At home at last

We have moved in. And we have things to sit on and sleep in - thanks in large part to the help of several of Tom's colleagues and their apparently willing partners. I am very grateful to Chad, Sarah, Henry, Rachel, Jon and Alex. We are much more comfortable because of you. And probably a lot less cross with each other than we might have been.

So here I am sitting at my kitchen table looking at a wonderful view on a gloriously sunny autumnal day - feels like early October in the UK. I am not used to the weather and it does keep one in a good mood. I would take pictures but I can't remember where I put the camera battery charger. And I have a lot of unpacking to do. So with that, I shall go off to put some bookshelves together.

Kids are amazing

Today was little sister's first day at an American school. And big sister's second day. You'd have thought they'd been going for years. E went off without even kissing me. I was a bit miffed, actually. And L gave me a sweet kiss and then that was it. Bye Mama. I'm at school. See you later. L has always taken longer to settle so I was expecting rather more drama.

So that was it, as they headed off to their much larger, diverse, multi-lingual, urban school. It couldn't be more different than their primary school in Wales but they seem to have adjusted very quickly. E came out telling me about her first Spanish lesson and L said she'd spent the morning talking about trees which apparently was boring!

Huge relief then. But I think it may take a little longer for me to settle down watching them going off to school.

At lot can happen

A lot can happen in a few days. The big news of last week is that we have managed to get both our girls into a school near to our new apartment and more importantly, it's a school we like. It was touch and go for a while for L as it looked like there wasn't room but on Friday after my third visit to the school district office, she was enrolled. So Friday was E's first day and tomorrow L goes too. A relief for them as well as me as I think they are really sick of shopping and boring offices or meetings and traipsing after me up and down hill. And I'd like to get on with boring stuff (like cleaning!) without two unimpressed girls in tow.

Meanwhile, yesterday we headed properly out of town for the first time since we arrived and went to visit friends in Napa Valley. It was lovely to see some people I knew and catch up with them, and to see where they live. We went for a beautiful walk through the edges of the town and vineyards, the countryside was stunning, and the light spectacular. This doesn't really capture it.



Then after dinner we headed off to see a high school volley ball match which was really exciting and loud and probably our most thoroughly American experience to date.

Today, we have been shopping again. To Target to get more very dull items like an ironing board, a hoover, a kitchen bin. You get the picture. Shopping wasn't meant to be like this and Tom and I still find making decisions hard. It's partly because we just have to make so many and they are fundamentally so boring. Steam iron or non-steam iron? Bagless or bagged vacuum? How big a bin do we need? Doesn't set the world alight does it? Still I think we may be heading to the end of this phase and I cannot wait. I loathe shopping malls - always have and have always done my best to avoid them. I also loathe dull shopping. Who wants to waste time thinking about loo rolls or floor cleaner.

And the other major development is that I drove. I have driven on the right before but always in my own right-hand drive which while it presents a few problems, at least you know where the hand brake and gear stick and most crucially rear view mirror are. It's amazing how unthinking and instinctive a lot of driving is. I couldn't work out why I felt so confused at first until I realised I hadn't worked out that to look back I had to look in a different place on the windscreen. And I have several times tried to open the door when reaching for the handbrake. Thankfully we're driving an automatic because the hills are crazy and changing gear with a different hand would also be a challenge. Still we have Jane (satnav) telling us where to go and so far we haven't gone too far wrong or hit anything.

Another local highlight discovered

I suspect this detour between school (more on that later perhaps) and our new apartment may happen at least once a week. We have discovered Mitchell's Ice Cream Parlor which is a smallish shop selling their own prize-winning ice cream in a large and sometimes astonishing (avocado or purple yam anyone?) array of flavours. We stuck with the rather more traditional mint for the girls and coffee for me in sugar cones, junior sized. Junior for me too as this was a normal single scoop ice cream unlike the enormous cones with triple scoops of mountainous proportions that were also being bought. You can take home tubs of this lovely stuff and I am looking forward to branching out into some of the more unusual flavours at a later date. The colour of the purple yam has to be seen to be believed.

My latest favourite place in SF

Not the social security office. Not the school district office. Not even (even?) Ikea. No. It won't surprise you to know that it is a cook shop. Cooks Boulevard in Noe Valley. Full of lovely things with often mouthwatering prices - I won't be buying Le Creuset in the US. But I have bought two rather gorgeous knives from an American firm called Lamson & Goodnow of Massachusetts.

Cooks Boulevard also offers cookery classes and today between 3 and 5 pm, a rather lovely chocolate tasting. I will definitely return.

San Francisco Muni: the good, the bad and the just plain bloody mysterious

I hate to whine. Really I do. I am generally a very positive person and look for the good in people and situations and for the solutions to any problem. But in the battle to buy a travelcard/translink pass for the Muni, I am beginning to feel defeated. I won't be of course - I shall soldier on.

