Notes from San Francisco

Post written by Leo Babauta.

So we’re off on our great adventure. My wife Eva and I sold and gave away all our stuff over the last couple of months, packed our bags and took our kids and left Guam.

We’re now in San Francisco and looking for a home.

We arrived in the Bay Area last week Tuesday, to a chilly, foggy, windy city. Pretty much what we’d expected, but the cold was a bit of a shocker to a bunch of islanders from Guam. The first day we went into the city, we were freezing, with our jeans and T-shirts and hoodies. We immediately bought slightly warmer clothes, but it wasn’t enough.

Still, we were thrilled to be in the city, and ready to start house hunting. We saw seven houses the first day, all in the Haight/Cole Valley area, and fell in love with the neighborhood. Since then we’ve looked at five other great neighborhoods (Nob Hill, Mission, Castro, Duboce Triangle, Marina), but none compare to the first.

We want something really walkable, not too spread out and residential, as we’ve given up our cars (for good, we hope). We want to be within a couple blocks of transit — preferably a train — and restaurants, parks, coffee shops, bookstores, libraries, shops and more.

Anyway, we’ve found a few places and are applying. We’ll see how it turns out — cross your fingers for us!

I thought I’d share a few notes on our visit here so far:

Lots more I could write, but I’ll fill you in later. For now, I’m headed back out on the streets of San Francisco. If you see me, say hi.

image