Tour of the neighborhood

Update on the job: They will be in contact early next week. The audit is interfering in the CFO having time to call references, so it's taking longer than he thought. Now I'm just concerned that if I get the job, the audit will interfere with me starting the job!

On Thursday night, I met up with Neil and some of his classmates to go see first Thursday in downtown San Francisco. It's very different than Portland's first Thursday. All the galleries are in one building, so there is not really any walking around the neighborhood. I guess that could be either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. I always like exploring the Pearl as well as looking at the galleries. Not to mention there was a million people in the building. I felt like we were a huge herd of cattle being pushed along from one gallery to the next. If you stood too long in front of a painting, I was sure they were going to pull out the cattle prods and get you moving again! We all went out for drinks at a nearby pub afterwards and that was very nice, although I was the only non-painting graduate student there. In another development, the people that Neil has become closest to so far are all girls - hmmm...?

Yesterday I tried to ride my bike to the local YMCA in the Presidio to go swimming, got a little bit lost, ended up riding my bike for a lot longer than I thought I would, and then when I got there, the pool was closed for cleaning... Not a great way to start off the day.

In other news, we had a little rumble down here last night (and by that I mean an earthquake). We were sitting in the "living room", watching the Godfather and all of a sudden it felt like a truck ran into the building, or something. The bikes kind of rattled on the wall. Then it just shook a little bit for a few seconds. We immediately got on the internet to research what to do in an earthquake, having completely forgotten that, yes, those do occur down here. The one good thing that we remembered is that our building was built in, like, 1915 or something, so it didn't collapse in the 1989 earthquake, so we figure we have a fighting chance, at least, that our building won't go down. Great.

Here is the clip from the Associated Press:

"SAN FRANCISCO — A minor earthquake rattled the San Francisco Bay area Friday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey's preliminary report put the quake at a 4.0-magnitude. The temblor's epicenter was near Alamo, Calif., about 28 miles east of San Francisco.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in Alamo or surrounding communities, said Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee.
The quake hit just after 9 p.m. and could be felt throughout the region.
Fans at the San Francisco Giants' waterfront ballpark felt a jolt during the game with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but there was no interruption of play."

So, I mentioned a tour of the neighborhood, and Neil and I took a good walk last night and took some pictures so here we go. First a map of San Francisco, with our area circled:

Then a map of route our little tour will take. Letters indicate stops with pictures!

View down the street from in front of our apartment, looking at the Moscone recreation center and fields at the end of our block. Softball leagues play there every night under lights.

Stop #A on the map, if you can read it - I realize it's a little blurrier than I intended it to be. :( This is part of the field and the tennis courts at the end of our block. It's nice to have a big grassy field so close to our home. We'll do a tour of Fort Mason another day, and that is a huge park a block away in the other direction. We have nice placement!

We take a right onto Chestnut St., stop #B, which is the main street in the neighborhood, filled with cafes, shops and restaurants. There are some of the big stores, like GAP and Williams-Sonoma, and then there are lots of little unique shops as well.

Neil and I can't actually afford to spend any time on this street yet - stuff is pretty pricey. Soon...soon.

At the end of Chestnut, we take a right onto Baker Street, and in the middle of Baker is the Palace of Fine Arts, (stop #C) the only remaining structure from the 1915 Panama-Pacfic Exposition. Not sure what that is, exactly, but it is a really pretty set of buildings, and there are beautiful grounds around it.

Some of the houses are pretty amazing as well!

Finally, we take a right on Marina Ave., (stop #D) and head towards home. This is a main thoroughfare for tourists heading to the Golden Gate bridge, residents of the Marina running and biking and people just out enjoying the sun. When we ride our bikes into the Presidio, this is the beginning of the route.

A shot of Alcatraz from the Marina Ave.:

A look back at Golden Gate bridge from Marina Ave.:

So, that's the tour for now. Let me know if it was too ridiculously long! I plan on doing another one in the other direction, through Fort Mason to Fisherman's Wharf, and if I should shorten it a a little, just leave a comment.

Oh yeah, Katie - if you're reading this, we noticed this name painted on a shop window on Chestnut Street:

We weren't aware that Charlie had opened a shop down here! We're not sure what he was selling though?! :)

We miss you all! Have a great weekend...