A time in San Francisco

Recharge. I think this one word adequately describes the time we spent in San Francisco from the night of October 12th to the afternoon of October 19th, when we departed SFO International Airport for a connecting flight through Seattle to Honolulu, Hawaii. San Francisco was a time of psychological and literal preparation taht allowed the journey to continue. It is an interesting reality that the journey had been as much external as internal up to the point that we arrived to San Francisco. We saw a lot of different things, meanwhile in the interior, I grappled with the reasons for and prudency of making such a journey in such difficult economic times. Perhaps some of you have asked the same questions while following or reading up on our journey. I admit that I have struggled to keep up with the blog because of this internal journey that has forced me to contemplate every move and think out every possible contingency along the way. For this reason, San Francisco turned out to be just what we needed. The first night, after a 9pm or so arrival, we sat with Becky, Tim, and Taylor and briefly discussed our reasons for making the journey. I came to realize that this is a dream and a hope that have lived inside me all the way back to undergrad, when my idealistic friend Mike Rudzinski and I set the groundwork for this very undertaking by discussing the feasibility of, and reading up on other persons' trips around the world. Flash forward to last night at the luau here in Hawaii - I had a great conversation with a man originally from Montreal, Canada (though he did not speak French). When I commented "C'est bien!" he responded "NO!" Regardless, his response to my description of our trip was to describe his own, undertaken many years prior when he had finished his undergraduate education. We discussed how much fear there is in the world today, or is it perhaps in the United States alone? I simply beg the question. There is so much to see in the world out there, why do we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to see it? And yet, my affirmation of my need to make this trip has been shaky at times, and I am grateful to all of you who have been supportive in encouraging us along. Sometimes there are things in life that we just have to do, and if we deny ourselves the opportunity, we will spend the rest of our lives thinking "what might have been" or about "the one that got away." There are a lot of songs about this actually. How many do we hear about people actually accomplishing what they set out to achieve, jumping off into the unknown of seeking to fulfill the dreams in the deepest places of their hearts? I am not saying that there aren't any, and if you think of some good ones please put some links in the comments section of this post.

My point in all of this is that SF was a time for a bit of sight-seeing, but more a time for reflection and an analysis of what we are doing, and I have come out able to say that I glad for the opportunity to do what we are doing. I am becoming a more confident person, able to confront my fears, and articulate my dreams and desires. Upon my return I have no idea what I will do, but I believe that the doors will open themselves to me. I believe that they have no other choice if we but have the fortitude to go after the deepest desires in our hearts!

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Thus we spent the first day lying around Taylor's basement apartment, reflecting on and processing all that we had beheld in the preceding days and preparing ourselves for the time to come. That night I also heard from long-time friend Kris Egan, who informed me that Fr. Ev Hemann, a long time friend and former pastor from St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Ames, Iowa, was in fact on sabbatical in Menlo Park, just south of where we were staying in Berkeley. Thus I got into touch with him and we coordinated a nice tour of SF for the next day.

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

This day, we got up early, around 7:30am or so, to walk to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station and catch the train from N. Berkeley to the Embarcadero station on the bay of the city of San Francisco. While there, we ventured out onto Pier 14 and enjoyed the sun rising gently above the surprisingly impressive skyline of "the city." In short order, the Toyota Avalon proudly bearing the cyclone-and-gold-colored STA1 license plate pulled up, and we were off for a whirlwind tour of the city. We saw the Coit Monument, the crookedest street in the world, rode on a cable car, climbed Twin Peaks (from which we could see the entire Bay Area), drove around pretty much entirely all day, and then lunched at a Chinese restaurant with Fr. Ev, and two of his friends who ended up being from Chicago and Australia: Fr. Vince and Fr. James respectively. Together they treated Daniel and I to lunch, and then we were off to see the gay neighborhood centered around Castro St. And from there we hit the train back to Berkeley, where we came in, made some eggs with avocadoes and hot sauce (a great combination by the way) and settled in for the night.

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Throughout this whole time, we were attempting to sell my Neon, and so we took some trips to car dealerships to see about how much we could get for it, which would in turn be leveraged against future expenses down the line. I was also fielding phone call responses to my Craigslist ad, which ultimately was the medium by which I ultimately sold the vehicle at the eleventh hour. The first call came after a day of sightseeing in Berkeley on that Friday night. I believe I received the call around 11pm, and the person on the phone asked me about the car and seemed pretty confident that it was exactly what he was looking for, however when he learned that "standard transmission" in fact meant a "manual" or "stick" transmission, he was fairly certain that it was not going to work out for him.

This is essentially what Friday consisted of - the car. We took a trip to Richmond, farther north in the East Bay portion of the greater San Francisco metropolitan area. We visited a place that bought cars and met a nice guy named Michele from Lebanon (if I am not mistaken). As it turned out, even he had made some trips to Australia, and so gave me some tips when I told him of our plans. He also made the first offer on the car, though I was ultimately able to settle later on a better price on my own. A very nice gentleman to be sure. As it turns out California is quite possibly one of the most inconvenient places in the world to have a car. I do not remember very well what the requirements were in New York City, as I am sure they are similar, however Cali requires a SMOG test, which the car owner has to pay for, before the car can be registered with the state, which also has to verify the environmentally friendly nature of the vehicle. Not to mention that the cost for doing all of these tests is astronomically more expensive than they would be in Rockford, Illinois. Though I have come to appreciate the beauty of other parts of the world, I will always recall Rockford as a very thrifty place to grow up. And just wait until I get back, because I have about a thousand ideas of how to make the area more interesting and I am going to slam them into place!!!!

