festivities! I don’t know why we walked so far the night before but we basically went to the same place and we got there in half the time. Anywho we watched to parade for a good hour or so and then just walked around. If you think Salt Lake has a lot of people during our little fests you aint seen nothing yet. This was out of control; at least 10 blocks of people, naked or very little clothed people. We saw a few drug deals goin down, some people peeing in the street, people getting hyphy, the Backstreet Boys, lots of butt-naked old men, boobs, hippies, so much randomness. Haha one of our conversations: Al: I have to go pee really bad Me: Hhhmm… All that is here is portapotties… if you use them don’t touch anything Al: for reals, Ill probably just sanitize my ass after. After that mess we met up w/ Jared at this little VIP party thing. Lots of weirdos dancing that looked like they were trying to look like that dude/lady from silence w/ the lambs (it puts the lotion on the skin) Did some more walking and hung out at “R” bar for a bit. After all this fun in the sun it was definitely time for some food. We went to this place called Golden Era that was pretty much a mix between RRVH and Evergreen. It was pretty tasty. Had some good awkward times there and then ended up at this place called Hemlock, hella cute boys there, oh my. I think we had a little too much fun in the sun because we went back to the hotel after that just so we could have a power nap but ended up just going to bed. Oopsies.

Mon: I’m not too much of a sleeping in person so I was up and awake pretty early. I did some cleaning of our little apartment and watched some tv. We got ready and took our butts on over to Haight Street. We ate at this super sketchy place called Love N Haight which was mostly sandy’s and stuff. It was sketchy only for the reasons of they put Mayo on everything- even their “vegan” sandwiches, and I’m pretty sure there is no such thing as vegan duck. After our lunch we had to walk super far and uphill because we were on the wrong side of Haight. After getting to our original destination we wandered around the cool shops and took in the nice Cali sun. There was a way cool Tattoo shop (idk what it was called) but they had all sorts of books and magazines and clothes. There were also TONS of vintage and hipster shops all along this street. Also there was the huge ass record store Amoeba, it was pretty cool. After our shopping extravaganza (we actually didn’t even buy anything!) it was time for some dessert. We went back to Herbivore and I had some Chocolate cake and Al had a chocolate milk shake and some tacos. I wanted some fries to go along w/ mine but when I asked the lady she said they only had potatoes baked in olive oil and lightly seasoned (I know she was thinking in her head- duh this isn’t McDonalds) Silly me. Back to the hotel for a nice long relaxing nap. Woke up energized and wanted to do a little shopping, so we took the muni to union square/market street. We were quite surprised to find out once we got there that all the shops were closed. It wasn’t even 9 yet I don’t think. We ended up just taking the train back home and Alexs mom was there waiting for us.

Tues: Procedure day. We got there pretty early and they took her away. We waited probably about 2 hours for the whole thing to go down. Not too bad and Al seemed to be doing ok after, just sore and tired. We went back to the hotel for a day of movies and tv. Our time consisted of sleeping, watching the Vicious Kind, Law and Order SVU, Weeds, and snack foods.

Wed: More of the same before. We slept most of the day, had an impromptu bbq, watched Weeds, Factotum, Moon, and just lounged on the couch.

Thur: Sleep, rest, and relaxation is what our days consisted of now. It was nice to not have to do anything. Watched some more Weeds (I watched about 2 ½ seasons- it’s such a good show!) and some more movies. Made some super good sandys and hung out around the house. Al was having some really weird cravings while she was resting and we decided to get one of em filled… pizza! Silly us there was a place right across the street, Amicis! It was delicious too. Not wanting to overdo it we decided to go out but just to a movie. It’s so weird how many movie theaters there are here and how I think I saw like 2 the whole time I was out there. The one we were at was like 5 levels and they even had a photo booth! I think I was making Al laugh too much though (sorry girl!) we definitely had the tired sillies. We couldn’t get a cab back home so we ended up just walking. It’s really weird also how dirty SF is. Like people just go to the bathroom outside. So gross! I just remember when we were walking thinking, gawd I hope that’s mud.

