The Many Adventures of the Bay Area: Part II

Day 2: Point Reyes National Seashore

Point Reyes is the best kind of sanctuary for natural, cultural, and historical preservation! There are preserved farmlands first settled by some of the first European dairy farmers to California, an historical lighthouse that you walk over 300 steps down to a whale watching point, beach and marshland preserves, and an elephant seal sanctuary! Because it’s peak whale watching season and there are so many tourists, we had to take a shuttle bus. Worked out, because the bus driver gave us some lovely information about the island!

These are cranes in Oakland for the docks. We like to refer to them at AT-ATs because we're Star Wars nerds.

Going over the Richmond Bridge to the North Bay from Oakland. That's the mountains of the North Bay!

We found a street!

The island of Point Reyes! So cool!

Heading down to the visitors center to catch the shuttle to the lighthouse!

Widdle tweety bird ate lunch with us!

More cliffs and beaches!

Weird lookin' seaweed.

Oh no! A dead elephant seal!

Some weird stone coral stuff.

Feet in the water! Oh yea!

So pretty.

We got on the shuttle and headed to the lighthouse!

I forget the actual name of these deer/elk animals, but it's a sanctuary.

The waves looked so cool! Our driver told us these are called "sleeper waves"...or maybe "sweeper waves"....
Either way, it's a wave with a strong riptide that sneaks up on swimmers and they drown. No swimming today!

More cute little deer!

The waves were so cool!

We had to walk over 300 steps down to the lighthouse.

And then walk back up them.

Well worth it. We saw some grey whales!

DREAD

Cool rock erosion and nifty little plant.

ELEPHANT SEALS! The dark ones are the pups. The human-like figure is an actual human. They were doing some studies. Helps you with the size. Actually, there weren't many of the big males. These are mostly females and pups. This particular stretch of beach is one of the few places that are only for elephant seals!

Sun on the hills on the way home.

Yup, I live here now. Pretty awesome.

The Many Adventures of the Bay Area: Part I

Last weekend Katy and I rented a car (a little Kia, GREAT gas mileage) from the Oakland airport and headed off for adventures and to explore the Bay Area. Just to be clear, The Bay Area refers to the entire area around the bay, it’s more than just San Francisco. (To be in on this really funny joke, please see below Julie Goldman’s funny sketch about The Bay Area – it’s spot on.)

Click Here for Julie Goldman's hilarity.

Day 1: Highway 1

First we decided, let’s just drive down the infamous Highway 1 for some lovely sights of coastal California!

With no map and no clear understanding of the directions and locations of many of the places to which we wanted to go, we headed out and made our great mistake: taking the “scenic route” with the Bay Bridge, the Embarcadero, and Golden Gate Park during Chinese New Year celebrations and the Tulip Festival (and apparently, some kind of marching band competition? I have no idea…).

Ah, typical San Francisco overcast and fog. We were headed over the Bay Bridge.

This is Mateo's favorite part of the Embarcadero: The Fire Truck!

Old part of the Bay Bridge that connects Treasure Island and San Francisco. I get to go over this every day for the commute. The other half, Treasure Island to Oakland, is all brand new. Those pictures can be seen later. :)

A sail boat in the bay!

Did we get to see any of the fun festivities of the Chinese New Year? Nope. Did we see any tulips? Nope. Did we deal with tourist traffics? Yep. Ok ok, we were also acting as tourists, but the Embarcadero is where we WORK. Lame! Driving through the different docks was an awful idea too. Why did we want to keep along the coast line?? What were we thinking?? Oh well, it was gorgeous day and we kept the windows down.

This is what people talk about when they refer to "foggy San Francisco."

Golden Gate Bridge.

I really liked this weird building. Neither of us know what it is, exactly. Someone told us once, but we can't remember.

After getting lost for a bit in Golden Gate Park and having a chilling almost-going-over-the-Golden-Gate-Bridge-when-we-want-to-stay-on-this-side experience, we finally found our way to Highway 1!

MOAR FOG!

Highway 1! Oh yea!

Gorgeous sea views.

West Coast trees!

Mountains.

