Sarah visits / Our Spa Day Adventure

My best friend in the world Sarah came out to visit for three and a half days in February and it was sooo wonderful to see her, and to show her a California good time. I had a packed itinerary planned for us, and after I picked her up from the airport we headed straight to Picchetti Winery for a wine tasting to set the mood. She arrived a bit shaken due to a crazy windstorm that caused her flight to have a scary rough landing, and at the winery we watched out the windows as strong winds blew the trees sideways.

All the craziest things always happen to her, so it was only fitting that she brought crazy weather with her.

We went out for a Mexican feast her first night at Vive Sol, which sounded like it would have delicious food and margaritas. The food lived up to the hype but unfortunately the drinks were bad, fake and too-sweet, which was disappointing. We filled up on yummy food anyway and rolled ourselves back home.

strawberry cupcake from Sprinkles Cupcakes

Our most memorable and hilarious day was Thursday, our spa day. I had gotten a groupon to Fremont Day Spa for the two of us to get massages, facials and body scrubs. We arrived and were shown to a small room with two beds in it - for us. Apparently we were getting a couples massage! This was unexpected, but we laughed and were game. A woman and a man came in to do the massages, and the woman asked us which of them we preferred to massage us. The man evidently did not speak a word of English. We indicated it didn't matter to us, so the woman went to Sarah and I had the man, and they started our massages.

I had a very thorough full body massage with extra emphasis on my buttocks and thighs, and then we flipped over onto our backs, while staying covered under the blankets. The next step was the body scrub. The woman proceeded to uncover all the parts that would get the scrub - arms, legs, and belly - and I asked her to please cover my belly back up, I did not want my belly scrubbed. Arms, legs and chest would be fine. It did not take long to conclude that the body scrub was a terrible idea. It was quite chilly in the air conditioned room and as our masseuses scrubbed us all over, all our exposed and now-wet skin grew ice cold and we began to shiver.

Next, we were supposed to go shower all the scrub off before beginning our facials. The woman asked Sarah, "you and your friend, go shower together?"
"There's just one shower?" asked Sarah. The woman confirmed there was one."We'll take turns," she said, and the woman gave us robes to wear, and Sarah went to take her shower first. I lay in the room, freezing and shivering, and waited til she came back to go take my shower. The hot water thawed me out, thankfully.

Then we lay in the room, covered up with blankets again, warm and comfortable, to wait for the facialist, a different woman, to come in. We laughed and laughed at the tiny shower where we were supposed to go shower together. There wasn't even room for two people to shower at once! "We could have taken turns rinsing each other off," we laughed.

The facial was my favorite part of our spa day; the woman did a great job and my skin felt soft and smooth and wonderful afterward, although she did make some interesting comments. After we indicated it had been a while since either of us had had a facial, she said "You're lucky you're still young!" and had a good chuckle.

We made sure to leave good tips for our masseuses and facialist and then we got back in the car and died laughing all the way home about our bargain spa day, featuring a couples' butt massage, freezing body scrub and single shower.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing, fun and uneventful - we got our nails done, went shopping, had cupcakes, worked out at the gym, ate Oren's hummus, walked around Stanford campus and the art museum, had the mimosa sampler at Local Union 271, went to a chocolate tasting downtown that her husband Ben bought for us, had ice cream cookie sandwiches at CREAM, and got to catch up on life. Having so much girl time was a revelation; I don't get nearly as much since we moved out here and I miss it SO MUCH. I'm so happy Sarah was able to get away for a long weekend to come visit and we'll always have our spa day to look back and laugh about. I love and miss her so much!!

chocolate tasting