Off to California!

And we're off....soon!  After we disconnect internet, get the last load of stuff out, and vacuum. 

Vertical Garden

One night my roommate asked if I wanted to help him in the backyard...he had an idea for some plants but wasn't sure if it was going to work.  We ended up with 9 of these pots drilled into the fence, planted with different succulents.  I got to do all the dirty work while he worked on some other projects.  I'm not sure if we can call it a success just yet, since it's only been 2 weeks, but the plants seem to be thriving.  He has been watering them with a spray bottle.  I thought it was a neat idea, especially for someone without a lot of space on the ground.

A hike in the hills

My first weekend in San Francisco, my roommate (whom I didn't know before moving here...I'm living in an apartment with 2 roommates, one whom I knew from the Peace Corps) invited me to go on a hike with him and his friends.  That's how nice people are in San Francisco. 

We initially planned on going up north to Marin County, to Point Reyes where B and I had hiked in March, but it was an excessively foggy and cold day...and that meant fog and cold in Marin Co as well, so instead we headed south.  Where do people from SF go when they want to hike where the weather is nice?  Why to Palo Alto, about 4 miles from where we'll be living, of course.  We did a 6 mile hike, the first 3.5 of which were mostly uphill, but we got some great views.

We were close enough to the ocean on the other side to technically "see" it, but it was so foggy over the ocean that I didn't get a glimpse.  At one point, we walked around a hill and got a great view of...Stanford University!  You can find it in the foreground by looking for the tall bell tower or whatever that building is.  All the red roofed buildings are Stanford.  Then past Stanford is the Bay, and across the Bay are more suburbs and then the big hills that butt up to Oakland.

On the way back down, we had an up-close and personal experience with a snake who had caught a mouse and was trying to make its way uphill with it to keep us from the mouse.  He ended up unsuccessful...the mouse was too heavy...so he just slithered awkwardly around the mouse trying to protect it from us while we took pictures.  Even though it wasn't a poisonous snake, I was afraid to get too close.  Eventually, we left it to its feast.

After the hike we had frozen yogurt in downtown Palo Alto, which is pretty much just a nice suburban downtown.  There are many froyo places, a Cheesecake Factory, a Restoration Hardware Store, etc...but there also seem to be a lot of unique and fun places to check out in the coming year!

Avett Brothers @ Red Rocks

Seating built into the rocks

It feels like forever ago at this point, but just a couple weekends ago we had the pleasure of seeing Avett Brothers at Red Rocks.  If you ever get a chance to see Avett Brothers in concert, or go to any concert at Red Rocks, I highly recommend it.  We were lucky to get to do both at once!

And and if you do go to RR, make sure to wear comfortable shoes...our walk up from the parking lot was a work out!

If you're curious about Avett Brothers, check out "I and Love and You," probably their most popular song.  They started off the concert with "Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise" which was awesome live, and I was introduced to them from a friend dancing to "January Wedding" for their first dance at their (September) wedding.  If you like those, keep looking!

Before the concert started

An advantage of being high up in the seats...you can see downtown Denver in the distance!

To niece, with love

All of the rectangles after the measuring and cutting

My older brother and his wife are expecting a baby girl in the end of September!  I am more than thrilled, but am already wishing I could be there to see her grow up more than I'll be able to.  I was very happy to have a serious chunk of time on my hands between my traveling and coming out to SF and decided to make a quilt for her.  I made a patchwork quilt and hand sewed some applique animals onto the backing.  I took a lot of photos of the process...just skip to the bottom if you want to see the final product!

Planning the layout

Sewing the right sides to each other

I first sewed together each individual row

Then attached the rows to each other

Then I basted the layers...sticking the front to the batting (filling) and the back to the other side.  Nanaa wanted to help

Oh wait, is this not helping?

After tying the three quilt layers together, creating the binding strip and machine sewing it to the border of the blanket, I hand stitched the binding to the back side...the only stitch you can see!

This is how B found Nanaa after we stepped out to have lunch and I just left the quilt where I had been sitting.  And yes, I washed it again after finishing it....

The finished front side

A zoom so you can see the ties...I tied instead of quilting with a machine because my level of sewing expertise does not lend itself to machine or hand quilting just yet.  I took these pics before washing, so you can still see how the glue (which comes out with the wash) is holding onto the fabric.  The finished product looked less buckled, I just didn't have time to take pics before leaving!

The finished back, complete with elephant, zebra, giraffe, and lion

And I can't help it, here's each animal by itself.  Animal outlines courtesy of Uncle B!

Sunny day in San Francisco

Yesterday froommate and I took advantage of the sunny day (very rare, and oddly warm, it got into the 70's) and biked to the large farmers market at Ferry Plaza.  I knew it was going to be crowded, but wanted to see it.  It was both in and outside, right next to the Bay Bridge.  I still consider myself a tourist so took a picture!  But I was embarrassed about being a tourist so I took it quickly and didn't get a good one.  There were rows and rows and rows of expensive produce.  I got some samples.

Inside, I saw some familiar dishes...Heath Ceramics has a small permanent booth!  Our dishes come from there, and we never saw them in person before registering for them because they only have a few stores in California.  They have so many colors!  I highly recommend them if anyone's in the market.

