Foggy days

Well, the fog has rolled in – came in yesterday and disappeared, but is sticking around today. Alcatraz is just a ghostly outline with the faint shadow of Angel Island beyond and nothing else – the far side of the bay has vanished. We finally got our FedEx shipment on Monday, but it was not a happy event. The boxes looked like they had been dropped from a ten storey building and the contents seemed to back up these initial appearances, as several items were broken. We have to wait until a transformer that we ordered online arrives to see if the DVD player, CD player and amplifier have survived, but I don’t have high hopes, as my printer doesn’t work. The moral of the story is: Never EVER use FedEx and tell all your friends!

So, what have we been up to? Well, I started my volunteer work at a non-profit organisation called Shanti, which helps sufferers of HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. I’m going to be doing a couple of days a week there. I think the US is probably one of the leaders in non-profits – I’m told that it’s because the government has a long history of not providing essential services, but they’re becoming more prevalent in the UK now (Susie will know all about them!). So far I haven’t done anything very ground-breaking, but it’s early days yet – I’ve been working on the fund-raising side, researching past donors who haven’t given for a while and establishing if they’re worth applying to again. I also went for my “orientation” for school volunteering, but I can’t start there until I have all my paperwork in place (still missing a reference from my school). Last night I attended my second Italian lesson at the Italian Cultural Institute. So far, they’ve been very good – pretty challenging, as I only have about 18 months of one hour a week tuition behind me, and I’m studying with people who’ve spent extensive periods in Italy or have Italian family, but it’s good for me! We speak entirely in the target language for 3 hours and are studying a novel. Spanish would be more useful for here, though. There’s a Hispanic district in the south of the city and I’ve heard lots of people speaking Spanish on the bus.

Jon has been going down to San José for three days seeing clients. He got his new car last night – a one year old BMW 3 series. Apparently, they’re cheaper here – or so he tells me!

Now that Mum and Dad have got a new computer, I’ve been able to have some long conversations with them using Skype. We even got the webcam working well, and the images are pretty good, so please feel free to see if we’re online (remember: 8 hours behind) if you have Skype (you can download it for free). I also put a few more pictures up on the Fotki site a few days ago. See the blog entry for 18 January for the address and password.