Busy Weekend

(click to see flickr set)

Noelle's BFF from high school, April came from SoCal to visit us last weekend. April wanted to go see the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so we went down to Monterey on Saturday. The aquarium had some traveling exhibits I hadn't seen before, including fresh water otters which were really cool. The jellyfish exhibits were also fascinating to watch as usual. They had an ocean sunfish there, which I haven't seen in a while at the aquarium. New since my last visit was a new entrance with a large exhibit dedicated to the history of fishing at Cannery Row (where the aquarium is located). My only disappointment was not being able to find any cuttlefish, which are probably my favorite fish there.

After extracting all the goodness possible from Monterey, we skidaddled northwards to Santa Cruz, where we were just in time to get some yummy greek food at Vasili's. Man, I love that place. I am also very fond of Cafe Pergolesi, where we went for coffee afterwards. We finally ended up at the boardwalk where Aki was sitting in at a very respectable blues band at a bar there.

The next day we got up late, but in time to go see The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor before taking April to the airport. The movie was ok. The fight scenes were very respectable, the effects were fab, the dialog caused my brain to try and escape from my skull, and the story was... average. Pretty much, there is a mummy with a dark backstory and someone wakes him up and Brendan Fraser and company have to put a stop to it. You know the drill. Oh, and there are yeti in the movie. Kung-fu yeti. I'm not making this up.

Anyway, that a whole lot of Dr Who watching pretty much took up my weekend. Which is now over. Sigh.