mashed potato mountains.

said my goodbyes to the loving cup this past week. starting "full time" (read: 40 hours minus benefits) at healthline next monday.

going to miss the lc crew and all the loyal regulars (yes, i'm talking about you -- "chocolate chocolate chips").


going up to portland for the thanksgiving weekend. it's been a year and a half since i've seen liz. it will good to see her after so long. we're planning another amazing thanksgiving feast of the things we like the most: mashed potatoes and stuffing.. and possibly some kind of cake.
and, of course, good friends and good wine.

nothing else to report really.

moved to the mission recently. have been loving the location and our new place.
will post pictures some day.

out, loyal readers.

tropical weather.

the cold winds of winter are coming.
the city is cloaked in a layer of grey fog.





i miss the warmth of a tropical breeze.
i miss the sand between my toes.

traveling.

so how do you go about getting a job as a tour guide?
do you have to be a certain age?
do you have to have certain experience?
do you have to have certain qualifications?

can you walk right up to your favorite travel agency and say, "i want to be a tour guide here." ..?

i've been thinking if it would be possible, i would love to be a tour guide.
if i could make a living traveling and hanging out with people that love to travel, how is that not a win/win?!

so..
how do i do it?

hiking.

hiking involves a lot of walking uphill.

i always think that i really want to go go hiking but, upon reflection, what really i want is a scenic walk in the woods. i mistake those a lot.

that being said, i had a really good time hiking up at mount diablo. the park wasn't as green as i expected but it was a really nice park and a beautiful day so i was really happy to get out and enjoy the scenery.


on the way home, it was really cool to see the fog centered immediately over the city. there was this one cloud that looked like it was a wave folding in upon itself, crashing over and enveloping this one emerald green hill. the fold was almost frozen in time, so as we drove closer, we could see the inside of the "wave."

on the bridge heading back into town, i played tourist: camera out the window, taking pictures of us re-entering the fog.

animals.

the zoo's a pretty cool place.





.. self timer fail.

just sliiiide.

seward street slides! :)

by the bay...

josh met up with me downtown this week after an early interview and we headed to embarcadero to check out the ferry building and some random sculpture i'd always driven by but never explored.

the city is so full of random things to see and do and i wonder why so many people that have lived here all their lives never take advantage of it.

what is the word for when you live somewhere so long that you take it for granted?
i wanted to say 'complacency' .. but that doesn't mean what i thought it meant.

i really hope to take this city in to its fullest.
and i hope that if i end up living here for a long time, i don't forget that.

we went to the golden gate bridge with a friend from madison after hitting up the embarcadero and he remarked quite a few times,
"it's a beautiful city."

and all i could do was just smile and agree.

adventures in the east bay.

one sunny saturday afternoon, beth and i decided to take a trip to the east bay to attend an event where we got to be the judges for a cupcake bake off! we visited this lovely place called rock, paper, scissors and ate some delicious cupcakes (my favorite -- the vegan lemon strawberry one -- ended up winning too!).

after, we decided to make most of our day on the other side of the bridge, so we had lunch in berkely as this vegetarian chinese place (the fake-chicken sesame was decidedly good). in addition, we went to this converted landfill which is now a lovely park with old art sculptures littered around the many random pathways. beth and her old band, acne attack!, actually played a show there a year or so ago and i was amazed that they lugged all their equipment on the long narrow rocky paths. we found a weird castle, some cool sculptures and even their old graffiti!















from here, across the water we could see these massive kites and we went on a mission to find out what they were. dodging traffic and navigating only by the tails of these kites, we finally made it to the marina where we got to witness the large squid kites up close and personal. the weather was perfect, sunny and very conducive to a lawnfull of kite flyers. we sat and watched before it was time to head home.







all in all, an afternoon well spent.

easter in dolores park!

a big thank you to the sisters of perpetual indulgence for hosting a wonderful gathering this easter sunday on the lawns of dolores park!

gerry, betsy, anna, rob and i met up today to hang out with some amazing people in celebration of the holiday. there was a band, lawn to sun in and plenty of people watching to do.

to round out the day, there was a "hunky jesus" competition where we voted by applause for the hunkiest jesus impersonator in the park.

what a glorious way to spend the beautiful afternoon. :)

cross-country.

