Staying in San Francisco

Things have been very hectic at work, plus we’ve had several busy weekends in a row, so it was high time to spend some time at home. The temperatures have risen and the winter coats have well and truly been retired to the wardrobe. They were out for just under two months. In fact, we had lovely weather last Saturday – as nice as many days in summer. After the morning’s chores, we headed out into our neighbourhood, North Beach, and took a stroll up to Coit Tower, then down to Washington Square, where people were sunning themselves and an art show was in full swing. We had lunch on the terrace of our local café, then repaired to a different one for coffee and Italian cakes! On Sunday we went for a run in the morning and a hike in the afternoon, but there was no sun on the coast, so we just did a short one, then returned to (sunny) Sausalito and had tea at a café right by the water, looking across the bay to San Francisco – lovely! In the evening we tried out a restaurant we’ve been wanting to go to for a while: Moose’s on Washington Square. It features in a cheesy film with Reese Witherspoon called Just like Heaven. The starters in particular were excellent: I had a brussels sprouts salad – yummy! (No, I’m not being ironic!).

It’s been another busy week at work, punctuated by a Spanish test on Tuesday night, going to do our taxes on Wednesday night, attending a leaving “do” in the Tenderloin on Thursday night and doing my volunteering stint at Marina Middle School on Friday. It was the first time we’ve had to do our taxes in the U.S. We’re still none the wiser. The system’s so mystic that there was no way we wanted to try doing them on our own, so we availed ourselves of one of the chains of accountant/financial advisor outlets (which don’t exist in the UK) and paid someone to do them. It seems we’ve vastly overpaid, so we’re expecting a big fat cheque from the IRS (equivalent of the Inland Revenue).

Today it’s back to the rainy weather, but at least it’s still fairly warm. Haven’t done much other than shop for food and go to the gym. Jon’s off to New Hampshire for a week tonight (flying to Boston), so I’ll be all on my own :-(. At least I know where New Hampshire is now after repeatedly playing some interactive U.S. geography games on http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm!