Friday five.

In honor of my brother's recent visit, I bring you the top five things we pseudo-natives tend to forget about the Bay Area (or at least I tend to forget):

• The number of cars without license plates. I've had a number of visitors point this out to me, and having recently purchased a vehicle and not gotten plates for about six months I can now explain, firsthand (and in exactly four words if you count "DMV" as one word), why this is so.
• How big California really is. I had it in my head that we could hit Santa Cruz and Monterey in a day, easily. We hit them both in one day, but there wasn't much ease about it.
  
• How bloody much there is to DO here. Three point five days, approximately eight sights seen, approximately 4,689 sights skipped over in favor of the eight. In DC, eight sights would take about a day. (OK I exaggerate just a bit. But, particularly in June, you'd be lucky to hit one sight before you high-tailed it back to your hotel and hit the pool.)
  
• How healthy we all are, generally speaking. Must be a reflection of all the vegetarian non-smoking mountain-biking bottled-water-drinking types.
• How much fun Pier 39 can be, if you're in the mood.