Graduation Day!!

Pool party at Rohnert PArk, CA (in the vicinity of Santa Rosa, CA) on Sunday hosted by Donata - here's the Santa Rosa gang (i.e., USF campus at Santa Rosa students) and me.

Brian's brother cutting the cake..



Brunch/Dinner party at Brian's!!

The church on campus where the ceremony took place.

After the ceremony we had a reception.





I'm in front, followed by my cohort mates and good friends Brian and Paul.







On May 17, 2008 I (Frank) officially graduated. Officially in the sense that I still need to write my thesis-like paper and case analysis at the end of July. Furthermore, I still need to attend summer classes. However, all 'new' classes I have finished and the commencement ceremony was on this date already.

Roadtrip Lake Tahoe/Sacramento

In Sacramento temperatures had risen like crazy. We only had limited time, so I gave the rest of the group a very quick tour of the Capitol. After visiting the Capitol building we went to a museum in Old Sacramento and returned to San Francisco. For the first time since we lived here temperatures throughout the city were extremely hot: in the 90s!! In hardly ever gets this hot in the city, particularly in the Sunset District!

The pass on the way down to Sacramento from the Sierra Nevada.

Squaw Valley - this is where we went skiing the first year we were in California. Original plan was to take a gondula up the mountain and do some hiking. However, contrary to the website, the gondula was down and we decided to set off early for a quick visit to Sacramento instead.








At the falls..



A bit of hiking... Across granite rocks to the water falls.




Emerald Bay.

Looking back over our shoulders towards South Lake Tahoe, CA (and Nevada).


South Lake Tahoe, California

Our first brief stop near the lake: Lake Tahoe, Nevada side. In the background the tall casino buildings.

Only a little a bit of snow left - it certainly looked different from last January when we visited the area to go skiing.



In week 20 Frank's parents visited San Francisco for the second (third) time. Main goal: Frank's graduation. On Tuesday and Wednesday the four of us went to Lake Tahoe to do some roadtripping and hiking.

Hanging out in Golden Gate Park; a Very Simple Guide

Let's conclude with home sweet home, this is our small balcony, Marieke, this picture is for you! As you can see, sun is returning to this side of the house (no fog yet...) so we can sit outside, enjoy the view and our beers in the sun again, using our 'bierplankje', a special construction attached to the side of the balcony which can hold a few beers and a bowl of cheetos. It obviously is time to return to SF again!

Friends, Food and Fun in the Park, what else do you need?

How to catch a ball? Just wait 'till it comes flying over!

And this is Melodi, member of the BOL gang for a while already. Looks like she got the hang of it...

And: Don't forget to Throw a Ball! Frank playing a game of catch in slow motion so our camera could catch up. Nice detail: the SF Giants cap. Wishful thinking or nice new future? Heard they just hired a very sweet & handsome pitcher...

Hihi! This wine tastes pretty good!

Be Prepared to Share; within a few minutes we had even more friends, one of Golden Gate Park's natives. Sadly, San Francisco has a lot of homeless people living on the streets and also in the Park. Last weekend we heard that 150.000 people in San Francisco do not have enough money to pay for food. That is about 1/6 of the whole population of the city! We were shocked to find out and immediately ran off to one of SF's small food markets to buy some canned food for the SF food bank which tries to distribute food to the less fortunate in this city. Tries to, as due to the current financial crisis the amount of food they are able to distribute is severly reduced, while at the same time the amount of people in need is increasing. We shared some of our food with a few of the homeless people hanging out near our picknick spot. We almost felt ashamed of our excess amounts of food.

Oh and apart from filling your cooler with all the Good Food and beers, you shouldn't forget to invite lots of Nice Friends to share the Good Food.

See? All the way down! Good thing we have a decent size car...


Some nice pics of our sunny neigborhood, the weather is getting better every week which invites for some nice picknicks in the Park. This very San Franciscan Thing to Do is based on a very simple concept; one buys a lot of food, wine and beer, one preps some nice picknick food, one fills up a cooler with all the Good Food and beers and heads for the Park. Simple, right? But here's the caveat; have you ever tried to drag a cooler full with stuff for more than a block? So just to be very American (hey we're just trying to integrate, don't blame us!) we took the car to get ourselves and the cooler down three blocks. It would have been quite a walk... Anyway, enjoy the pics!