So we've made it all the way to the west/left/best coast. After hanging out in my friend TJ's cottage while we looked for rentals,
we've settled in the city of San Francisco.
We're renting an apartment in the Russian Hill neighborhood. It's small, which is good, because it's confirming for us that we don't need such a big place to live. It has amazing views of the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and Marin County across the Bay.
We are really fortunate to have so many wonderful old friends in the area - it's really made it easy to feel comfortable, and more at home than I did in 3 years in Philly.
One of those friends, who's also relatively new to the area, suggested I make a point to record my observations about the city daily. I'm not sure I've got that kind of discipline at this point, but am at least going to use this blog to do it a little more frequently than I have been! So here are some of the things I've noticed in my first week in San Francisco.
The fog is a living creature. We often sit and watch it, gape-mouthed, as it sneaks with amazing speed into the Bay like a cheetah after a gazelle. It can seem to swallow up the bridge & Alcatraz.
The city actually feels bigger to me than Philadelphia in some ways. It feels more spread out. I think it's because the parts of Philly I'd be caught dead in are a relatively low percentage of the total city space, and I probably spent 95% of my time in a very compact center city. San Francisco is a little more spread out and most of it is quite habitable and lovely. It's actually quite a bit more dense than Philly, but doesn't feel as crowded or stressed out. It's cleaner by a long shot, and has wider streets. I will say that it often smells like pee - a combination of a large dog population and water restrictions, and a preponderance of multi-unit buildings that don't have someone taking charge of hosing off the sidewalk every morning. But hey, at least there's no one puking on the doorstep (that happened to my neighbor in Philly). There are homeless people, but they're not taking up the whole sidewalk like outside my office in Philly.
You can't walk very far here without encountering something beautiful. It goes without saying that the city's surrounded on 3 sides by water, and since there are so many hills you're often at a vantage point that provides a great view of some section of the bay. If you're not looking at the Bay, there are beautiful buildings in a variety of architectural styles. There's a pretty fair amount of green space. It's not Denver, but every neighborhood has a park of some sort. Thanks to the US military, there's a ton of great park and open space around the Presidio and Ft. Mason.
The produce all around this area is incredible. The farmer's market in San Rafael is as big as every other farmer's market I've ever been to put together. The organic produce available at Whole Foods is more than the whole produce section at the Whole Foods in Philadelphia. Even the little neighborhood groceries have gorgeous local tomatoes and organic fruits.
Can I say how nice it is to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner at the grocery store, rather than traipsing to some special (not in a good way) state controlled lame selection???
Well that's it for today. I'll try to make my updates and observations more frequent.
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