Spending a day being Touristy couldn't have made me feel more like an actual local.

Today was a long day.
I started with a walking tour of Chinatown, followed by another walking tour of Telegraph Hill. Both of these were with San Francisco City Guides. They're a department of the SF Public Library and entirely volunteer guides. Both of them were REALLY fun! Though as we were about to start the Chinatown tour, there was a group starting a Foodie tour of Chinatown, which nearly sucked me in... another time. These tours were both about 1hr. 45 mins. and an easy pace. They had lots of history, but not obnoxiously detailed. All in all I enjoyed it and they're FREE! I'l definitely be doing more of these.
Here are a few highlights:







After the tours I stopped in a shop and got something required for all San Franciscans... scarves. Now I have scarves, don't get me wrong. You can't live in Minnesota without them either. But here it's less about fending off death than a bit of comfort and a flare of style. So I got my foot in that door making me feel abundantly more like a local.
Then, I like to think due to this purchase, I was asked for directions no less than 4 times in the next hour and a half. I went and continued my shopping, and not only was I asked for directions, but I could actually answer all but one! I have no idea where Hollister or Abercrombie is. Sorry I couldn't help lady (though not really I don't know where they are). Then to wrap it all up, I bought more San Franciscan-y clothes. Good Day.

Making the most of Summer!

OK folks, I've been a busy bee around here. The weather has been AMAZING so I've been out lots, doing some fun things on the weekends. Haight Street Fair was crazy CROWDED! Not bad, but a little to many people for my taste. Something I could definitely do some damage at with a good group of friends, but I just swung through on my way home, so I kept it quick and easy.

I did the good ol' touristy thing and walked the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty windy out there, but some great views of the city!




After the bridge I did some hiking through the Presidio and found some amazing trails and a nice quiet beach where I laid and read in the sand for a while and got some more sunburn.






This weekend however I heard about a potentially amazing event and it did NOT disappoint! Cardboard Tube Dueling Tournament! That's right. People came with their cardboard armor and were supplied cardboard tubes. Basic rules were that you could only hit your opponents tube, and the first tube to bend to 90 degrees lost. There were some incredible armor designs, a King and Queen, a cardboard Dragon, an adorable children's division, and even a knight on a cardboard steed!

Poopy Week Earns Me an Excellent Weekend

So work was exceedingly poopy this week. It was busy, and crazy awful projects to be done. Though all around successful, it was just plain stressful and not fun.

So to make up for it I gave myself an excellent Saturday. I started out at the Farmer's Market. Tasty samples of the produce and a quick perusal led to purchase of a giant bag of oranges for $2.50. Then I went to get some food. The hot food area is always interesting. I decided to pass on the amazing cookies I've written about before and instead sampled amazingly tasty afghani bread and spreads, as well as Fava Bean Humus, some regular old humus, and finally discovered a completely NEW food! There was a cart selling something called Pupusas.



I was immediately intrigued. Show me a new food of almost any variety and I'm good to go for a test drive. Though I thought before I spend the $3 on my own I should check out a finished product. I waited for an order to come out and it looked oddly like a thick Naan, along with some slaw and sauce. I thus assumed that the meat and cheese must be inside. I approached and ordered a chicken and cheese variety. I watched as the woman in the back assembled. She took a lump of pre-mixed dough, working in my selected filling until it was roughly a 6 inch diameter disc approximately 3/4 inch thick. This was put on the griddle and cooked. It came out a few minutes later piping hot and on the plate they added slaw and sauce. Now the Pupusa was basically a thick corn tortilla with a center filling of chicken and cheese. It was hot, and amazingly tasty. The sauce I noticed was a little thin and watery when they spooned it on. Now I need to disabuse you of the idea that thin and watery is a bad thing. That only describes the consistency, and anything thicker would have been harder to eat and much less tasty. The sauce was amazingly flavorful and soaked into the bread making an excellent dish. The slaw turned out to be something called curtido, a lightly fermented cabbage slaw. The hot/cold contrast of the pupusas and slaw was amazing.

OK, after that amazing food the rest of the day sounds kinda boring. So real quick:
I took the bus to the LEgion of Honor Museum to see the Cartier exhibit. It was beatiful, well displayed, interesting information and INCREDIBLE jewels. They had a very wide range and some of Elizabeth Taylor's, as well as Grace Kelly's pieces. There was also a strong collection of Art Deco clocks. All in all very nice. I popped downtown and stopped by the Comic Art Museum which had a very interesting look at Batman through the years. Then I stopped by my favorite reading spot in the city, the Yerba Buena Gardens. I listened to the end of a Jazz concert there and then read for a few hours.

Color me CONTENTED.

It's official!

I have had some time and made my evaluations and... I LOVE San Francisco!

Let's do a quick rundown:
Parks? HOLY CRAP! They're everywhere and beautiful.
People watching? GOOD LORD! So many... "colorful" folks in this city.
Weather? The locals start to bitch about the heat when it hits 70. It's perfect.
Food? Heavenly variety.

