On Saturday morning I had the sad task of dropping MJ off at the airport so he could fly off to a conference this week. This week has gone painfully slow as a result, but Saturday we’ll be meeting at the Philadelphia airport to take a flight together to Dublin, I’m so excited!
Late Saturday afternoon I decided to order a pizza from a place recommended to me by a woman at the Women Who Tech afterparty a couple weeks ago, Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria. Now, there are a few places in the city that say they are “east coast pizzerias” – even ones that have New York in the name, but nothing I’ve found came close to the precious east coast pizza that I crave and overindulged in on our trip back to Philadelphia in September. Needless to say I was skeptical and was starting to believe that finding east coast pizza in San Francisco was a quixotic quest. Luckily Amici’s proved me wrong and the large pepperoni and green pepper pizza I ordered from them was spectacular.
It’s funny how something like finding a good pizza can make me so happy, but it’s one of my staple craving foods and it was almost hard to feel at home without it. I am home now.
Sunday I met up with my friend Mark (who brought me a pink Oakland A’s hat!) in Oakland to visit the Oakland Museum of California. The original idea for going to this museum was to see the Pixar Exhibit but it was sold out for the day, however, upon realizing it was the “Free admission on first Sunday of the month” day I decided to check it out anyway. I’m very glad I did!
I have to admit that I only have vague notions about the history of colonizing and settling California, tidbits here and there about the gold rush. I was delighted by the timeline style of the museum, walking museum patrons through a human history of California from Native Americans through the 70s. So I did get to learn some fascinating things about the state, and some of the more mundane, like that I Love You, California is the official state song of California – but what was not mundane about this discovery is the awesome iconic cover illustration for sheet music:
Bear hugging California is the best thing ever!
I also quite enjoyed some of the displays they had up recreating famous moments in history, like the California or Bust car (and admittedly, I felt a bit “California or Bust” when I was moving out here).
We also got to see the grandmother of my pink netbook!
The layout of the museum is like nothing I’ve ever seen, with each section of the museum overlooking another on one edge (from the art gallery you could see the historical, from historical you could look down and see the natural history). In addition to the building itself there is a beautiful park within the bounds of the property and the roof is a pleasant area to walk around with all kinds of sculptures, including this giant peace symbol overlooking Lake Merritt.
I really enjoyed the historical part of the museum, and am really looking forward to the 2012 opening of their natural history museum. I could have passed on the art gallery though, while there were certainly some pieces that I was fond of, much of it fell into the category of abstract (to the point of “This is a line” paintings) and pieces which literally (with signs) begged you to ask “Is this Art?” I actually don’t mind looking at these things so much as hating the guilty feeling I have for not being able to appreciate any of it, and can’t fathom being an artist, in a field where talent is judged on such a subjective scale.
I’ll certainly be going back to the museum, hopefully before the Pixar exhibit goes away in January. I was delighted to learn that 1) it is dead simple (and quick!) to get to from SF on BART and 2) they have weeknight hours on Thursday and Friday! Both these things make it one of the more accessible museums for me, in spite of it being on the other side of the bay.
After the museum we headed over to Pacific Coast Brewing Company for a very satisfying dinner. Beer-wise I started out with the Grey Whale Ale, their house pale ale, and then rounded the meal off with the Belgian Bee.
The weekend behind me, this week has been a busy one for my day job and volunteer work. I don’t plan to have constant internet access while in Dublin (whether I’ll have data on my phone is questionable, and the daily rate for in room internet is pretty high, so I’m not sure I’ll pay every day), so I’m working hard to wrap up all the loose ends I can before my trip to stem at least some of the barrage of email and pings I’ll come home to. I did manage to get out to Noisebridge on Wednesday though, where I met up with my friend Grant and had a great discussion about the schools that Partimus works with and some of the politics involved in schools and programs in San Francisco.
Today I learned via the jets flying past my window (ok, they were at a bit of a distance) that Fleetweek started in San Francisco today, and I’m immediately feeling a bit sad not being in town this weekend to enjoy an air show. I was able to take lunch on the roof though, and saw a few of the planes pass overhead and around the area (and caught a photo of a couple) as they were doing practice runs around the city. Tonight I was supposed to take advantage of the suddenly free spot in my schedule and start to pack, but instead ended up watching the Giants beat the Atlanta Braves and then enjoyed the colorful noise of the partying fans outside. Tonight hasn’t been a total loss though, I was able to talk to MJ about some of our upcoming travel plans (Vegas for a weekend in November, yeaaaah!!) and book my flight to Manchester, New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen most of my family in New Hampshire for a few years, so it’ll be great to get up there and see them for a few days (especially since it’ll on a happy occasion this time around).
But enough about those plans, in 36 hours I’ll be on my way to Dublin! Maybe I can get some packing in tonight…
