before we left San Diego, one of our friends gave us "going away tattoos." Dani got a lantern, which is incredibly cool to me because i used to have a lantern collection when i was a kid. her friend, Chad, drew it up for her all custom, etc. we had a late dinner at Yakitori and headed down to his shop for some needle-in-skin awesomeness. Dani's tattoo:
after he was finished with her tattoo, i mentioned that i've wanted to get a skullskates tattoo for like a million years now and he offered to hook it up. we downloaded the logo and he went to work. the result:
we got to Oakland at like 10pm on Sunday...exhausted and ready for bed. but the bed was in the truck so we unpacked the Penske and took it to the drop off point. we finally got home at 1am and hit the sack around 2am. considering we started packing and cleaning at 8am the previous day, we were dead-tired and barely noticed the fact that the house was a junkyard of boxes with our bed the epicentre in the middle of the living room floor. it took about a week to unpack everything.
here's a pick of our new neighborhood:
our first meal was microwaved veggie corn dogs that i'd purchased from Target in San Leandro the week before. that day, i carried a microwave and a $150 knife set onto the BART, off the BART at Lake Merritt and through a small piece of "hood" in Oakland. i figured the knifeset would come in handy if anyone decided to try to relieve me of my recently purchased microwave. i was over-paranoid. to this point, i haven't had a single problem in Oakland. all the stuff you hear about may be happening...but not in our neighborhood.
Here's the microwave/knifeset that nearly killed my back:
and here's Dani munching on our first meal in the new house. we were in the middle of assembling IKEA furniture...uggghhhh!!!:
after a week of working on the house, we decided to take the next Sunday off and enjoy a little out-of-the-city recreation. we picked Point Reyes National Seashore because i'd heard about it at a job interview in Santa Rosa (way too far from home). i drove through a bit of the part and had to return. so, on Sunday, we drove up. there we saw California Elephant Seals chilling (but mostly fighting) and making babies-it's mating season. they were loud, obnoxious, smelly, super-big and, kinda like New York City, totally lovable as a result. i shot a pic with my iPhone but it doesn't do them much justice, mostly because you can't smell them:
we went to a lighthouse with the intention of setting up a picnic in the grass and enjoying Drake's Bay. unfortunately, the lighthouse was on a cliff and overpopulated with tourists so we had to improvise. we found what used to be a kerosene fuel storage building for the lighthouse and set up our picnic. in the end, it turned out ok because only one ant showed up. to reward him/her for making the 310 step journey, we fed the poor bastard.
the walk down to the lighthouse (310 stairs total):
Picnic view- the side of the lighthouse:
Dani setting up the feast, which included stinky cheeses and veggie lunch "meat":
and this is me eating the fruits of her labor. but i DID carry the picnic basket (310 stairs, seriously!!!):
yep, 310 back up, too...:
we spent the next couple of days working on the house and trying to buy more furniture. on a trip to SF (about 15 minutes by BART), we went to a thrift store but all of the "good" stuff had "SOLD" tags on it. after working so hard on the place at night and searching for jobs/interviewing during the day, we decided to kick back and celebrate by getting a nice veggie sushi meal at a veggie restaurant called Cha-Ya. there, we realized three things...
#1, i look a bit like an eel:
and 2, Dani, obviously the cuter of the two of us, looks like a tamarin monkey:
and #3, we make much better veg-sushi than any restaurant. so, a couple of days later, we made our own sushi. Dani is the innovator and i'm the pro-sushi roller. take a look:
and more:
Cha-Ya? nuh-uh!:
since then, we both got jobs. Dani is working for this upscale Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco, Bernal Heights. It's called Pequieo's, sister restaurant to Mochica's. I'll start working on Tuesday for the UCSF program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.
today we went to a fabric store to pick out material for our couch, curtains and pillow covers. i'll send some pics when we're done. for now, i have to get to my friend, Josh's, birthday party...
