Keeping Up

I'll keep these posts short, since this isn't a travel blog, but rather a busking blog. I do want to mention what I've been up to mainly for my own memories.

On Thursday, Riley and I packed a picnic (bread, cheese, hummus, oranges, yogurts) and headed to Golden Gate Park. We parked and walked around, it seems like a fantastic place to go every day if you live here, to ride bikes. However, it was freeeezing out. We power walked through the botanical garden, leaping between patches of sun. Saw some little baby redwoods.

Afterwards we walked down Haight, paying respects to the famous Haight Ashbury corner. We poked around through Amoeba Music, a massive record store to which I definitely plan to return. We went into amazing vintage clothing stores, this is a seriously cool area. We also ran into a Leveretteer, Zach Kaufman, with whom I attended elementary and high school. I didn't recognize him in time to stop and talk, but it was still cool to not be the only person from a town of 1,800 on the same block of a city 3,000 miles away.

We headed home after, because...I had a coffee date with Daniel the sushi chef! We spoke mostly Spanish, which was super great. I didn't understand him very well, but it was great to practice. I learned that he's part Czech, Italian, Basque, and Colombian, and he grew up in Colombia. We talked about work, and it turns out that one of his past jobs in Colombia was as a model. As you can imagine, he's super super hot. Apparently he's stopped all the time here and offered jobs modeling, but he doesn't want to go down that path. He's in art school now, and dreams of opening a restaurant, so he works as the head chef at Tamasei Sushi on 24th street. We had talked about accordion lessons in the restaurant, and he confessed this night that he wanted to learn to play just to play one song. He played me the song and asked if it would be possible. It's beautiful, and will be a good addition to my repertoire as we learn it together. Anyway, at this point my friend list in San Francisco was Gay Leprechaun, and, now, Colombian Male Model. Not bad.

On Friday we had a lazy morning. Tim and Andrea were scheduled to come back Saturday morning, so Riley and I spent some time tidying up, and unpacking. I wanted to see North Beach, another spot recommended to play in, so we decided to consolidate it with a trip through Chinatown. My legs were incredibly sore at this point. I've been pretty dormant since I left the Cape and stopped biking, so going full swing into walking several miles a day with ample hills has been rough. I wasn't as enthusiastic about traipsing all over the city on foot on Friday because of this. We saw Chinatown, and arrived in North Beach (Little Italy) in time for a snack, but didn't really seek out pitches.

I had another social night planned with Chris, a Stanford medical student from MA who I had met in Wellfleet last summer. He had told me that if I was ever in SF I should look him up, so I did. He lives in the Mission District, about a mile away. His roommates and some of their friends were having a little dinner get-together, which I attended. This was a really nice time. There were about ten cool, twenty-somethings, good food, and fun. It is exactly the kind of young lifestyle I yearn for and haven't established due to my roving gypsy nomad ways. The four roommates were really a household, cooking dinner together, with their stockings hung next to the Christmas tree. I engaged in conversations about such things as pi and 30 Rock. It reminded me of my brother's building family in LA, and the time he spent with his awesome downstairs neighbors. I felt the same warm welcome and immediate enjoyment with these folks as I did with Tito's folks when I visited last year.

We played the game "Celebrity," which is an elaborate charades type game, and I ended up on Team Suck, the title given to us by Team Awesome who decided on a name first. There was quite a bit of laughter because Team Suck actually did suck, leaving us quite a few points behind the awesomely-performing Team Awesome. I really hope that these people become characters in the San Francisco chapter of my tale, as I can envision many more fun times with them.

It's Saturday morning and Tim and Andrea are back from their ski trip! I believe Tim is taking me on Tim's Famous Drive-Around Tour of San Francisco, and then I am going to be brave and go to work for the first time here. It's a beautiful Saturday, and today's the day to make my move. Tonight will be my third planned social evening in a row, as I have been invited to the birthday party of Katina Papson, former art teacher at my high school and family friend. The attendees will be a bit older, and if they're anything like Katina, they'll be artsy and wonderful. Looking forward to networking further.