After meeting a friend at the DeYoung Museum to see the Amish Abstractions: Quilt exhibit (it’s amazing), I walked down Hayes Street to get home. All of these photos were taken on the 14 blocks between Stanyan and Fillmore.

Oh, and I spruced up my blog a little bit. I finally designed a logo, which consists of all the places that I have ever lived starting with Tennessee in the middle. Then I cleaned up and styled everything else. I am quite pleased with results, and the best part is that I did it almost all by myself!!! Nik helped me a couple times when I was stumped, but that really only happened once or twice. Do you like it?

This is one of many posts in a series called San Francisco Streets. They are my way of documenting the city as I walk down each and every street. The photo sets are not ones you would see in guidebooks, but are ones that make this place unique and often quirky. Click here to see more.

Today was our first full day in our new apartment near Alamo Square! It is a completely furnished studio (except sheets apparently) with about 400 square feet. Perfect for our first apartment in San Francisco. We will only live here for a month or two while we look for jobs, scope out the city and decide which neighborhood we really want to call home. Then we’ll find a bigger, probably 1-bedroom, place that we could see ourselves living in for a couple years. That’s when we’ll finally rent a moving van and properly move our furniture and miscellaneous items, officially relinquishing our claims to living in Portland!

Our morning started with a 2-bus transfer to the closest Trader Joe’s for groceries. We stocked up on most of the basics we knew and loved in Portland, but limited ourselves to three grocery bags. We rode back, unloaded our goods, ate lunch and went out to enjoy the beautiful day at Alamo Square. Nik brought the feather, and we kicked around for an hour or so while looking out over the city of San Francisco beyond the Painted Ladies………..are we in heaven?

It is hard to imagine that I might be here, in San Francisco, for a while, and yet I have been imagining exactly that for the past two weeks. Every day I walk down a new street and make mental notes about what I see. I want to remember this city not because I might never see it again, but because I know that I will see it over and over again. Over and over in the sense that I will LIVE here. I will need to buy groceries, so I need to know where the grocery stores are. I will want to have a nice dinner now and then, so I need to know where nice dinners can be had. I will go Christmas shopping here, so I would like to know where the perfect toy store is. I will get married here, so I need to have a list of places for my guests to visit. I will work here, so I need to understand the bus system. I will travel from here, so I need to know where the train stations, airports, taxi stands and rental cars are. I will live here, so I need to know where I want to live.

San Francisco has been the end-goal for us ever since we left Portland in June of 2008 to travel in Thailand. We knew that if we were ever going to come back to the States, this was our town. We consider it the most beautiful and interesting city in the country that we know of, so why would we live anywhere else? It meets all of our requirements for a city: big enough to explore without ever getting bored, natural beauty, career opportunities, a few good friends, great apartments, close enough for our families to visit, and close enough for us to visit our families. Yes, Mom, I know it’s still not close enough, but a 5 hour flight is much better than a 15 hour one, right?

So here we are. After a couple weeks staying with friends, we have moved into an apartment of our own. We are both looking for jobs (if you know of any good architects in town….let me know!), but trying to take advantage of the free time we have in the city before real life kicks in. Today we were supposed to do the big grocery run, but we decided not to carry loads of food 8 blocks in the rain. That will happen tomorrow. The next sunny day we have, I’ll take photos of the apartment, because it is really nice for what it is.

In the mean time, here are the photos I have taken along the way. I’m still in absorbing mode. I only take my camera out sporadically, and my photography has suffered because of that. I will take some serious neighborhood photos soon, and I already have lots of ideas for my San Francisco City Guide. I am going to do better about blog posts because funny and interesting things are happening, and I want to capture these moments in our new city!!!!

On one of our first days in town, Nik and I stumbled upon the Musee Mecanique on Pier 45 in Fisherman’s Wharf. It was an arcade like I’ve never seen before. Most games outdated me, but were still functioning and hilarious. I wish we had had more quarters to play, but I guarantee that we will be back!

Walking on the Ridge

Nik’s recent posts:

The Ugly and The Beautiful

Weekend in Marin