Oh, hello there! I hope everyone is enjoying the east coast summer... (heard through the grapevine that Boston got 3-5 inches of rain this past weekend?) Yeah, we still haven't even seen a drop here yet. The general answer when we ask people when it will rain here is "Um, September? November?" Which makes me laugh but... in all seriousness it is just a LITTLE bit weird that the weather is just always the same here. It makes me feel like we're stuck on repeat. Also, the lack of moisture in the air is surprisingly noticeable- especially when I try to go for a run in the afternoon. No matter how much water I drink during the day, my throat goes dry and I start feeling dehydrated within at least 10 minutes of running. It's crazy!
Anyway, enough with the observations. All in all, things are still running smoothly around here. Jimmy has OFFICIALLY started law school. Which means he is OFFICIALLY reading at least 5 hours everyday- not included time spent actually in class. His bag is slowly starting to fill up with gigantic law books that keep on arriving in random boxes. But it sounds like he still likes it (after less than a week of actual class). Here: just look at how excited he is to be going to class
I have OFFICIALLY started my job search and I've already got a nibble! I have an interview next week for an internship at the San Jose ICA. Keep all of your fingers crossed for me. This looks like a really cool place. In between job searching and resume/cover letter writing I've been wasting my days studying for the new GRE, looking at schools, starting new art projects, trying out new recipes for dinner (see that pizza down there:)
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| yeah, those are eggs... inside onion rings! |
and planning weekend excursions and JIMMY'S BIRTHDAY. Because that's what we've been up to this past week.
Ok so FIRST, this past weekend (saturday to be exact) we took the train in to the city (at last!) and walked until our feet fell off. We caught a bullet train that morning (express train that follows the same rail as the local train from Santa Clara to San Fran but skips more than half the stops along the way) that got us in to the city in an hour (as opposed to an hour and a half). The train got us in to the CalTrain station that was south of everywhere we wanted to be...
So at first we tried to wait for a bus that would take us up to Chinatown (that we were told was at least 20 minutes away by foot). But when that bus didn't show up for over a half an hour we set off on foot. I think we spent at least half the day in Chinatown due to the fact that it is A) absolutely totally HUGE B) filled with good food and C) super awesome.
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| yes, i briefly turned into a panda |
We had cantonese dim sum for lunch, which is an experience in itself... especially when you're really hungry and everyone's talking at you all at once. We eventually made our way out of Chinatown and headed in a general "up hill" direction thinking that we would either hit Nob Hill or Lombard Street or, at the very least, the water. We ended up walking all the way up Telegraph Hill (surprise!) where we checked out the tower and our first view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Telegraph Hill lined us up with Lombard Street (but not the curvy road part) so we walked all the way back down only to see that we would have to walk all the way up hill again to actually walk [up more] on the curvy street. We paused at a cafe to debate whether or not this much more uphill walking was really necessary (I could have already told you it was not) and then after a much needed shot of espresso we set off again, this time for Fisherman's Wharf. We walked around for a while on Beach Street, in between tourist trap stores all selling the same sweatshirts and perhaps far too many people, and stopped over in a gallery just to gawk at what was for sale (Joan Miro, Picasso, Rembrandt, Dali and more). We made it all the way to Ghiradelli Square, saw that the store was far too crowded and went and sat by the water to look at Alcatraz and rest up a little. We had an early dinner at Boudin (the place that um, INVENTED sourdough. I didn't even know San Fran invented sourdough!) and then tried to jump in line to take a cable car back to the train station. Unfortunately the line was longer than we had hoped for so we ended up walking a little farther to catch a more reliable bus so that we could make it back to the station in time for the 7:15pm train (or else we would have had to wait until 8:15 for the next one.) Here's what the walk looked like:
a little bit more than 5 miles? it felt like soo much longer.
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| begin: walking up hill |
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| and up |
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| and up |
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| curvy road! and bridge! in the so far away distance! |
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| walking down Lombard |
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| espresso break |
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| alcatraz in the distance |
All in all, a very good excursion even if we only did see less than half the city. I'm already plotting out our next trip in. It will include: Haight Street, Alcatraz, the parks along the waterfront and ummm more good coffee.
Anyway, in other news this week: YESTERDAY WAS JIMMY'S BIRTHDAY! Which I'm sure half of you already knew (the Venning/Miller half to be exact) but for the rest of you- Jimmy is now an old dog. No, just kidding. Although in dog years he would be a great great grandpa dog by now, right? Of course he had a ridiculous amount of reading and he was in class for the majority of the day, but here's what birthday we did squeeze in:
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| he's not surprised per se but he can't deny that isn't exactly what he wanted |
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| the present- enjoyed instantly |
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| ignore the fact that jimmy's still a little bit of a hippy who can't wear a shirt and appreciate this candle-action-shot i took |
Oh, and yes, off to the side that IS a slice of four-layer carrot cake, how could you tell? I like to play around with my extra batter and frosting. And I promise we didn't just eat cake and drink scotch all night. Although that was an option. Nonono. We're actual grown-ups [usually]. So dinner was a four-layer lasagna packed full of 2 different pasta sauces, 3 different cheeses, garlic, and a yellow pepper. All in all a good day for the birthday boy. I came to this conclusion using the fact that he said "good birthday zebear" at least 8 times after coming home to his new bottle of Balvenie. Today it's back to the regular schedule of Jimmy reading a lot and Meg cycling between running, job searching, reading more about the ICA and posting this entry.
Hope all is going well with everyone. Hopefully there will be another adventure this weekend!
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