Did I say that I found a place in SF? No? Well, I did!

It’s on Hyde St and Washington St on the border between Russian and Nob Hills. This is the link on Google Maps.

It’s a nice area. Close to town, but quiet enough too. It’s right on the tram route. The place itself is nice, and amazing spacious for SF and the price. There are some photos in the gallery.

Anyways, because I can’t move in until the end of the month and because Capgemini will pay for weekend accommodation as long as it costs the same as flights home would’ve, I stayed in LA this past weekend to hang out with my friend Ksusha from Belarus and her husband Ryan.

They collected me on Saturday and took me down to Long Beach, then to Orange County. At Long Beach, we saw the Queen Mary (the sister ship to the Titanic) and walked around the waterfront. That evening, we went to a Teppenyaki place for a birthday meal for one of Ryan’s friends (Mike) then drank a little at another friend’s house. I learnt an awesome gambling game that I’ll write about later. I won $45. Beginner’s luck!

Sunday, we visited Huntington Beach (a rather well-off area with lots of expensive cars and expensive surgery, and a beautiful beach area with a nice pier) and then Hollywood (a bit grimey and touristy, but still worth it). Photos are in the gallery! We had Japanese food for the second night ina row, which is cool with me.

I guess this is the shortened version of what was really a very eventful and interesting weekend. It was great to see Ksusha again + to meet Ryan + quite a few of their friends… Curtis the blues guitarist, Mike the birthday boy, Fiera from Kazan, etc. I’m now a lot happier about being in LA so much. I really need to get my own rental (i.e. the confidence to drive on the wrong side) so I can get around a bit more.

I’d not heard of this until yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turducken (damn Wordpress won’t insert links anymore)

Apparently Brian (my soon-to-be flatmate) and I will be hosting a Turducken dinner for Thanksgiving!

I’m beginning to get very anxious to have a self-made meal. Since I haven’t moved into a ‘place of my own’ yet, I’ve basically only eaten out since I got here.

American food is so insidious! It’s not the burgers and stuff… that’s easily avoidable. It’s the way that good food is made bad!

Firstly, the servings are huge. Everyone knows that though. As Lyle said to me, it’s not the large servings that are surprising, it’s when you realise you’ve somehow become used to it and eaten the large serving that you’re surprised. I’m nowhere near that yet. I’ve tried to cope by (1) eating fewer meals and no snacks, and/or (2) just ordering salads or entrees. It doesn’t always work though… I could only eat 2/3 of my entree salad tonight at the hotel restaurant!

Secondly, there’s always fat or sugar trying to sneak into otherwise healthy foods. Last night, I thought a turkey sandwich would be a healthy option. I could’ve been if it didn’t have butter, mayo, a slice of cheese, about 2cm of turkey, and really thick bread. And it came with a packet of chips! I didn’t eat them. Today at lunch I ordered a salad and had to refuse bacon bits, cheese, and creamy dressings. It could’ve been a complete heart attack in one salad! Even my bottle of green tea turned out to be sweetened to the tune of 25g of sugar. It doesn’t need any. Every time I’ve ordered toast, it’s come with butter already on it! What if i don’t want butter? I have to remember to ask to not have butter? Wow.

OK… I’m going for a run!

Oh… at least they have low calorie beer. Ha. Strange priorities!

Today I had to get up at 3:30am for a very early flight to LA. Still, it was straight into work… and it was good to get into it. It seems like a reasonable project with a good bunch of collegues. Just some quick observations: (1) It’s impossible to over-state how bady LA is designed on the human scale. It’s a city for cars, and people just have to be second! (2) Hiltons are better than Backpackers. (3) The LA office of Capgemini is smaller than the Auckland one, but for 30 more people. Since they have a working VPN, there’s really no need to ever go there. Also, after flights Monday and Thursday and long days in between, I can see why people “work from home” on Fridays.

Photos: SF Week 1 is in the gallery.

Phone: The new number may not be permanent. I’ll probably have a new one in a couple of weeks.

Site: I upgraded Wordpress and it changed a few things, not all intentional.