After Michele's place, we headed to a nearby Dodge dealership, which manager did not make an offer, but gave me a similar value on the car to what Michele had said. We then hit up one last Honda dealership on the way back to Berkeley, where we encountered some good traffic, and thus got back to the house fairly late. No go there either without paying for a SMOG test and then registering the vehicle. I was somewhat bummed...

Saturday, October 16th, 2010

However the following day I received a call in the morning from Ulysses. I will never forget his name, I mean honestly how can you ever forget a name like that? We agreed to meet the following morning at Tim and Becky's place so that he could see the car, and he even knew that the car was a manual transmission. The whole plan ultimately turned out to be a no go, he never showed Sunday morning at the agreed 9am time. Life's like that. However I did receive a call later Saturday, after I had successfully toured UCal Berkeley's campus in an hour and bought the blue Cal hat that you see appearing in the pictures, and turned out to be a great topic of conversation later on. As it turns out, a team I really don't care about, played a game I never saw, in which they lost 48-14 to USC. It seems that everyone else in SF was privvy to this information, whereas I only liked the hat. Lead to some nice conversations though. Great times!

Later that night I received a call from a guy who turned out to be Nepalese, who was helping a friend of his, who spoke significantly less English, to buy a car. As they resided in Berkeley, we met them at a random ice cream stand and they took a look over the car. It was a pretty standard showing until the buyer's friend wanted to take it for a test drive. This is when things got interesting. I give him the key, he turns it, and nothing happens. The conversation ensues:

Me: "You need to push in the clutch while you turn the key."
Him: "The clutch?"
Me: "Yes, it's the the third pedal from the right."
Him: "There's three pedals?!?!"

Suffice it to say this ended in a good laugh for Daniel and I, but no sale.

One thing I forgot to mention is that earlier that day, after my whirlwind tour of UCal Berkeley, I drove up the mountain right behind campus, and after reaching a satisfactory summit, proceeded to journal, then walk away, leaving my camera behind. I then drove all the way back to Tim and Becky's place while it sat on a trunk overlooking the entire bay area. Oops! But if anyone tells you that people in SF or Berkeley are dishonest, I say boo, because when I got back to the top with my brother about an hour later, the camera had quite obviously been examined by someone, but had been left behind so that I could reclaim it. Thankfully so! I was hoping that I would at least lose it or have it stolen in a foreign country!

We then headed back and enjoyed the Marina where we met an interesting woman, who herded three dogs and told us the interesting story of her life. A mocking picture of the guardian monument, a walk out on the pier, some baseball played with sticks and pine cones, some pics, and a conversation with a 16 year old windsurfer later, we headed back to the house to enjoy a bbq rib dinner, with an amazing salad and some great potatoes that we purchased at the Berkeley Bowl, one of the most amazing supermarkets I have ever been to. Ah fresh fruit and organic produce, it does not get much better!

Dinner was amazing, then we exchanged some knowledge and books and settled in for our evening movies.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

After my car appointment never showed, we headed to a nearby church, where the pastor waiting outside asked us, "You do know this is a Spanish mass?" to which we assented and then entered for a beautiful sacrifice of the mass in a truly beautiful language. After 11am mass, well headed back and had a nice brunch of more avocadoes and eggs. We then headed into the city and drove all the way across to the Golden Gate Bridge (there is video of this that will be posted very soon). From there we headed to Muir Woods, where we hiked amid the amazingly huge redwoods or "sequoias" and then headed back down into the city itself. We then met up with my friend Diana Kirsanova-Phillips and enjoyed a traditional Russian dinner at the restaurant Sadko. I would highly recommend it, and I thank Diana for a splendid evening!

We headed back and enjoyed a relaxing evening at the house.

Monday, October 18th, 2010

This was the day I received the call that led to the selling of the car. A young woman by the name of Ty called and informed me that she was in need of a car to carry her and her three children across the United States to Georgia. She called me in the morning, and so I headed off to wash the car, and then waited for her bus to arrive at one of the BART stations. When she saw the car, she knew it was exactly what she wanted, and so decided to go for it, without requesting any of the SMOG or registration headaches that the dealers had needed done. She bought it, and after a brief picture and a text reading "blessings" she drove off in the car that had served me so well for a little under four years. It was a sad moment, and yet a pivotal moment for the journey. I had just invested more than just verbally in this journey, and there was nowhere left to go but onward, and this is where we still find ourselves now.

That night we walked back to Berkeley Bowl, bought the ingredients, and then cooked up a "last supper" of sorts to share with Tim, Becky, and Taylor. It was a hit! Even the brussel sprouts turned out really good, though the pork was a bit dry. We did our best and had a great conversation to top off a great stay in SF.

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

The morning consisted of making a run to the post office and bank, where we deposited some monies, sent off a package of stuff to Illinois, and a few postcards and letters as well. Then Tim gave us a ride to the BART station, we made our flight at SFO, and set off for Seattle, and then Honolulu to live in paradise....