so i left the midwest (again.. eep) and arrived in lovely san francisco last night. hoping to figure things out, get a job and settle down here for a while. ::fingers crossed::

on the way, i stopped in omaha, nebraska which was a pretty decent little town. not much to it, but i did get to drive on saddle creek drive and happy hollow ave which amused me much. (fans of bright eyes, the faint, cursive, etc will get these references.. ) the downtown was pretty small and easily navigable (minus the random construction) and there seemed to be a lot of chill intimate venues for popular saddle creek acts which i am envious of.

i also briefly rested in salt lake city after a long 13-hour drive which i found very nice as well. during my first visit to slc i found myself confused and a little put off, but this time i drove in with the backdrop of the sun setting on the mountains and decided to give it a second chance. it is apparently a good spot for those who love the outdoors, camping, rock climbing, and hiking so someday maybe i will check it out more thoroughly than overnight. mormonism has placed some strict laws on alcohol but i have met a few home brewers which i think allows for a lot of cool variety on beers and wine.

finally, after another long day of driving (11 hours!) i made it to san francisco. california immediately greeted me with green grass and clear skies. i drove with the windows down and the stereo up. even stuck in traffic, i was so elated to be back in this beautiful city.

donsol!

the last part of our trip involved a 13 hour bus ride down the coast of luzon, dropping us off in the small town of legaspi in the dark at 3 in the morning. cold and tired, we waited half-sleeping in a jeepney for the first run of the day while the driver dozed across the front seat of the vehicle. at 4 or 5 (who knows, really? time was a blur at that point) we took off and ended up in donsol. the main attraction of donsol is the migration of the whale shark (wiki entry) through their waters. these huge animals travel through the ocean near donsol to eat the plankton that is plentiful there. and, because we are so lucky, we get to swim alongside the gentle giants!

i don't have pictures of our actual swim (these were procured from google images), but we got to swim literally feet from 4 different sharks that day.. some appearing out of nowhere in the dark waters just to come swimming right at me! as the day wore on, i got cold and cranky but when our boatman called out at the sight of a whale dorsol, we all jumped in eagerly. it just so happened that the sky opened and rays of light poured into the water just in time for us to swim alongside the whaleshark and the crisp clearness of the amazing animal leaves me at a loss for words.




thusly, however, our journey through the philippine islands comes to an end. today, we are back in manila, doing the internet thing and watching movies. we took a trip to see the very first house i lived in as a child so that was kind of neat.


in two days, we fly back to the cold of madison and then get ready for our new adventure: hiking the appalachian!! :)

island hopping through the visayas.. .

from puerto princesa, josh and i caught a flight over to the visayas and deplaned in dumaguete -- the main port on the island of negros. we spent quite a few days there, relaxing, reading, surfing the net -- things we long to indulgde in. :) we also got around to the surrounding areas to check out the sights of negros.

one day, we went up to the national park to do some trekking. to get there, we had to ride this habal habal (a motorcycle with an attached uncomfortable seat on the rear for extra seating) on a long gravel road that had me terrified the whole ride up and back down the mountain. once we reached the park, we found that due to high waters, trekking wasn't possible so instead we kayaked around the twin lakes and hung out and enjoyed the scenary.


as another side adventure, we went caving in mabinay! we met our caving guide, jeffrey early in the morning and he prepared us for the experience. although i had brought a swimsuit and extra clothes, we had been apparently misinformed that flip flops would be sufficient for caving. jeffrey frowned at our choice of footwear but took us to a cave called baliw which was listed in the "difficult" category on our list of caves from the tourist agency. the cave itself was so much fun. we squeezed through small crevices, sunk in mud and guano, belly crawled through parts impassable otherwise, and in the end had to take off our helmets to swim through the small slit leading us out of the cave.





after dumaguete, we took a LONG few bus rides to the other side of the island and stayed on a beautiful secluded beach called sugar beach (or, langub beach). we met a lot of nice people at the neighboring driftwood resort and hung out there and went snorkeling at the marine reserve. we again saw a lot of cool marine life and corals -- but still nothing compares to the colors and expanse of coral we saw at port barton.





after saying goodbye to our pseudo family at driftwood (they stood waving on the shoreline and shouting goodbyes as our boat sailed away), we bused and boated to ilo ilo in hopes of being about to do some rock climbing at the national park. however, once we arrived, the climbing gym we were supposed to seek information at was closed (the owner had moved to the u.s. apparently) and the park was off limits due to the rebel inhabitants.

instead of climbing, we took a trip to guimeras where we checked out a waterfall where local kids went to swim and a mango research farm (which wasn't as cool as it was made out to be). bummed out, we bought some mangoes and prepared to go back to manila and to donsol, our last stop before going home.