A Lady in London

I’m an aunt! My new nephew was recently born in San Diego, and my mother and I traveled down from San Francisco for his arrival. We spent most of our time at the hospital, but when we weren’t fawning over our new family member, we explored the nearby Point Loma area.

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People always ask me what I miss most about living in San Francisco. My answer is always the same: the food and wine. But what’s a Lady in London to do when she goes home to California to await the birth of her nephew and can’t make any firm foodie plans?

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People always ask me how I cope with jet lag. Somehow they assume that after traveling non-stop for five years, I have developed an immunity to the travel-induced cycle of narcolepsy and insomnia. Truth is, I haven’t. And I use that to my advantage when I watch the sunrise in San Francisco.

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Wild turkeys have taken over my home town in California. Seriously. They’re everywhere. The locals don’t know what to do with them, and the animals don’t know what to make of them. But they’re not the only thing that has changed about Portola Valley over the years, and being home this week made that clear.

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Not many people visit California’s Napa Valley in the winter. The grape harvest has long since taken place, the vines are brown and bare, and the famous Chardonnays and Cabernets are growing old in their barrels. But for those that make the effort, traveling to Napa in the off-season can bring some unexpected rewards.

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When I was in college, I spent six months living and studying in San Diego. Actually, I lived in a beachside town called Del Mar and studied in a clifftop town called La Jolla. But that’s the way California works. We have one big city surrounded by lots of little ones, and we call the whole place by a single name. But we shouldn’t.

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Last weekend I traveled to California. Yes, you read that right. I spent over 17 hours flying 6,000 miles just to spend 1.5 days in my home state.

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I didn’t want to come home for Thanksgiving. For the past five years I have gotten used to being away. From St. Petersburg to London, I have enjoyed carefree Thanksgiving dinners and have largely avoided cooking. But this year my mother’s attempts to guilt trip me into coming home to Silicon Valley finally worked. I packed my bags and got ready for a California Thanksgiving with the family.

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One of my favorite things about traveling home to California is the abundance of outdoor activities on offer. From hikes in the Santa Cruz Mountains to walks in Northern California’s coastal regions, from big wave surfing at Mavericks to kite surfing in San Francisco Bay, there is no shortage of things to do.

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California doesn’t have much history. It didn’t become a state until 1850, and not many people were around before the Gold Rush in 1849. Compared to London, where there are actual Roman ruins in the city center, my state looks pretty pathetic. But there are a few places that have more history than most, and one of them is the coastal town of Pescadero, California.

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One of my favorite things to do when I travel to San Francisco is to go wine tasting. Most of my recent tasting trips have been to Russian River, which is famous for its Pinot Noirs. Last week, however, I decided to venture a bit more north to go wine tasting in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley.

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