Fri: Ugh the worst day ever for Alex and for me having to watch. We got up early ready to get our stuff together and hop on the plane. Except for Al saying “I don’t feel so good” I helped her pack some of her stuff and she kept the bathroom toilet company. Then I hear “I don’t think Im going to make it to the airport” It was the saddest thing ever. Al ended up calling the clinic and one of the nurses and manager came and picked us up and took us back there. For the next 8 hours I got to see my bff in horrible pain and there really wasn’t anything I could do. I am so happy she had such a good nurse though- Ann the leprechaun (she was straight from Ireland and so nice) Since the office closed at 5 and the I don’t think the doctors really believed Al was in pain they sent us home. To make matters worse we had the worse cab driver ever, I remember just looking back at Al trying to hold it all in and this guys talking about Joe Montana and going over every single pothole and bump like we were four wheeling or something. So we got back to the apartment and Al layed down for a bit, after about an hour or so she had given up and asked me to get some help. I had to call 911 and have them come pick us up and coordinate with the clinic as to which hospital we could go to. The EMT’s came and one of them was a cutie and helped Alex out (Haha after nicely asking her to put some pants on and also asking nicely if he could check out our view) and the other EMT was totally in love with me and it was so weird. He kept asking me all these random questions about shows and tattoos and who I knew in SF and in the meantime Im trying not to panic because my friend is sick and I have no idea what we are doing. It was so weird. We finally go to this ghetto hospital which had pee all over one of the bathrooms and this super weird guy staring at Alex and he had no clothes on except boxers and he had to have a security guard follow him around. This probably was one of the longest days of my life and it still wasn’t over quite yet. After the Jolly Green Giant ER doctor evaluated Al they determined she should be moved to a different hospital for women and children. Around midnight they moved us over there (by ambulance) and got Al set up in this little room. The nurse there was way mean to me because she kicked me out of the room for awhile but she ended up being really nice to Al and that’s all that matters. (I just don’t think she understood what we had gone through and I didn’t want to leave my friends side for one second) They got me a cot for the night and I passed out for a few hours. Of course during this whole time Al is still in pain and nauseous and nothing has helped. It was heart breaking.

Sat: I think the manager of the clinic felt really bad and she came and picked me up to get all of our stuff together. The clinic wasn’t able to keep the same room we had so we had to move our stuff to a new hotel. Alexs mom got there Sat morning and was able to take care of Alex while I wasn’t there. The doctor from the clinic finally came around and decided that it was time for surgery because this girl is in a lot of pain (Hello! Stupids) Finally after it seemed like an eternity of not knowing what was going on there was a plan of action and everything was going to be taken care of. They took her off to surgery around 3 or 4 and it was about 2+ hours to get her back to the room. This was one of many times I heard “Im sorry you have to see this” Duh girl, don’t be sorry. I was just sorry about all the pain. It was the worst thing ever to watch. We just hung out in the room while Alex came out of anesthesia. She had still had the weirdest cravings this whole time… chocolate cookies, juicy fruit gum, mac and cheese, haha. This night at least had some stress relief since Al was starting to get better and on her way to recovery. We ended the night watching Chapelle show and talking.

Sun: The best part of this day is that Alex was able to get up and walk a little bit without getting sick! Hallelujah! We still had a lot of waiting to do to make sure everything was ok and the doctor was going to discharge her. Ha during that time when they were checking up in Al I remember her telling the nurse “Hey, you smell like donuts” and the little asian nurse thanking her like it was the best compliment she had ever gotten. So random. We got to the new hotel (which reminded me so much of a Dr Seuss book) and I was able to finally shower and change my stinky clothes. If you ever want to smell as bad as possible just stay in the hospital for a few days, haha. I don’t know if its just because I felt super dirty but there was the best soap ever in that bathroom- Mandarin and Mint. (And I might have taken the lotion home as a souvenier) Once Al was settled in bed and her mom had showered and gotten ready too we had some more delicious pizza- Amicis again! And I decided to take a little walk on the pier and check out Fishermans Wharf. It was really cool and kinda crazy. Not as big of a crowd as pride but still about the same amount of rowdyness. It was fun though and there was this little museum place that had all these creepy old games. It was neat. And I got to see Alcatraz and all the stuff that comes along w/ the piers. I went back to the hotel for a bit and made sure Al was ok. Around the time it was dark I snuck out again for about 20 minutes to check out the fireworks on the pier, and video recorded them. Once I got back to into bed we ended the night w/ Kat Williams and Roseanne.

Mon: Started the day off with The Price is Right and Al’s mom got us Subway sandys, and some cute striped socks (Thank You) I think we were all just so tired and so ready to be home. It had been such a fun/crazy/random/cool/exhausting trip that we didn’t want to be anywhere but Salt Lake. We luckily got a nice shuttle ride to the airport and waited a little bit to be off. During the plane ride home I got to watch a little bit of FlapJack. The plane ride was a little bit bumpy in the end and it wasn’t as smooth as the plane ride in. We finally made it back in to slc around 430 and I just went straight home and went to bed. Alex and her mom went to her moms house and I think she was finally able to relax and get some rest.
I couldn’t believe what had all just happened. I know I probably forgot some stuff and there is probably some stuff that I wont ever forget but it definitely was a trip of a lifetime.