San Francisco, CA

Well, in case you wondering, we made it! Our trip was a blast. I saw three of my old Americorps teammates, saw the Grand Canyon, got to see Betty and Beau, hiked next to the Hollywood sign and didn't have to work a single day! Magnificent. We've been here for a week and half now. Our room is finally furnished thanks to the thrift stores of San Francisco and Julia, who gave us a bed and a dresser. Like everyone warned us, its a little cold here. And very windy. However, it's sunnier than we expected which we're very thankful for. We like it here but haven't yet found our "groove" I guess we'll call it. We both have jobs, thank goodness. We'll both be working in restaurants on the Fisherman's Wharf. Today was Rachel's second day of training. She LOVES it and I'm so happy for her. She's working at a family-owned Italian Restaurant across the street and a one block down from my restaurant. I'm once again going corporate. Why does this always happen!? I got hired at the Rainforest Cafe. I actually don't start my training until Friday. Linda used to work there and said she made A LOT of money. Well, I certainly better if I'm going to prance around a restaurant with no windows in a fanny pack while calling myself a "safari guide" instead of a server. Until Friday I tidy up and run errands. A month and a half with no income certainly isn't good for the bank account so I haven't taken myself to the movies as I did in Florida. Tomorrow I'm going to finish all my errands and spend the day in the city on foot. We've been driving everywhere so far, and let me tell you something about San Francisco.... it is not a city you want to drive around in. The traffic is awful and the streets are very confusing. We've only taken public transportation once. It seems a little confusing here because its not like New York where its just one system. There seems to be three or four that you need to figure out until you can get to a final destination. We've only taken the bus. Tomorrow I'm going to go on a solo adventure called "figure out the public transportation system". The name needs work. I know. I'll bring a book, a map, and my compass. Wish me luck. ...Yes, I really do have a compass and yes, I really plan on bringing it. I'm excited to have an income and some sort of routine. I'll be able to decide how much I like it here much better once those things are in line. We've gone out to dinner twice. One to a nice place and one just to a little Thai place because I wanted Thai food. We went to Zuni our second night here. I mean, c'mon... I know we don't have jobs but we needed to celebrate getting here! We had a poached egg with rabbit bacon and smoked paprika oil to start. Our other appetizer was ricotta gnocchi with spinach and nasturcium. For dinner we had steak with polenta and spring onion and also the halibut with...I forget, but it was fantastic. For dessert creme brulee and flourless chocolate cake. Everything was great- very good introduction to San Francisco restaurants. I've been reading. I've read two books since being here. Both about World War 2. My next book is about the war in Iraq, but I wish it was about WW2 because now I'm very interested. We've been renting a lot of movies because its fun and cheap. Every other time, one of us can choose any movie we want, so its fair. The movies I've been rented are all about WW2. Rach is being a sport about it though. I went to Blockbuster today while Rach is at work. She's going to kill me when she finds out the movie I got has subtitles. I got "Life is Beautiful". Considering I was about to rent "Schindler's List", she should thank her lucky stars. I'll wait until she does something that makes me mad to get "S.L". Last Sunday we went to Bay to Breakers. It's this race/party San Fran has every year. This year was the 100th anniversary. People dress up in costumes and run around Golden Gate Park. I haven't looked up why they do, but they do. We got there around 11, which was later than we wanted to, but oh well. By the time we got there it seemed that all of San Francisco was drunk and had been for a few hours. We walked the parade/race route for over an hour and got sausage sandwiches over at some tent. The tend had already run out of everything that contained alcohol. We didn't dress up, but the costumes were all hilarious. It was like halloween but with clever, funny costumes instead of scary ones. One thing that really shocked us was the amount of nudity. We saw several naked men...just walkin in the park...just hangin out.....just a normal day. Naked. Ass naked. Well...some wore backpacks....and roller skates. But that was all. We inquired the legalities of this with our bus driver. He said that in certain parts of San Fran it was legal. We didn't see any naked women. Just men. Most of whom, shouldn't have been naked, but good for them I guess. Rach has Monday and Tuesday off so one of those days we're going to spend the day in China town pretending we're Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. I'm pretty excited about this. I love our roommates and really love our new dog, Wilson. His face is perfect and he loves to play. He also loves to take naps with me and Rach while we watch movies on the computer in our bed. Our bed is a mattress that sits on the floor. Its totally comfortable and we plan on getting a frame and box thing eventually. Hm....what else, what else, what else.... Rachel's bug bite is almost all better. She got it in Denver and it got pretty intense for a second there, but its fine now. We'll try to take some pics soon. Maybe even take the video camera for our travel channel extravaganza on Monday. -lj