Escape To Alcatraz

We decided to go on a little trip to San Francisco since A) I'd never been B) Dan had a four day weekend C) I had work off too! We decided to splurge a bit and stay over one night at a hotel.

Being the money saver I am, I booked us this nice hotel room using Priceline for only $50! Except I accidently booked it for the wrong day. So then we ended up going for 2 nights, making it $100. I also found out after booking that there was a $50/night parking fee. Great deal eh?
We started off the next morning with THE BEST CROISSANT OF MY LIFE. Which is saying something. I eat my share of croissants.
We decided to eat them in one of "Frisco's"(I only call it that because I read it is a punishable faux pas) many parks. You will note that Dan is happy. Lauren is not. Lauren slipped and fell in mud in said park and was covered head to toe. Awesome. I was so pissed I refused to let Dan take a picture. I should have. In retrospect it was kinda funny.

We visited the Golden Gate Bridge. Though we were both a bit down, we resisted the urge to jumb. THERE IS HOPE.

We also visited Haight and Ashbury street. Didn't see too many outrageous characters, but a lot of way cool shops such as Amoeba Music.
Lombard Street. Not that cool. But obligatory stop and picture.
China Town!
Fortune cookie factory. Pretty cool. Also, because we are bad people, we bought a bag of "Adult" Chocolate fortune cookies. They were pretty funny. By the time you figured out the poor English on them, they were more funny than dirty. Don't tell my Mom. But she may read this anyway. Sorry Mom.
Probably the coolest part of the trip, ALCATRAZ. We rode this nice little ferry over.
Walked around the Island.
And then took an audio headset narrated tour of the Prison. Dang cool in my opinion.
Nothing like an isolated Island with a troubled past for a romantic picture. Frisco is really awesome. It has the cool big city feel like LA, but cleaner/nicer/safer/gayer haha.

Warning: Lots of Words, No Pictures.

We needed a little getaway, as things have been pretty stressful lately. It was announced that after Dan’s last test, they would be cutting 6 students from the program. So we found out Thursday that Dan was one of the 6. I feel really bad for him as I know how hard he worked and how incredibly frustrating it must be. I felt really confused when I got the news too. Didn’t we fast and pray about the decision to come here and learn Farsi? Didn’t we feel it was the right thing to do? Why would God lead us down a path only to shut us down with disappointment and confusion?

Dan must soon submit to his unit what he wants to do: restart in the same language, or do French. I was at first urging him to do French because A) its only a 6 month language, and I really really want to get back to school B) I think its such a beautiful language, I’ve always wanted to learn it. But Dan has already poured so much into Farsi just to give it up, it’s much more marketable than French as well.

So were kind of at an impasse. I’m worried that if I don’t get back to school soon, I never will. I really miss it too. Dan mentioned to me the idea of me going back for a semester or two while he stays here. But being apart when we have the opportunity to be together seems unwise. We've already been apart so much, and I'm sure there are deployments in our future. But I’m worried that I will get my Bachelors done so late that I won’t be able to go to Grad school at all or establish a career – we want to have kids someday and that puts things on a timetable… No kids anytime soon though!

It’s hard to find a balance of give and take, sacrificing for the greater good, and being unselfish – But I’m thinking that’s the whole point of marriage. Inshallah the coming weeks will be filled with less questions and more answers and reassurance.