Swan Centre - Dead Mall coming back to life!

On Thursday morning, I visited Starbucks in the Swan Centre before dropping Bones to Mutt Ugly to get groomed at 10am.

I was surprised to see how changed the Swan Centre was in the two weeks that I was in the States. The whole place is going through a refurbishment with white tiling throughout along with all of the shops getting smart white consistent store fronts fitted.

What most surprised me was this new shop that is being fitted. It's a Popcorn shop. Ciaran and I always remark how, when we are in USA, that we don't know how whole shops dedicated to one product survive. Examples of this that we have seen is a popcorn shop in Chicago, Peppers in Key West that just sells Hot Sauce and also Towels of Key West that just sells towels. Along with numerous Sock shops that obviously only sell socks. Feel free to tell me about any more in the comments section!

Anyway what is opening new in the Swan Centre is a Popcorn Shop!! Here is a photos of the place being fitted out. It looks nice and is in a great location where SWALK used to be.

Another new shop is this Belarmine Dry Cleaner which is in the spot where Planet Candy used to be. I saw on the window that they were ironing shirts for €1 (which is what I used to pay Northside) so after dropping Bones, I went home and picked up 20 shirts and left them in to be ironed. I chatted with the owner and he told me that they were charging €1.60 across the road for shirt ironing. I agreed with him that his prices were cheap and said he will get a lot of business.

And then as I walked down towards Dunnes, I saw another new place being fitted out. It's a Jewellers in a spot where I think there had been a Jewellers there about a year ago.

Other things to note are that there is a fairly new Butcher next door to Dunnes food and that Dunnes is also getting an overhaul with new flooring being put in. All in all the whole place is looking much improved and I hope all of the new businesses will do well. I particularly hope that the Popcorn shop does well as I reckon they are taking the biggest risk.

Frank Lloyd Wright - 140 Maiden Lane, San Francisco

Ten years ago, on our last trip to San Francisco, we visited this Frank Lloyd Wright building on Maiden Lane. It was built in 1948 and when you enter you instantly are reminded of the Guggenheim Museum in New York which it was the prototype for.  Originally it was a Gift Shop but when we visited it back in 2005 it was Xanadu Art Gallery.  However, on this visit we found it shut up and we were unable to enter. I see from the Wikipedia page that it has been sold to a high end designer boutique (which was exactly the use that I told Ciaran it would be perfect for while we stood outside and viewed the building).  I'm glad to hear it has been sold and hopefully we will get to view it again in the future!

The above brick detail on the left of the building is phenomenal to look at from the street

Curved glass!

The light features along the building are instantly recognizable as being designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

I imagine that the tree outside the building was specified by FLW?!

What an incredible building.  It is beyond timeless - I think it is actually getting better with age and looks more modern than a lot of buildings built this decade.

What I read on holidays.....

"Smart Women" by Judy Blume

I bought this book in Pacific Grove in the Friends of the Library book sale for $2.  I had read a few of Judy Blume's adult reads before and enjoyed them.  This one is very "1980's" but enjoyable all the same.

"Surf Mama" was the perfect beach read.  All about English artist, Wilma Johnson, and her quest to learn to surf at the age of 40, after moving from Ireland to France, it made me want to get a wetsuit and board and learn too!!

"The short and tragic life of Robert Peace" by Jeff Hobbs
 Oh wow! This book was amazing. I bought it in the airport in San Francisco and had it read when I arrived in Philadelphia 5 hours later. What a tale of a life that promised so much - it makes you think that sometimes our life is mapped out for us no matter what extra chances we are given.

I generally switch over to Radio 1 to avoid Ivan Yates on Newstalk. However, I did enjoy his biography - he sure has lived a life and a half.

B.J. Novak's "One more thing" is pretty much fictional musings on modern life.  Amusing in parts, I bought this book in Pacific Grove but left it behind in Santa Cruz as I had finished it and didn't want to carry it home.......what does this say about the book?!

This was Ciaran's "light reading" for our holiday.  I flicked through it and read a few of the more interesting chapters.  I studied Sociology in University so I found some of it to be fascinating from a sociological perspective.

Where we stayed in California - Pacific Grove, Santa Cruz & San Francisco

We are home from our big Californian Trip so this blog post is all about where we stayed over the two weeks.

The first hotel we stayed in was close to San Francisco Airport.  It was the La Quinta Inn on the El Camino Real and we chose it because we just needed to get a room close to the airport for one night after the long flight to SF.  We were pleasantly surprised by this hotel (which was a good thing because I had booked it for our last night too!) as we didn't expect too much because it was an airport hotel.  

The room was good and there was a nice pool and gym in this hotel. For breakfast there was was  hot food which included eggs, bacon and waffles along with yoghurts, cereals and breads (which I stayed away from but Ciaran enjoyed the carbs!)

The second place we stayed in was a Bed & Breakfast called the Martine Inn which was in Pacific Grove.

This was the amazing view from the dining room every morning - we even saw a whale in the bay over breakfast!!

 Every evening there was a cocktail hour with wine and hot hor d'oevres served every evening which was a nice touch.