So what brought this on? I had an amazing weekend. Saturday I woke up and went down to the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. I had tasty Felafel, oysters, and an orange. Yummy breakfast. I walked along the Embarcadero and down to AT&T Park for a camp fair. Saturday night, Wine with new friends on top of a tower downtown! Sunday, amazing breakfast of Eggs Florentine and fresh squeezed OJ then a few hours of reading in the beautiful sunny Yerba Buena Gardens and a wander through Union square for a little window shopping.

Such a calm relaxing weekend, leaves me very content. :)

My new favorite place in the city.

So I've gone to this single area in San Francisco SEVERAL times over the last month, and each time I discover more. I've had work meetings there, met people at a bar, gone to a dance performance and just stumbled upon it accidentaly.
But on one side of the street there is the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and it's AMAZING! It has great meeting space and has some pretty awesome art, as well as being a super cool building. The first time I saw it I was on the street and saw the plain, average, not terribly exciting facade.


There's a lovely plaza area next to the church to the left. (I love that there's a Catholic church RIGHT out front of the Jewseum).
But then when I was meeting someone for drinks nearby I discovered this hidden part of it.



Those crafty Jews HID it behind the Catholics! Well done! (Wouldn't be the first time the Catholics covered something up.)


So then across the street from al this wonderfulness is the Yerba Buena Center Gardens. So wonderful, especially in the spring when the cherry blossoms are flying.



And finally I found a super cool sculpture in the garden:

SPRING!

So catching up:
I went on my first excursion to the East Bay a couple weeks ago. We had a work event in Oakland. Now those of you outside the bay area probably have a similar concept of Oakland as I did... which is to say, not good. I'd heard bad things, everyone knows there's violence, gangs, etc.
BUT. I found the good part! There's a beautiful lake with a park and amazing wonderful areas there too! Concept: SHATTERED.






Then later that week I went to Golden Gate Park. I heard the gardens should be blooming so I wandered for a few hours through the park in areas I'd never been to. I saw the Queen Wilhelmina Windmill and Tulip Garden, went to Ocean Beach for a bit, wandered and got lost in the Botanical Gardens, and found the Rose Garden (let down, this was not in bloom).







Another let down was the lack of bison in the Bison Paddock. :(
BUT there was a pond for remote controlled boats, run by the San Francisco Model Yacht Club... That's right, it exists.

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Nights.

OK, so first of all I have to say this:
I LOVE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!
Being able to easily bus to events, bars, friends, etc is incredible. Also I live within block of two major bus lines that get me either downtown/SOMA or to Castro/Haight/Cow Hollow. Awesomeness.

A friend suggested a particular bar event that I went to check out tonight. It was fine. But as I went alone, it was a little awkward. It would be a GREAT place with friends. I was fine with the go-go boys dancing on the bar. The little guy in the wretling singlet was super cute. But the Panda! There was a gentleman in Panda suit. Well, what I thought was a full panda suit turned out to be a panda head along with a black suit. He was on the dance floor dancing with people and then climbed up on a block and began stripping. That was about enough for me. So I took the bus home, but stopped in the Castro.

I just can't pass up an opportunity for some amazing people watching. And my friends, the Castro on a Saturday night is about as good as it gets. There were drunken Marina girls, bitchy gays, naked guy laying on his towel on the sidewalk, classy old queens, teeny-boppers, and all sorts of other factions of humanity. BUT what I have discovered about the Castro is this: It is an incredible ego boost every time! When I was done with my circuit of the area I leaned against a wall waiting for the bus so I could maximize my view for the watching of the peoples. Within a minute of my stopping there a nice gentleman passed by and commented that I was "too cute to be standing against the wall."
"Thank you sir," is what I say to that!
Then a couple walked by and I heard one of them commenting about "the cute guy right there" and got a neck arching check from both as they passed.
So in the end it just makes for a good boost of the old self-esteem.

Then the bus came and I rode with the usual assortment of interesting characters.

The things you see in the city

I'll try to not let this become a ranting blog about all the strange things I spot on the streets, but I can't let this one go undiscussed.

At the gym today after work I see this guy getting onto the treadmill.
He wasn't overtly strange looking until I thought about context. His clothing was completely out of place. Either that or I'm just the weirdo who wears practical clothes to the gym. He looked like a total gay-hipster. or a gimpster as I think I will call them from now on.

His look went as follows:
- black skinny jeans cut off just above the knee.
-skin tight ironic t-shirt
-vest (seriously?)
-black fashion cap with one of those ridiculously short bills, about an inch long, and a white racing stripe down the center.
Now this next point is my favorite
-white, pointy toed, leather, wing-tip slip-on dress shoes.

Are you KIDDING me!?
I wanted to punch him.

Weekend of FUN!

