It’s been years since Melody got to spend Thanksgiving with her folks back home, so our trip to Cali this week has been long awaited. Our plan for this “stay-cation” was simply to relax, eat, and sleep – a welcomed break after the exhausting fellowship interview season. Much of our time was spent hanging out with our niece and in-laws in Sacramento and Stockton, exploring nearby restaurants and shopping at strip malls. I also caught up on data analysis for a research project while getting addicted to Property Virgins on HGTV. Last Saturday, we drove to San Francisco to pig out at the Ferry Building Marketplace. There, we got to feel young, hip, and epicurean while waiting in line for fresh oysters, Korean tacos, bacon-infused hotdogs, and porchetta sandwiches; washed down with some chai tea milk, an ice-cream sandwich, and pan au chocolat. We ended our week off with Melody’s 2-day job interview at UC Davis, which gave me plenty of time to sit in a hotel room and ruminate over my fellowship rank list. On the flight home, we found out that our flight attendant was also an enthusiast of Skyrim, the long-awaited sequel to Oblivion from the Elder Scrolls role-playing series. We loaned him our game guidebook in exchange for a free airline snack box and eager anecdotes of his adventures as a dragon-slaying wood elf. It definitely kept our neighboring passengers listening in utter confusion and thirsty for their beverages. The exchange got us all hyped up and eager to embark on our own adventures there.