Sunday, May 29, 2005

summer life in san fran, day 2

Just thought I'd share some information about my San Francisco experience so far. I'm living downtown, a block from the Civic Center BART stop (my transportation to work for the summer). The location is pretty good; there are lots of restaurants, museums, and the SF Opera house within 3 blocks. The neighborhood is a little more run down than I expected, but it's not too bad.

There is a bookstore over by the Opera Plaza called 'A Clean, Well-lighted Place to Buy Books', which I'm told is very well-known. It's one of the best bookstores I've been to in a while. They have a table of recommended fiction with authors I've never heard of. I get tired of the Barnes & Noble displays where their 'recommended fiction' includes Charles Dickens and whatever Oprah last put on her reading list. They also have a number of cards on the bookshelves with descriptions of selected books written by the staff. I've been there twice already, and still haven't really spent the big chunk of browsing time I'd like to.

My sublet is a comfortably large, sparsely furnished studio with an amazing view of downtown and the bay. It's in a 110 year old high rise building owned by UC Hastings. The building is funny - it narrows as you go up, so here on the 18th floor there are only 8 units. According to one of the security guards/doormen it used to be a base for military spy operations, because when UC Hastings bought it there were giant photo development fluid vaults in the basement (he had some other evidence for this as well which I forget). Now, though, there's a full-sized basketball court in the basement. I'm not kidding. Maybe it's where the spy photo developing equipment used to be. There's also a small room off to the left of the basketball court that has a large punching or kickboxing bag and a small upright piano that badly needs tuning.

I always have trouble adjusting to new environments. I'm not strictly a routine person, but I enjoy familiarity to a good degree, and being in a new place is both exciting and stressful for me. I expect I'll feel more at home after a few days, especially once I've made a Trader Joe's run and found a produce market of some sort near here or near work.

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