Alright, it's about time for a big, busy, fun-filled weekend.
First on Friday night I went out with Rachel to celebrate her getting a job.
We went to her favorite wine bar which is now my favorite.
It's a tiny little place tucked in behind the lobby of a hotel downtown and the employees are CRAZY knowledgeable.
They have great tasting flights and a great selection. The best though was the comparison menu.
It gave a really god look at a differences among similar types of wine.

So after that fun night, I decided to get up early and finally try out my neighborhood Farmer's Market.
Yeah... That's right Minnesotan's a farmer's market in February!
It was incredible! I can't wait to summer when it's at the height of produce.
There were such great veggies and fruits available, as well as honey, cheese, wonderful artisan breads, and all manner of food to be had. I started out with a coffee and a cookie called "Alfrajoles." It was a middle aged hispanic couple running the booth and this cookie was HEAVEN! It's basically a sandwich with two amazingly wonderful, crumbly shortbread cookies, and the filling is thick, gooey fleur de sel Caramel... NOM NOM NOM. OH! and covered in powdered sugar.




After that I went in search of my vegetable needs.
I purchased a bundle of carrots, a big bunch of broccoli, two red bell peppers, two lbs. of wonderfully tasty oranges, and two onions, all for less than six dollars. All of that became a tasty stir fry on Sunday night.

OK, after the market I came home and napped a bit. I had been considering going to the Chinese New Year Parade, but wussed out. Then I got a movie invite so took the bus downtown and saw a scary movie followed by an excellent burger at Mel's Drive-In (not an actual drive in unfortunately), a wandering walk through Union Square, and some drinks at a bar in the Castro. Good Night!

Sunday I slept in and then went to explore Golden Gate Park with CJ. We walked by the de Young museum (ugly) and peeked into the Japanese Tea Garden (beautiful), found a lake with paddle boats and a fancy watterfall (beautiful) and a goose (ugly).





After bussing home, going to the gym and making dinner, I'm beat and DONE with an excellent weekend.

More fun in San Francisco!

I finally got around to buying a replacement cord so I could download stuff from my camera.
I'll keep the words minimal and just let the videos and photos do their thing.

On my first weekend in the new place I went for a walk to check out some shops...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KubLO4IY0ww


Wonderful flowers grow randomly along the sidewalk all year round!
And nearby parks have amazing views.





And this is the park atop the hill, of which, I live at the bottom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKz5PacuenM

Interesting moments

So there is a collection of events I've observed since coming to San Francisco that I just feel like I should share. There's really not much more to say about any of these, they're just odd, or interesting if either of those is the right word.

I've discovered that Public Transit is always good for a story. Case in point. On my way to a 10am meeting downtown, I boarded the bus around 9. Drunk man in the back started to get a little loud and I felt like I was in school again when the bus driver called him up to the front. She spoke to him a bit and then when he got back to the rear of the bus began yelling again. He was absolutely convinced that "The n----- stole my money!" Then the bus driver kicked him off. Drunk and disorderly at 9am. WOW.

Walking through the Castro on a Saturday night passing several bums begging I turn the corner and there is a man completely naked. Strike that, he was wearing a stocking hat with tassel. He just stood there. didn't say anything, didn't do anything, just stood. then wandered up the street a bit to stand there.

Probably my favorite was overhearing the bitchy-est little gay boy I've ever seen complaining very loudly to his friends about the cover at the club they were entering. It was TWO DOLLARS!

Finally, if I had been more drunk I DEFINITELY would have taken part in this last one. Outside a bar around 1am there was a middle aged latino man and woman with a grill on the sidewalk selling tacos. Seriously, that is like the best entrepreneurial business model ever. Someone needs to back them.

Well that's all for now. More later.

Settling in.

So I found an apartment!
I'm now a resident of Bernal Heights in San Francisco.
It's a quiet neighborhood, mostly residential, with a great little main drag of shops, library and AMAZING looking restaurants.
Seriously within a 10 minute walk there is a tacqueria, nepalese, thai, italian, japanese, 3 coffee shops, ice cream, a wine bar, 3 regular bars, and 2 kind of standard american cuisine places.
I'm loving it and I can't wait to eat at them all.
I have a feeling this may soon turn into a food blog.
Oh well.


More on the apartment soon!

Have I done something lately to make you think I'm stupid?

Sometimes I am annoyed at how often certain people I don't care to remember are brought up in my memory.

Recently at my new job a co-worker has shown that he regularly goes through painfully specific and detailed descriptions of very basic tasks. I've been at the job for almost 2 weeks and already have wanted to scream at him "I'M NOT A FUCKING IDIOT!"
The sad part of it all is that this reminds me of people who would love, no, NEED that level of specificity. I'm not going to get too deep into it, but already I can see that I'll need to develop a special way of working with this individual if only to maintain my sanity.

ROAD TRIP!!

So I LOVE road trips.

I had a great one on my way out to California.

It happened fast, I loaded my shit up in my car and took off.

Three days of travel and I'm in CA and have already started my new job.

I took some videos along the way.