San Jose

 I spent the weekend in San Jose, California.  I know, San Francisco gets all the tourists' praise and glory.  However, I prefer going south the extra 40 miles or so from San Francisco to hang out in San Jose for a myriad of reasons.  For starters, my son lives there.  Yes, that makes me biased and I will own that 10,000% .  

I love the old architecture.  I love staying at the old Sainte Claire (now the downtown Westin San Jose).  At this point we know the staff at the hotel and they have shared their ghost stories and pics with us.  

I love the Haberdasher Bar.  It's an old speak easy that has a very 1920's vibe.  The drinks are really expensive, but just watching the bartender make them is worth the price.  

I loved that there was a heavy metal band in the middle of the street giving a concert.  Yes, it was all sanctioned as streets were properly blocked off with patrols.  There were random couches in the street as well.  People were bobbing their heads and getting into the music.  One old punker had a concert shirt from 1987.  YUP.... I can relate to that year....1987.  That was yesterday, right?  He had his spiked hair, spiked dog collar, and spiked everything else.  

Where I'm going with this was that the crowd was RIPE to move their head-bobbing to the music to actual dancing and I could feel the crowd's energy ready to bust open.   You know who excels at getting the crowd to dance?  Yup.  Moi.  Yes, it's me the old lady who unabashedly does some stupid dance moves is all that it takes.  Everybody else forgets their egos and joins in.  It's not a contest of skill and talent.  It's all about having fun.