Cliffs and beaches.

Yup, this is California.

Pretty chill.

Pretty awesome.

Random boat?

Finally! We were on our way to Half Moon Bay! Hey hey, we even got to play on the beach! The waves were pretty scary, and somehow the Pacific Ocean seems SO MASSIVE even though the visibility is the same or less than looking out at the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean.

We didn't stay for long, though. It was starting to get dark and we were hungry, so went to a taqueria.

Half Moon Bay.

It was a fun drive, as you can see. The way back in the dark was also very nice!

I thought Denise would love this. We love the Coca-Cola sign.

Traffic on the Bay Bridge. Ugh.

San Francisco at night.

The new half of the Bay Bridge. I think she's beautiful!

Massive!

I'll post about the remainder of the weekend in other posts, but I at least wanted to update once. I love living here: so much to do in one area.

San Francisco has a different kind of crazy

Well, I have now completed two full weeks of my new line of work! I must say that I am rather enjoying myself in San Francisco. Work is enjoyable, even if it is quite busy at times. I'm finally getting a grasp on my responsibilities and learning how best to manage my time. I'm even better understanding how everything works in our systems and how eBooks are actually published! Woo!

I do have an interesting summary of outside work experience since arriving in San Fran.

1. One of the firs things I saw leaving the airport with my mama was Harley Quinn on a motorcycle. Awesome.

It looked something like this.

2. Katy told me that at about the same time, she and Kelly saw three men on bicycles: one was completely naked, one was wearing a pink bustier with no pants, and the third was similarly scantily clad.

To see what this could possibly look like, check out this Not Safe For Work San Francisco blog about the annual Wold Naked Bike Ride.

3. I encountered my first "smug" at the local Walgreens when I bought some toiletries and realized I didn't have a reusable bag to place my items in. The clerk gave me a look, Katy explained I was "new to California," and he begrudgingly told me my first bag was "on the house."

See short preview clip from South Park's "Smug Alert" episode to perfectly describe this.

4. The temperature has been solidly between 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit with blue skies, and I get to listen to native Bay Area residents complain about the "cold" while I revel in how absolutely gorgeous it is. Seriously, there are actually a couple people wearing winter coats. Though the other day there was an epic amount of that lasted literally all day. But that was just cool.

Note that according to weather-and-climate.com, these temperatures are still above average.

San Francisco may not have the same kind of crazy as NYC, but it certainly has its own form of crazy! So far I'm enjoying it. Maybe especially because I have the advantage of getting to drive in the carpool lane to and from work almost everyday. And yesterday we saw a jerk driving in the shoulder to avoid highway traffic get pulled over. Mwahahahaha!

I do love the views, though. It's a striking combination of urban and nature that is unlike anywhere else I've seen. No wait...it looks almost exactly like Haifa. Alright, just kidding, the San Francisco Bay Area looks exactly like the Carmel region of Israel. Only damper.

What a perfectly apt summary of SF.
Source.

I feel like a lot of my first posts living in SF will cover the similarities and differences between the West and East coasts. Now if only I could find a backpacking buddy to explore the mountains with on a multi-day excursion....

Everything happens all at once!

Shortly after I decided to slow down on the job hunt, Katy called me with a potential job offer out in San Francisco!

Long story short: I got the job!

You're now reading about the new Client Services Associate for a brand spanking new ebooks publishing and distribution company! I'm pretty pumped. It's a real fast turn around, so I have to organize myself in two weeks. I already got my plane ticket, and my darling mama will be joining me.

It means putting Israel on hold for a bit, but that was starting to look like it might take a while. My January goal will be blasted away, unfortunately. First, I must accumulate grant money, and this real world job will help me store up for the winter.

Speaking of Israel, I managed to get a very positive reaction from my church about the cemetery in Akko! I won't be around this weekend during the collection, but I think things will be good.

So things are moving along and life is finally starting for me. Oh, us silly 20-somethings these days and our late starts to life. Things will go well, I do not doubt. I'm looking forward to being on my own again and getting to spend some time with my cousin who is out there, too! Oh yea, and the pay won't be so awful to deal with either. ;)