I Heart San Fran! Part 1

I know I promised lots of posts about San Fran, but let's be honest- it's been a week and if you haven't noticed, posts are kind of sparse around here- so let's just be glad I'm posting anything- OK?

First off let's talk about "All my Amazing Race dreams came true!"-

I love my job and my coworkers. As a fun "team building" activity, the VP hired this company in SF that coordinates "Amazing Race"-type scavenger hunts. Ours was conducted in downtown SF and it was a blast. My team was the yellow team- complete with bandannas!

We were given a variety of tasks that we could do to get points. The task included word games and puzzles and by was I thankful for logical, analytical teammates who can walk and do sudoku! We had objects we had to locate and film our team doing silly things in front of using the provided video camera.

There were also certain tasks that we had to get strangers to help us with. At one point I was begging 20 Hispanic dudes to disco dance with us on the corner of Union square. It was pretty hilarious. We did learn that people (esp. tourists) will do anything for someone with an accent- that is why we sent in our secret weapon- Tony who is from England! Bonus points were given for secretly filming another team doing a task, so there was much ducking into doorways and etc. when another team was spotted.

Our team came in a good, solid 3rd place and the scores between the first 3 places was super-close and came down to a task or two. In all it was SOOO much fun to run around like crazy people for a couple hours and bond :)

Next up, is "Mak's adventures in public transportation!"-

After the work stuff was done, I got to Bek's house. I took Friday off, and I really wanted to go to the Tut exhibit at the De Young museum. We had seen the advertisements for it this summer before when we were visiting Bek and I wanted to go back.

Bek kindly offered to let me take the "Nanny Car" but I thought- "I can take the Bart in and catch a bus- it'll be easy..." So I did and it cost about the same and took 40x longer than if I had driven. Lesson for me, I guess. It was kind of fun to navigate all of the public transportation, and I did feel a huge sense of victory when I actually got to where I was going :)

The exhibit itself was fantastic. I paid extra for the audio tour and it added some nice "color" to the experience. The exhibit covers artifacts from Tut's g-grandparents, grandparents, parents and from his tomb. The artistry that went into the sculptures and inlaid jewelry was so amazing!

I think so often when I think of Egyptian artifacts, I think of the big structures like the tombs and pyramids. It was so amazing to study the detail on the chest plates and other inlay work. My favorites were the big, gold outer sarcophogas of his great aunt (?). It was the outer ornate gold one and while it was big, it held 2 additional "boxes" inside and it was only as tall as me (if I were to lay down). That means the person inside had to have been tiny!

My other favorite was a gold box-thing that they think was a small alter or shrine. It had a place where a statue of a god sat inside and the outside was all covered in depiction's of Tut and his wife (he only had one). It was almost like a "photo album" of them and they seemed like they were in love. It was very sweet. It was also amazing to be looking at a wood chair (they had a couple of them) and have the audio point out that that chair is 3,000 years old!

If you are in the SF area, or have the chance to catch this exhibit, please do. I don't think it would be little kid friendly (which is why I was glad for the opportunity to go kid-less) but I could see my older nieces and nephew really liking it!