In my pursuit to catch up on my novel (as I have terribly fallen behind on, 5,000 words and counting) I have neglected to keep up with my blog, and posting what I have been doing. Well, since Sunday morning, I have been enjoying the company of one of my college friends Rebekka and her family, and it’s been a blast. During the day however, I have been going out typically towards the city to see new sights.

The first couple days weren’t very interesting, all I ended up doing was walking around the piers of the San Francisco bay, and Market St. (which is really just one of the main streets of down town and the main host of the PRIDE celebrations).

By Wednesday, I had figured out the transportation well enough to go over towards Mt. Tamalpais. The scenery, mmm, it was sooo beautiful. I didn’t actually go up Mt. Tam itself, but I was in the state park. It was a little tense however, because the bus route to get there is new, and so they’re still testing it out, and as such, only goes the route 4 times a day (once about every 4.5 hours). I needed to make sure that I got the very next bus after the one I took to arrive, so I could get back to the house before 9pm at night. The hike I did was relatively short, about 2 miles that I did in about 40 minutes (because it was all downhill, and so I was pretty much half-running most of it). However, after taking about a 20 minute break to sit down by a small waterfall just off the trail, I began the hike back up and fully appreciated the name of the trail: Steep Ravine Trail. To my dismay, I saw that when I got back to the trailhead there was still another hour (it was only 2:15 then) before the next bus came. I was starving, out of breath and thirsty, and I realized that for being an outdoorsy person, I was ill-prepared for an outdoor hike. Oh well. It happens (and besides, it’s not like I was doing a backpacking trek). In the last few minutes, I decided I had enough strength to go up the “Alpine” trail for 7 minutes before I had to head back. I headed back early, because I heard weird screeching noises from what seemed to be coming from a tree, making me wonder if that’s what trees sound like just before they’re ready to fall, and I did not want to have to deal with any of that. Anyway, I made it back, caught the bus, and made my way back to the house for the evening with my first exciting adventure of SF!

Thursday was one of my biggest days of this entire trip! I was going to write a post separately about this, but then writers block and my novel changed this. I got to meet former First Lady and Secretary of the State, and potential future President of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton. The actual moment was probably one of the most anti-climactic events of my life. She thanked me for coming. That’s about it. But still, to be directly across from her and be able to look her in the eye and smile was incredible. Maybe someday I’ll actually be able to talk to her… (keep dreaming Joe).

After the book signing (I now have a copy of her almost 700 page memoir), I went over to the Exploratorium and spent several hours there. I was surprised at how entertaining it is even for adults, and completely appreciated the reason why they would have adults-only hours Thursday evenings. The trippiest part for me was the mirrors, especially this one that shows you, life-sized, walking around on the ceiling. It’s sooo wacky. After that I left to go back to the house.

Friday was more what I have been expecting I would do while here. Originally I was supposed to meet a friend from Redlands for lunch, but we decided Saturday would be a better day, because it would give us more time, which I greatly appreciated. So instead, I decided to walk along Market Street until I found a restaurant to order food. I ended up in this tiny little diner, great food, and I pulled out my notebook to reconfigure my novel, which at the time felt like it was falling apart. Having some quality quiet time to think with some great food, I’m surprised it took me until my third stop of the trip to do this kind of thing. Afterwards, I slowly made my way back to the house, admiring some of the vendors who were setting up for the PRIDE celebrations the next two days.

And finally there’s today… Saturday. I got to meet my friend one more time before I study abroad for 3.5 months, which I am very grateful for. After that, I previewed PRIDE and got to see some amazing performers and some pretty strange outfits. I’m super excited to go back tomorrow not lugging around my big blue bag and perhaps getting more involved and talk with other people. Not to mention the parade. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening struggling to fight traffic to get back to the house. While sitting on the bus back, I became quite contemplative, of which the result will soon be posted. So keep your eyes open.

Until Next Time,

Joe