tour de San Fran

So this morning I met Nadia, whose room I am renting, and her and her mom and I all went for breakfast at Tiffany's, a place near the house. :) I had yummy blueberry pancakes and eggs. Then I went and got a phone... so I officially now have a phone in the States however cannot make international calls to Canada (apparently Cambodia is included in their international calling list, but not Canada). I will definitely have to get a calling card but otherwise, Skype me. I also got a fast pass for the muni busses here.

Then Lilli Ann and I took off on a super amazing awesome tour of San Francisco. She showed me how to get to the place where I will be working and we walked to the Greenpeace office. And she told me all of the neighbourhoods to steer clear of; 16th and Mission, certain parts of Market Street, Silver Terrace, lower Potrero hills and the Tenderloin. Apparently in some areas one shouldn't wear red because of gangs. The neighbourhood I am living in definitely has an interesting feel to it too - not unsafe persay - but definitely nothing like I am used to. And being white I definitely feel like I'm the minority here. San Francisco is weird in that all the bad parts of town are really spread out and scattered throughout the city... there isn't one place to avoid, it's everywhere. I think I have the words "be cautious" engraved in my brain for life.

We took another bus downtown to this giant mall and looked around there for a bit, which was fun. Lilli Ann is such a sweet heart, she is so kind and generous. And from there we took the Bart, so I could have that experience, over to Glen Park, a really nice area to the West. We looked around there a bit and then bussed it back to Potrola, my neighbourhood. I went shopping for groceries in a little Chinese grocery store that seriously lacked in certain things - so I think tonight is rice and beans, or maybe a baked potato and banana. But I'll figure it out soon enough. The funny thing is, after today I honestly think that I know San Francisco and the bus system here way better than I know Vancouver. I could totally draw you a map right now of San Francisco with all of the neighbourhoods and tell you about four or five different bus routes that will get you several places in the city. This is comforting. The fact that just as I got off the bus back home a girl threw a handful of cooked meat in her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, or someone else's face... not so comforting. But hey, it's San Francisco baby. I'll take pics of the house soon and send them along :)