A day in Berkeley

Another post about my parent's recent visit from Australia. Still a few more to come after this one too...

After spending a few days playing tourist in San Francisco we decided to keep it local and spend a day with my parents in the East Bay.

We started the day with breakfast at Saul's Delicatessen in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto. Saul's is one of my favourite places to go for a casual meal, especially breakfast or brunch. Oh, I do love their Malawach Yemeni Pancake. So, so good.

We then stocked up on goodies from the Cheeseboard and headed to Indian Rock. You may remember Indian Rock from my post a few weeks back. It's my new favourite place in Berkeley to go for a walk (or rather, climb!) with the kids. The views from the top are amazing and scrambling over the rocks is loads of fun.

From Indian Rock we headed to the university campus. The university campus here in Berkeley is absolutely massive. Taking a stroll amongst the stately buildings surrounded by lush wooded areas is always a relaxing way to spend an afternoon. We stopped in a little secluded area alongside Strawberry Creek and picnicked on our goodies from Cheeseboard while the girls explored the creek. Ava's class at school recently studied animal habitats on a field trip to Strawberry Creek so she was quite the expert on all the bugs and birds hanging around us.

From bugs and birds we headed off to find squirrels. The wooded areas in the university are home to large numbers of squirrels. As you can imagine the squirrels are pretty used to being around people and aren't scared at all. In fact, from what I can tell the squirrels get most of their food from students and locals passing through the university. Or locals visiting the university with the sole intention of feeding the squirrels, which is something we've been known to do in the past. My parents were pretty keen to feed the squirrels too. To us Australians squirrels are quite the novelty. Even to those of us who see them pretty much every day!

With the squirrels' bellies full it was time to fill our bellies again. Seriously, a day spent in Berkeley pretty much just consists of going from food place to food place to food place! We stopped by Cinnaholic, one of my favourite places to go to satisfy my sweet tooth. Best cinnamon rolls ever.

In the evening we took my parents to Oakland Coliseum for a baseball game; Oakland A's vs Texas Rangers. The girls really enjoy going to the baseball, although being an evening game (and one that was stretched out quite long towards the end) the girls were quite tired as the night wore on. Mathilde seemed to enjoy watching the crowd and couldn't get enough of looking at the stadium lights as the sun went down. She's obsessed with lights at the moment.

Being Mathilde's first baseball game I couldn't resist getting her a teeny tiny (but still way too big for her!) A's cap. Now she matches her big sisters.

After spending the previous few days rushing around San Francisco it was nice to spend a quieter day on our side of the Bay. The girls got to show Mamma and Papa some of their favourite places to play and I love introducing visitors to my favourite places to eat. It was a lovely day.

Oh, and to top it all off, the A's won!