The First Weekend.

Upon heading out Thursday, April 23rd, I arrived after the most uneventful trip of my life from Europe to the United States at the RDU airport around 9 PM. Amber arrived around 9:30 PM to pick me up with Mindy, who seemed quite excited I was home, and after a quick run home to drop off my things took me to an event she had been at earlier in the evening. It was a send-off party at a fellow MBA's house where people were playing games and generally excited to be almost done with their classes. Obviously since it was about 4 AM for me, I was less chipper than most. Let's just say people were so happy you would have thought the people playing Settler's of Catan were playing something more like beer pong. However, I sat down at a poker table, won a few chips, donated some money to the host's chipstack throughout the night and eventually bet everything I had on a few hands of garbage to distribute my chips to people who could keep their eyes open.

The following morning, in a rather delusional state I found myself leaving a rather sad Mindy at home to get on a plane to San Francisco. After arriving around 6 PM or so at my friend Chris' apartment in Oakland, we drove past my old apartment and ate at the Can't Fail Cafe in Emeryville. Now, the Can't Fail Cafe is this little diner with great food just near the Pixar campus my wife and I discovered very early on in our marriage. For a long time it was our favorite place to go when we did not feel like eating at home, and eventually Chris and I starting eating there after our bi-weekly tennis matches/mutual counseling sessions. So, being back there after two years with so many memories really meant a lot to me. It was hard actually to swallow the lump in my throat that formed when I saw the place I consider to be my first real home.

After fighting off sleep awaiting the arrival of my friend's G & J who were also visiting the Bay Area that weekend, eventually I dozed off for what turned out to be not particularly long given that I had a very hard time sleeping past 4 AM for the first 5-6 days of the trip. However, this wound up being a benefit, given that it took me about two hours to get from Lake Merritt to my conference at San Francisco State University that morning.

Upon arriving early, I made sure things were all in order with our conference room, drank a few cups of cheap conference coffee, introduced myself to speakers we slowly filtered in the building, and happily observed as a number of our invited speakers gave very interesting talks. Sadly, there is not much of campus corner near SFSU, so our whole conference meandered to a food court at a nearby mall to eat lunch. It is a strange sight seeing a bunch of mathematicians trying to decide where to eat in a mall food court. Later that evening, I met up with my friends for a delightful dinner with a rather pleasant bottle of wine at Greens Restaurant in the Marina District, then eventually caught up to talk shop with a number of my conference attendees over a beer at 21st Amendment Pub.

The next morning, the BART was shut down when I arrived for the purpose of doing some maintenance. As a result, I had quite a journey. First, I asked a bus driver for a nearby Transbay line. She told me to hop on and she would take me to one, which she did. So, I hopped on the F line to get to Embarcadero Station. From there, I tried to get on a MUNI line, but all the change machines were closed and my supply was limited. After wondering around the Financial District for the only Starbucks open on Sunday morning, I finally got my change and was able to get a MUNI to the conference. I arrived at 8:59 AM for the 9:00 AM talk.

After another successful session of morning talks, I met some friends for lunch, went to Oakland for my things and eventually took Chris' car to my cousin's house for a long overdue reunion. Due to other obligations, I had not had the chance to see them since I had arrived on Friday night, but entering their house was quite a pleasant feeling. See, when I first moved to Berkeley, I never would have made it without my cousins. Since I lived down the street, I spent many a weekend there doing laundry, went on many a family trip, watched their kids grow up and developed a cherished friendship with all of them. When I arrived, we went right back to that place, despite the fact that I had two years of catching up to do with L & J, their kids who had experienced many changes as all teenagers are wont to do in 2 years time.

The night was a simply barbeque with some old friends, but made me feel so happy to be back somewhere familiar, brought up the memories of a number of old stories, gave time for the telling of new stories and generally reminded me that my past life of having a home and roots really did exist. It was insane to see how much had changed in everyone, but also to appreciate the things that remained remarkably similar. It was just a beautiful experience. Even their rescued poodle Archie seemed to remember me and welcome me back with open paws, but that could have simply been because he knew I would be easily suckered in to letting his sleep with me, which indeed I was throughout the week.