I left my heart in San Francisco...

...and I know the way to San Jose!

Hello all, sorry for not posting a little sooner to let you all know I made it safely and am having a lovely time. I have been quite busy - busier than I expected, anyway - seeing sights, meeting people, trying new things. Since I will be back in the Bay Area for Christmas and New Year, I was planning to take things at a fairly slow pace for the first week so that it feels like a holiday and not a race around a big city. But there are so many places to go and things to see, so finding time to sit down and email/blog to people back home has kind of been pushed down the priority list.

When I arrived I spent two nights in San Francisco, and despite the jetlag did lots of walking around to acquaint myself with this amazing city. Yes, it is crowded. Yes, it is foggy during summer which kind of spoils the nice views across the bay. Yes, it is FULL of quite aggressive panhandlers. But it is also charming, beautiful and intoxicating. People who live in San Francisco are clearly people who are in love with their city, which you soon realise as soon as you talk to the locals. And everyone must have very strong calf muscles from all the hills!

So far I've explored Chinatown, a bit of North Beach (up to Telegraph Hill and back down the other side via the quaint steps which take you past some very elegant houses), the Haight-Ashbury ex-hippie district and Buena Vista Park, a bit of Golden Gate Park, the Museum of Modern Art, and part of the Mission District. And that was just in 48 hours.

On Friday I caught the train to San Jose where I met up with Amy, a good friend who lived in Melbourne for the first half of 2006. So she's been showing me a lot of her local area, and Mountain View where she used to live. I'm getting to meet her family, her friends, her friends' families... everyone seems kind of excited to meet "the Australian girl", which is a bit weird! But the people are lovely, and very friendly. The only people who don't seem especially friendly are those with whom you have only the briefest of interactions - the bus drivers, the people who serve you in supermarkets, etc. They are polite, but only to the point where they are fulfilling the requirement of their job - no one even seems to go out of their way to venture a smile when they serve you. Australians by comparison are a lot more easy going. But if you are able to have even a brief conversation with a local they suddenly become quite friendly and enthusiastic to hear about your travels or your country, or to offer advice on things you must see or do.

Today I hung out with Amy, her boyfriend Ian, and two of his friends, Evan and his fiancee Kirsty. Kirsty is from Glasgow and is in the process of being able to migrate here so they can get married. If it were me I think I'd be picking Scotland over the US! But each to their own, I guess. The five of us watched a movie and went to play mini-golf. I won! Which I think is a first for me!

I also got to meet Larry tonight, who I have corresponded with for almost a decade via email but never actually met, so it was lovely to finally meet face to face. I heard Living Water, his choir, sing at an evening church service at a Presbyterian Church in San Jose. It was... interesting. Enough to remind me why I am not currently comfortable attending a church. Then a group of us went to dinner afterwards at a fairly typical American kind of place - burgers, westernized Mexican food, and strange combinations of things that seem to serve little purpose except to try to be the most unhealthy food you could possibly eat. Tonight I am in the land that invented deep-fried mozzarella cheese, which Americans claim is "awesome" (although there is very little that isn't "awesome"). To be honest, it's not that nice.

Tomorrow Amy and Ian are being my own personal tour guides and chauffeurs and taking me to Santa Cruz, Pigeon Point and Half Moon Bay, so we'll have a nice day of driving along the coast and taking in the stunning scenery. I will try to post pictures the next time I write.

So that's been my week. Having lots of fun but missing home as I try to adjust to the idea of nine months living out of a backpack and meeting new people.

But for now I leave you with my Weird Discovery of the Week:

In the Mission District on Friday I was browsing in a rather eclectic CD store called Aquarius Records and found an album called 'Sounds of North American Frogs'. The first line of the description read "The amphibian song revival is here!" Hmmmm. I thought my musical knowledge and awareness was pretty comprehensive, but clearly this is one revolution which has escaped my notice. And I'm sure my life is the poorer for it.