Experiencing "Californication"

Katherin is sleepy

sleeping beauties on the shuttle

We made it to San Francisco!
It almost seems surreal that we were in the lobby of Anderson Hall at 7 am this morning. Waking up that early took a toll on us all, considering we slept the ENTIRE shuttle ride to the airport.

more sleeping beauties on the plane

The second we stepped of the shuttle bus, we experienced our first group fiasco! One of the people in our group only had her AU ID, and a photo copy of her driver's license. Luckily, it did not affect her getting onto the plane, but needles to say she had a few mishaps along the way.  Sweet altbreak adventures.

The plane ride was also rather interesting. We met an adorable baby named Miriam (our unofficial mascot of the trip), initiated a chat room with people from our AltBreak group (despite being literally a seat away from each other) andddddd slept, again. After almost 6 whole hours of sitting on a plane, we had finally arrived to San Fran.

the classic trolley 

Where we had lunch- the best burgers

ROMMIES!

We were all mesmerized by the beauty of the city, the rolling hills, the classic trolley cars, and the colorful buildings. Not to mention, our absolute culture shock with the California weather compared to the, shall we say, "unpredictable" DC weather.

plane buddies (Andrew, Kelly & Sarah) 

Despite encountering  an awful smell due to road construction (the "benefits" of living in the city), our hostel pleasantly surprised us. It actually exceeded all of our expectations! However, we were rather scared with the lift's creaking sounds and sporadic movements while riding up to the 5th floor of our humble abode.

After coming out of the elevator, we then found out that none of our keys worked! After multiple tries of swiping, flipping and twisting the key card...it finally opened into the best and most spacious hostel room (for the four of us). After making our beds and passing out for a while, we had a quick meeting before going on our $5 a day grocery shopping extravaganza.


The purpose of the $5 a day per person meal idea, is to better empathize with the social justice nature of our trip. This is roughly the amount of money that people receiving federal assistance for groceries are able to spend.  We split up into 2 teams, and after stressing over scouring through multiple aisles for the perfect and cheapest prices, we ended up WAY under budget for an entire week :)

pretty buildings

We got back to the hostel, put away our groceries, and the cooking team (JB, Sarah & Katherin) made dinner-Aunt Biddie's Mac & Cheese, otherwise known as Biddie Mac. And, of course, we tweaked the recipe by using crumbled Cheez-its, instead of bread crumbs. We zoned out during dinner, had a quick reflection on our day overall and we are now headed to watch "Milk".

dinner and reflection