San Francisco it is!!!

The last week has been a whirlwind of here, there, and everywhere. We drove along the Mendocino coast on Tuesday and met up with a friend of Scott's (Kam) from the Peace Corps. He has a huge chunk of land up in the boonies there and is building himself quite a compound. It was great to meet Kam and it's even better that he is only a 2.5 hour drive from where we'll be living. We already have a kayaking trip in the works and will definitely be back to the beautiful Mendocino coast.

We drove into Alameda on Wednesday and began looking at apartments. We drove through the neighborhoods looking for rental signs and would excitedly jump out of our car and write down the information - only to be disappointed that it was gone, woudln't accept pets... etc.

We looked for more apartments on Thursday and I had a job interview in Oakland. I wasn't really prepared to interview but it had to be that day since they were going to be leaving town for a couple of weeks. So I bought an outfit and changed in a Starbucks bathroom and went to my job interview - sometimes that's just the way it works. It actually went pretty well so we'll see what happens! : )

We drove to Monterey, CA to meet up with family and attend Mike's (Scott's stepbrother) change of command ceremony. He is now the commanding officer of Station Monterey. I got to meet my niece and nephew that I hadn't met yet and tour the lighthouse that Mike and Alli live next to (being CO has its perks!)

BUT... the most exciting thing is that we found an apartment yesterday (Sunday)! We are going to urban it up for a bit. The picture above is our new apartment in San Francisco. The picture on the left is the park that is 3 blocks away (and yes, that is the Golden Gate Bridge in the background!)

After debating and looking at places and meeting plenty of crazy landlords we decided to jump in and do the city thing. We found a 2 bdrm apartment in a great neighborhood that is several blocks from a park, the water and everything we need - not to mention it's 10 minutes from Ghiradelli Square. It's in the "Marina" area - which is decidely yuppie but manages to be quiet and residential while also being in the middle of everything. The price of rent makes you want to cry and it would be $400 extra if we wanted the garage (ouch!) but we're going to do it for awhile and enjoy being young and living in the city. The good news is that we'll have space for guests!!! : )