My induction/orientation/onboarding in Dallas has been pulled. Well, it’s still happening for the others. I just won’t be there! I was urgently required for a project in LA that someone else was double booked for. So, I’ll be catching a 6am Monday flight to LA instead and getting straight into it. Such is the consultant’s life. I’m 90% sure I’ll be back in SF for Thursday night through to the end of the week, and the cycle will then repeat

This is my new US number.

I guess I’d better update what I’ve been doing. I blatantly took this content from an email… so it may seem familiar to one of you

I was a little stressed when I first got here. It was partly running quite late for my flight due to a crash on the main road to Auckland from Waipu, but mostly I guess I was frustrated that it’s so hard to find a place. I didn’t really have many appointments. I feel better now though. It’s not that I found a place, but I decided not to worry so much. I’ll always at least have somewhere to sleep and it’ll be worth taking my time to find a good place in a suitable location. I need to determine what the suitable location is Everyone has a different opinion, but the head of HR recommends SF itself as opposed to the South Bay area around Cupertino. As she says “why move from NZ to live in suburbia surrounded by strip malls?”

Monday: I went to social security and applied for my number. Now I can legally work, but I can’t get paid (or do anything else requiring an SSN) until they send me the number in maybe 4 weeks. It was quite a long wait at the office (1.5 hours) but it was quite funny… I went to the office in Chinatown and all of the staff spoke Mandarin first and English second! After that I saw some apartments and did some shopping. Nothing much like a tourist. That night there was a party here at the hostel. A
group of 10 of us hired a limo to drive us across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was only $12.50 each for a 2 hour ride in a limo. Pretty good! So, I have been across the bridges but it was hard to see from inside the vechicle.

Tuesday: I did some more touristy stuff. Fisherman’s wharf, Coit tower, etc. Photos will be uploaded some time. I went to look at one apartment. It was very nice, but very popular and perhaps a little far from the train stations. At least the open home had wine and cheese.

Wednesday: I spent most of the day on admin stuff again - phone, banking, etc. In the evening I saw three more places. The last one was awesome… wine and cheese again, a very nice place, very nice people, and a good approach to finding people. if I don’t get it, it was still a good evening.

Thursday: It’s raining today, so I’m not too eager to do much at all. I have no appointments, and I’ve already missed the bus tour. Still, it’d be hard to take any nice photos. So, maybe a quiet day.

Upcoming: My “onboarding” is supposed to be Monday to Wednesday in Dallas, and then back here… but perhaps they’re going to pull me directly onto my first project down in Southern California (SoCal). I’ll find out about that sometime today. Ah, I was looking forward to the Hilton in Irving (near Dallas) but such is the life of a consultant… you never know what’ll happen.

Observations: Americans are very polite drivers. Food servings are huge. Toilet paper is wider (possibly related to the previous observation). San Franciscans aren’t noticably bigger than Kiwis though - they seem to be quite health conscious and active. SF itself is very scenic and cool. Budweiser isn’t too bad really at a pinch. You can buy beer in 40oz bottles… I don’t know how big that it, but it looks like somewhere near 1.5litres. Quite a few things are much cheaper here esp. clothing.

Well well, I’m here in SF. In fact, I arrived only two hours ago. I’m online quickly because I need to line up as many apartment viewings as I can. Also, it’s the easiest way to let people at home know that I’m here safe. So… I’m here safe.

I’m staying at a backpackers on Taylot St, which seems rather well located. It’s a nice enough place. I think NZ has the best backpackers’ hostels in the world, for sure. But, this place does have wireless internet. Handy to be able to use my own laptop.

The flight was OK. I didn’t get enough sleep, but at least I wasn’t bored. If you haven’t seen Al Gore’s movie yet, you should see it asap. Very good. I’m even more gutted he didn’t get the presidency.

Thanks for everyone who came to my farewells in Auckland and Wellington. It was great to see you all for one more time before I left. I’ll post the photos when I get around to it. YY took some great ones in Auckland… somehow we all ended up with great normal expressions (usually I contort my face into some kind of gargoyle thing if I know I’m being photographed).

Yah! Here at last!