Summer in SF

Hello all. Time for an update.

It's been a busy few first months here in SF. We've both been pretty busy just getting set up - it's amazing how long it can take to move to a new city and get a job, phone, apartment, etc. But it's finally coming together - I think.

We scored a great apartment over in the Haight district of SF. The area has beautiful old victorian era homes, it's on the doorstep of Golden Gate Park, has a bunch of funky cafes and shops, and even has a few trees. Getting a place was a bit of a challenge though - the rental market over here was pretty tough. We probably saw about 20 or 30 places all up, and we were up against dozens of eager renters, resume and references in hand. So we could have done a lot worse. It's a one bedder but don't worry there's plenty of room for you to rest your head after a day of sightseeing when you come to visit us!

Our new apartment

Unfortunately, I've got no one to enjoy the place with at the moment: I'm currently sans-jenai. She's off back to the motherland to sort out visas and whatnot. All going well she will be back here and working in a great job by the end of September. After missing out on a previous job due to visa issues, we're crossing our fingers on this one. In the meantime, I've developed a facebook addiction (yes, I feel like a teenager). Hopefully this will pass soon and I'll get back to more productive ways to spend my time.

We have managed to fit in a few fun things in between hunting for apartments, jobs and furniture. We recently went out on a great weekend with some people from my work to go white water rafting out near Sacramento and then for a sight see and hike at Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada border. The rafting was not life threateningly scary but a lot of fun, and we got some great shots of the boats running over the rapids. Lake Tahoe was beautiful as well. Ok not the gambling strip, which we somehow found ourselves at, but the blue lakes, mountains and forest was fantastic. I'm told this is a winter wonderland when the snow falls - looking forward to it.

Whitewater Rafting

Hike at Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe

What else? We saw a lot of the street festivals in each of the different SF neighbourhoods at the start of the summer. Probably the best was Carnavale in the Mission. It's a festival celebrating the Caribbean culture, and focuses on a street parade complete with feathered dancers and pumping music. Also good was the Fillmore jazz festival.

We've had a couple of weekends away, including a trip up along the coast, staying in a little B&B, and back through the wine country around Napa. Also a couple of bike rides and hikes up in Marin, which is over the Golden Gate Bridge. You can't go wrong in the area where mountain biking was born.

I also woke up during the night a couple of weeks ago to feel my first earthquake over here! It's funny, I felt it, thought "it's just an earthquake" and went back to sleep. It was a 4.2 I think, focused on Oakland, just across the bay. No real impact as far as I heard. Hope it doesn't get any worse any time soon!



We also had a surprise visit from Doug on my birthday, which was very good timing on his part! Apparently a cancelled flight saw him looking for a crash pad in SF, which we were happy to provide. We were even more happy after we'd tasted his efforts in the kitchen, when a couple of people from work came around. Thanks doug! Other visitors line up soon are dave and dan, coming down from Vancouver for a Californian road trip, and my folks, who are spending about 2 months in the US.

Matt's birthday and an unscheduled visit from Doug

So, in summary still in a bit of purgatory waiting for jenai to return but overall loving the life here. Hope you're well in whatever corner of the globe you are reading this. Let me know - you'll find me on the end of my 'cell phone', skype and of course facebook.