Mystery Memorial Day

William wanted to go to our favorite breakfast place- Stacks- for Memorial Day and of course I wouldn't resist their amazing waffles :-) William LOVES the bacon waffle (I tried it and its good if you really like bacon, which William does) but I prefer the waffle with pecans, bananas and whipped cream. I learned to tell them to not put the pecans in the waffle because it is just way too overwhelming and they give the perfect amount of crunch on top of it. We went later than last time so we had a 20 minute wait (we could have immediately eaten outside but it was windy and we have eaten outside when it is cold and windy and its not enjoyable) but it was well worth it for their Belgian waffles.

Next stop was Best Buy where we used our $40 coupon from the government to get a digital tv converted. Unfortunately, we also had to buy rabbit ears (William lost his) but we now have basic tv! And digital does give you many more channels- too bad we don't know Korean because there are a surprising number of stations, even more than Spanish. It was a slight challenge to set up the antennae due to our apartment- we tried placing the ears on top of the tv but the reception was horrible so we have to place them on the floor near our screen door :-) One of the creative aspects of apartment living :-)

Then we hit Home Depot because our vacuum belt was massively stretched out. It is a fairly old vacuum (like 5 years old) and a cheap one but we were able to find a belt that fit. Unfortunately, it still refuses to spin so William is going to tinker around a little bit more with it. I have no idea about this kind of stuff- I would have bought a new cheap vacuum but William is super handy with this kind of stuff (its the engineer in him).

Having our errands done, we then went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. We have been wanting to go here for awhile so we decided to head there. We waited for about 30 minutes before going on the mansion tour and so we were able to tour some of the gardens and buildings. For those who may not know, the Winchester Mystery House was built by Sarah Winchester, wife of the owner of Winchester guns. She actually had a pretty sad life- her only daughter died a month after birth and a few years later, her husband died from tuberculosis. She felt that all of these terrible things had happened to her due to the revenge of the spirits of those killed by the guns. She then spent the rest of her life- and most of her $30 million inheritance- building 24 hours a day in hopes to appease the spirits. The result is a bizarre assortment of the most random collection of rooms, windows, doors, stairs to form a "house". The "mystery" is really that it is impossible to find your way through the 160 rooms.

Here is her indoor garage where the carriage enters the house so she wouldn't have to go outside

Since she had so much money, she was able to literally have a mini-home depot inside her house- but the high end home depot as the room itself is valued at the time at $25,000. Just in case she needed some more Tiffany stained glass windows she has all of these ones to choose from.

Or if she wanted to change the wallpaper, she has tons to choose from

But, at least she used her most expensive Tiffany stained glass window in her house

And then these are the $3,000 front doors which no one really entered- she shut off the front part of the house after the SF earthquake

Here's some of the parts that she never finished

Here's a few more of the luxury items of the house

The ballroom where no one danced

But her niece and companion did play the piano

And I love this lamp post- too bad there's not a place for it in our studio

William loved the 360 degree shower . . . except that it was made for a 4'11'' Sarah Winchester

And this statue is the same size as Sarah

While all of this luxury stuff is great, you probably want to see the MYSTERY items :-)

Here is the door to one of the bathrooms and the only entrance- which is outside. But there's no steps to the door.

This is the "door to nowhere" where it is inside the house and you open it and fall 2 stories. Probably where she sent all of her hired help she didn't like

This is the staircase that never leads to nowhere but the ceiling

The seven level staircase with the half steps (really tiny steps since she had arthritis)

Here you can see the regular steps compared to the half steps

They definitely weren't made for 6'3'' people

This is the closest thing to a secret passage- a door that you can only exit from since there is no handle.

Additionally, there is the down staircase that leads to another up staircase and a down staircase

Another oddity is that all of the posts were placed inside the house upside down. It was a Victorian tradition that having 1 upside down in your house brought good luck, so she felt that having them all upside down would double all of the luck.

She also felt the number 13 was her lucky number so she placed it all around the house- see the 13 horse shoes

And even the bushes

We went on both the mansion tour and the behind the scenes tour (which was only $5). And while we got to wear these cool hats

And we got a fresh cherry off the tree

And we got to go to the basement (that was the purpose of the hard hats to protect our heads from the low ceiling)

But on the whole, I think that you could skip it- the best part truly is the mansion. Here's a view showing just how crazy it is

And we went through over 100 rooms on the tour with all the twists and turns

All in all, we really enjoyed the "mystery" of the Winchester Mystery House

We then went to Santana Row across the street. It is a high end shopping center that reminds us of Newbury Street in Boston.

We ate at Pasta Pomodoro, which was highly recommended to us by Lianne (and Clara) and we thank them so much for a great meal! We got the butternut squash ravioli (reminds me of Giacomo's pumpkin tortellini) and the pancetta tortellini. We also enjoyed the herbed oil and bread.

But, one of the most interesting items was a temporary art exhibit on the street. They had these water fountains and provided umbrellas and all of these people were walking under them.

I was wondering about it and decided to try it. It was really surprising because the way the water works, when it hits the umbrella, you hear part of a classical song and you hear different parts to the song. It was so cool- William missed out by not trying it

We definitely enjoyed this mystery memorial day