Bienvenidos a San Francisco

Well, I have now been in San Francisco for almost 48 hours. Things are going well so far, I like this city a lot and I'm excited to get to know it more....it's definitely strange to be here without a real place to live or a job, and at times (like a few hours ago) I feel a little bit lost....more on this later.

Anyway, yesterday was a great first day in the city. In the morning I hung out at Abby's house with her ex-housemate Kassie...she moved today to Washington DC, so our time here in SF only overlapped for 1 day. In the afternoon I met up with Russ and we set off for a bit of exploring. We started off in Cole Valley, and from there walked through Ashbury Haight and Lower Haight and then down into the Mission. All of these neighborhoods were pretty cool, and I was very impressed by Russ's knowledge of dozens of restaurants that we passed. There is definitely gonna be some awesome food here. I really liked the Mission and I'm gonna try to get back there soon....lots to explore, especially foodwise.

Last night I had a nice dinner with Russ, Kendra and Abby (mac and cheese and broccolli and mango for dessert), then Russ drove me over to Gabe, Dan and Saray's house so I could drop off my stuff. Gabe, who isn't here now (since he's in Amherst for a week) is basically the best person ever....he's lent me his room for a week or so while I figure out what I'm doing which is really cool. He lives with Dan and Saray near Alamo Square, which is where they filmed the intro to Full House. Very nice location. Dan and Saray and their cat Angkor are all awesome too, so far it's great staying here. After dropping off my stuff, Dan and I headed back to Abby's house with Russ and met up with Kendra, then headed to a bar near their house, with Abby, Kassie and some other people. Good times, nice bar....Dan and I got back early since he had work today. He and Saray both left early this morning.

I spent the day today (Thursday) applying to jobs, reading and exploring. I headed downtown to see about a MUNI pass, but then decided to just wait till Monday to get a weekly one...then later I took two buses to get to Trader Joe's for a bit of shopping....I'm gonna try to limit my eating out to one meal per day. Wish me luck. In the afternoon it was more job searching, then at 5:30 I went to see an apartment in Cole Valley, but when I got there there was a sign saying that the showing was cancelled. Grr. I headed to the southern part of Cole Valley where Russ and I had gone to a cafe/bakery the day before. We had noticed they were hiring, and since I had a resume with me, I decided to drop it off. I ended up having a conversation with the assistant manager who seems pretty cool....she looked at my resume for a second and then said "You worked at the Black Sheep Inn! That was the coolest place I went to in Ecuador!" So maybe my wonderful volunteer experiences in Ecuador will help me get a job after all. I've always wanted to work in a cafe/bakery type place and this place is really nice....people who work there seem pretty cool too. Sadly it doesn't pay much or provide benefits, so we shall see....

I had dinner with Abby and Russ at a Vietnamese place in Inner Sunset, then we got some bubble tea, then I chilled a little bit there before heading back to Alamo Square. Tonight on the busride home I started feeling a little bit lost....sometimes I'm pretty optimistic about things and am excited for all the things I can do here, people I can meet, etc. but other times it's pretty much the opposite and I start to wonder why I came out here at all. I guess that's normal though, we'll see how I feel after a week or two here. I still have a lot to do and explore in San Francisco, not to mention Berkeley and Oakland.

I think that's about all for now....despite feeling a bit lost and confused about things, most everything is very good. Tomorrow on my adventures I'll try to take some more pictures so I can post some here....