After that, we biked up to Fisherman's Wharf which seems like Navy Pier (all tourists) but more busy and easier to get to.  We ate at In N Out.  After that, we pushed our bikes STRAIGHT up a hill for a bit to get to Lombard St, the crookedest road.  I took a picture but I'll spare you...I'm sure you've all seen it.  Also got a great view of Alcatrez.

After that, we biked past the Exploratorium, Presidio, through Golden Gate Park (stopped and had some water and an ice cream sandwich), then back home through Haight Ashbury trying to find the flattest route possible.  We managed pretty well!  All told it took about 5 hours and 20 miles, and aside from the one time we intentionally just walked our bikes, I only had to get off and walk once.  It was a great way to see the city, especially since the bike was a free loaner from the girl I'm subletting from.  I cannot wait until B gets here so we can do all this stuff together!

The search

I'm in San Francisco now, arrived last night.  The first thing I saw when I emerged from BART (the train/metro/el) in the neighborhood where I'm staying this month (the Mission) was an old man peeing on a tree.  Then I saw fireworks.  But the man peeing was first.

This morning I got up early and got a ride to my school in Redwood City where I'm teaching summer school and also working next year from my froommate (friend/roommate?) for the month, Dan, who I know from Peace Corps.  I did some training with my coteacher for the summer and then we set up our classroom.  I got a set of school keys and got to see my classroom for next year!  After we finished at school around 12:30, we got to downtown RC and I checked my phone and saw that a guy I had called about an apartment on craigslist on Tuesday had called me back.

So you should know about my craigslist habit.  Every day, all day, I would check.  Probably more than once an hour.  Anytime I could find anything under $2000 with more than 600 sq ft, I would call, email, stalk, try to get a response.  A couple times we said "we'll take it, you don't even have to show it."  The entire time I tried to call people from afar, I only ever got two to call me back, and both ended up blowing me off for the sure thing in front of them.  One had basically promised to lease us the place, but was usurped by the owner who was getting nervous after the place had been on the market 3 days.  I can honestly say it was harder for us to find an apartment from another state than for me to find a job.

So maybe I was on to something actually being in the area, since this guy actually called me back.  He offered to show me the place whenever today.  I said I'm downtown now and just need to walk there.  30 minutes later, I'm meeting him at this holy grail of apartments.  2 bedrooms, accepts pets, 1000 sq ft, a very large balcony, only a 4-unit building, 3 unshared walls (3 walls for windows!), BIG bedroom closets, laundry in the first floor, our own garage...

Our new balcony

The kitchen!

So after I've looked through it, he asks if I want to proceed.  Meanwhile his phone is ringing off the hook and he apologizes to me for not getting back to me sooner.... he had gotten over 100 messages on Tuesday and it was so bad he had had to turn his phone off for awhile.  I say yes, proceed! so he has me fill out the application.  Luckily I hadn't had time to unpack my backpack so I had all of our credit information that I had brought with me.  He had already asked me 8 times if I had good credit (thankfully, yes) and after I filled out the application he grilled me about our work histories and how long we were planning on staying (a long, long time if anyone asks...)

So after he became sufficiently satisfied with our stability, he asked if I wanted to SIGN THE LEASE today.  Ok, sure?  I had talked to B about it before, it's a great location, 2 mi from my work, 6 from Stanford, and you get much more bang for your buck in this town...so the landlord told me to walk to his office and have his secretary run my credit check...if mine was good he said that would be sufficient....he would need B's signature to run his as well.  So I left, and he had two groups come look at the place, who were told they were already behind someone in line.  Luckily in the meantime I was able to get in touch with B and he agreed with me that we should do it.  Landlord met me back at the office, approved, starting working on the lease, and kept getting phone calls from people, including one who got out of class at 4 pm at Stanford and was planning to come up right after, who had expected to see the place this evening.  "Sorry, it's been rented."  Best 4 words I've ever heard.*

After all this, the landlord very kindly gave me a ride to the Caltrain station so I could get back to San Francisco.  At this point, it was 4:30 pm, I'd only had a Larabar to eat all day, and I was dizzy with excitement about all this searching coming to an end.  I asked him about the market and he said it has just gotten absolutely insane in the last 6 months with all of the IPOs and social media companies getting bought by other companies...creating instantly rich people.  Said that this 100 calls/day thing is the new normal for him.  Told me that a client of his had tried to get a 2br 1 ba condo in San Mateo and had placed a totally reasonable offer but who was beat by a guy who had paid $625,000 CASH for it.  So we're moving to a crazy place, living amongst people who have way more money than they know what to do with, but we have a place to hang our hats, and a very nice one to boot.  I am really happy, but mostly just feel lucky.  This day could have gone very differently, but it didn't.

*Possibly second to "will you marry me," but not by much, truthfully.

Boxed in

We're starting to pack up and Nanaa wants to make sure she gets to come to California too.

 

She just loves boxes.

But it hasn't been all work around here...B made a cat fishing pole with a bunch of thread she was tantalized by...

The closest I could get her to sit still

She's actually bending the fishing pole...don't mind the mess :)