Musee Mecanique

For a unique museum experience, visit the Musee Mecanique on Fisherman's Wharf in SF. It's the the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines. For the cost of a quarter you can get your fortune told, play baseball, or test your strength. We visited last weekend with Randa and the kids and took some photos in their photo booth. Beware of the photobooth, though--it starts to take pictures before you can finish feeding it dollars ($3 total) and you end up sacrificing a pic.

Flying into the Bay Area

There are several different airports you can fly into for your trip out to Oakland. The most convenient is the Oakland International Airport (OAK), situated in San Leandro and about a 15-20 minute drive to downtown Berkeley, 10 minutes to Oakland. If you are not renting a car, check the AirBART schedule for information on getting from the OAK airport to any location on the BART line. AirBART costs $3 for the shuttle, plus the cost of your BART ticket (varies depending on the exit station).

San Francisco International (SFO) is your next best location, located south of the city. It's a 45 minute drive from SFO to Oakland (no traffic), and the BART also runs directly from the airport. San Jose International (SJC) is the third best bet, but a much farther drive. OAK is, by far, the easiest airport to get in and out of, along with being the closest to our hotels and wedding location. Southwest Airlines also has a hub there.

Registries

We are now officially registered at Crate & Barrel. We'll be updating these lists soon, so more selection to come, along with a few local stores for Bay Area friends to support.

Gelato Milano

For decadent homemade gelato in downtown Berekely, swing by Gelato Milano located at 2170 Shattuck (and Center), just a block down from the Berkeley BART stop. Open 7 days/week, Friday and Saturday noon-midnight, Sunday to Thursday noon-11pm. Their gelato is much better than the chain down the street (Gelato Naia) and their Donald Judd ambiance is much better for focusing on the fresh Italian artisanship in your cup. Advance warning: this gelato is not vegan.

Welcome to The Party!

Thanks for stopping by our blog, set up to help you plan your trip out to the Bay Area for our wedding on September 30, 2007. Ben and I will be updating regularly with information about hotels, restaurants, bars, and attractions in and around Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco. There's lots to see and do, and we hope you find this information helpful.

For those of you new to blogs, all entries are categorized by tags, shown in the left hand menu under "INFO". If you are looking for resturants in San Francisco, you can go to the INFO menu and click on "Restaurants: SF". That will take you directly to all entries about restaurants in SF. To return to the full blog, simply click the "Show All Posts" link at the top of the page. As we create more entries, we'll be adding more tags.

Feel free to add comments to our posts and let us know if you want more info about a specific topic. To stay up-to-date, subscribe to our blog by joining the mailing list (directly below Hawkeye's picture). Thanks for visiting and hope to see you all soon!