The Inn owner has a collection of MG's in the garage out back.  My twin sister owned a 1967 MG (read about it here) so I was really interested in checking all of these babies out!

 We stayed in the Pineapple Room.  All of the rooms are full of antique furniture.  Our room was on the smaller side (perhaps the smallest in the Inn) and the only issue I had was that it was filled with really massive furniture and space was at a premium - perhaps one or two items could be removed or replaced with smaller furniture.

Check out the old school phone in our room.  I rang a local restaurant and I can tell you it really felt I was making a phone call as I pressed those clunky buttons!!

And then it was on to the Casablanca Inn in Santa Cruz. 

I loved this place......anywhere you can walk on to the beach in a few steps is fine by me!!

We had a lovely room with a king size bed and a little kitchenette. 

This was the incredible view from our little balcony - it was so special to wake up to a beach view. 

 Honestly I didn't get up to a whole lot in either beach location apart from chilling on the beach and walking the area.

Check out my bargain beach blanket. We went to buy beach towels in Pacific Grove and they were all sold out because of Labor Weekend.  We didn't want to go to another shop so I suggested we buy blankets.  We paid $3.99 for the blankets and $2.99 for the mat when I got back to the counter the lady who was helping us look for towels remarked how smart we were that we found an alternative.  She also said that we had saved money as the towels were $11.99!  :-) 

After Santa Cruz we moved on to San Francisco where we were booked in to the Adagio Hotel on Geary St.  This was a nice little boutique hotel.  The lobby was especially nice and the rooms had been tastefully refurbed.  The only issue I had with this place was that they didn't offer free WiFi in the bedrooms only in the lobby. I'm so over hotels charging for WiFi - what do you think?  On the other hand, there was free coffee available in the lobby which I very much enjoyed!

We had hoped to stay in the Adagio for our last night in San Francisco but the huge Dreamforce Conference was on in SF and the price of a room jumped to about 700 dollars!!  Whoah!  

We booked in to the La Quinta and got a shuttle from the Adagio on Tuesday evening to San Francisco Airport and then got a free shuttle to the La Quinta from the airport.  The next morning we returned to the airport by shuttle too and were on our way back to Ireland!

We were very happy with all of the places we stayed (they were all very different) and we would happily recommend them to anyone.

The Lighthouse Movie Theater in Pacific Grove, California

While in Pacific Grove we went to see the new Robert Redford film "A walk in the woods" which is based on Bill Bryson's tale of walking the Appalachian Trail.  We saw the movie in the Lighthouse Cinema.  It was a great cinema!!  Very old school.  A cool experience to see this very American film in a very American movie theater (or theatre, as the Irish would say!)

Here is the cinema from across the road.

Pacific Grove is full of Victorian properties and has a huge wide main stream - it's very picturesque.

This little shop reminded me of Key West.

 Here is the cinema at night time when we came out as the movie finished.

Main street Pacific Grove looked quite Christmassy in September with the lighted trees!

Having a whale of a time in Monterey!

It seems so far ago now but on our last day in the Monterey area we went on a Whale Watching Trip for a half day before heading up to Santa Cruz.  After having our original trip cancelled due to the rough weather we felt lucky to have got a new trip booked for 9am on Sunday morning.

We travelled out on the water for about an hour.  While getting to an area where there was whales we saw otters and dolphins (lots of them swimming around the boat). We then got to the area where there was whales and that's where the experience started.  It was incredible!!

We could not believe the amount of whales we saw. Our guide said that there was about 50 in the area although you only see about 1 or 2 at a time as once you see them dive with their back fin you know they are going under water for about 5 mins.  

Aswell as seeing so many we so them doing so many things.  We we even saw one come completely out of the water and throw their self back in that iconic whale pose!  I also saw one come up out of the water with it's mouth open which was very cool looking.

We were awed by nature and I will have amazing memories of this trip forever.

Whale Watching in Pacific Grove in the Martine Inn

We are staying in the Martine Inn in Pacific Grove near Monterey. This is the stunning view out the front dining room where breakfast is served along with hot hors d'oevres and wine in the evening. The view is fabulous (it's a million dollar view) but what is even more amazing is the wildlife that we have spotted in the water as we are enjoying our breakfast.  We have seen dophins, otters but best of all whales!!!  
It's been hard to keep up a conversation with whoever you are with because when you see a whale you have to immediately say Wow and point it out to others near you!

Here's the table laid out for the Wine & Cheese which is on at 5.30pm every evening.

The inn is full of antiques and we have played pool on the 1890's table every night which has been fun.

The inn is quaint and charming with a few nice touchs like fresh fruit available throughout the day along with freshly baked goods and coffee from 3pm.  First day there was delicious chocolate cookies (I brought a few to Starbucks yesterday) and then there was an oatmeal raisin bite type bar.  I wonder what will be made today?!

Speaking of Starbucks, that is where we are currently, we were up at 6.30am this morning so the jet lag is easing.
Look at these cookies - how cute are they!!  They are in the shape of  Starbucks Frapuccinos!