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.