Anyway to start with the good. I think it is excellent that the buses have bike racks on the front for passengers to use. I'll admit, I thought it was the driver's bike when I first saw this. But it wasn't - a very fit (and you'd have to be to tackle these hills) woman got off and grabbed her bike and set off at a fast lick up the hill. What an excellent idea.

I also like that the Muni is not crowded - at least not by Tube standards - and that people are friendly. Of course I am now of the opinion that it isn't crowded because no one can work out how to buy tickets but perhaps I'm becoming cynical. And any system which has only six exit turnstiles in a row at a major station and these exits are also the entrances, is clearly not experiencing high volume of passengers. Also why are the platforms so long when the trains are two to three carriages at most?

I'm still struggling with the whole exact change only in quarters or dollar coins or bills thing. Do Americans hoard large quantities of coin? I never ever have the right change and have to work out how to get some before I attempt any journey.

Also I still haven't found out where or how to buy a Translink card. Today I was handed a leaflet by a Bart worker but he couldn't say where you bought it. He thought I might get one in the information centre at the other end of the station. This was shut because of the Veterans Day holiday. So then I headed up to Walgreens which I suspected might sell them although they of course had absolutely no advertising or signs indicating this anywhere inside or outside the shop. I am beginning to think there is a conspiracy - that you have to meet a man in a deserted part of town wearing a false beard and uttering a password in order to obtain this mysterious travel pass. And the number of people who work for the Muni who have told me that the reason they don't know anything about it is that it is new. It's not new. They've been piloting this project in the Bay Area since 2002 - I looked it up.

Anyway, having finally met a man at Walgreens who told me he could sell me this pass, he then persuaded me that it might not be what I am looking for and that I ought to get a fast pass instead. That's the monthly travel card which today was definitely not on sale pretty much anywhere. I saw more signs telling me they weren't selling the fast pass than I could count.

So once more I changed some dollars into coins and travelled home. I will get some kind of a pass soon. I'm not sure what or how but I'm determined that I will conquer this system.

By which time there will no doubt be signs up on the Muni warning staff about the bewildered and scathing British woman who is regularly approaching them demanding a ticket.

So that was the weekend

Weekends can be days of rest but not right now. Saturday morning saw me rise early to get to the San Francisco Unified School District Enrollment Fair which seemed like a good place to continue our search for a public school for the girls (that's public in the American sense, not the British). This is an annual event and I don't remember anything quite like it in the UK. A large arena was filled with stands for each school, at every level of education, and at each stand was the school's principal, possibly some teachers, possibly some parents. It was actually a really positive experience except for one thing - I'm currently looking for places for two children in the current academic year and most schools are full. Still I met lots of friendly parents, very helpful and interesting principals and some lovely teachers. And I did learn a lot and I hope to have the schools sorted soon. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, Tom took the girls to the Exploratorium which happened to be celebrating its 40th anniversary so was free. It's a hands-on science museum similar to Nemo which we visited in Amsterdam earlier this year, or Techniquest in Cardiff which we went to last year. As you can tell, we like this stuff and this was probably one of the best such museums we've visited. I got there late in the day and somewhat exhausted by the school fair, but spent long enough to get a flavour - it is full of hands-on exhibits, is huge and somehow because it is slightly less slick it feels more Professor Branestawmish and more fun.




Just outside is the Palace of Fine Arts which looked stunning on a glorious day. A mock (sorry America but what can I say) Greco-Roman temple with columns all done very well and on a grand scale in a lovely pinkish orange stone. I'm not sure why but it reminded me of Babar's city Celesteville - a combination of the architecture and the name. Again apologies if I seem not to be taking it seriously enough - actually I loved it. It was beautiful.



Saturday ended with the lease being signed in our new home. We met the landlady who is an artist and whose home it once was. I also met a neighbour. And the flat is growing on me and I already liked it. The stairs are a challenge but they will keep me fit. Along with the various hills around it.

Sunday involved a drive to Berkeley in the truck to swap it for a smaller more reasonably sized car - think small sedan or saloon. Then we went to Ikea. In retrospect we could have done this the other way around and had the truck to load purchases into. However we didn't and anyway, you can only push so many full trolleys. Ikea was a small or is that large piece of familiarity in the US. In fact if you didn't look out of the window and closed your ears to the different accent you could be in Neasden. Thankfully we weren't. We bought what seemed like lots of stuff of the necessary variety but which doesn't add up to much and still no furniture. So we have duvet covers but no duvets and indeed no beds. We have lamps for the sitting room but nowhere to sit. And so on. I have however discovered that should you be buying enough (and God knows we are) you can get someone called a Home Furnishings Consultant to purchase everything you want on your behalf (and obviously with your money) and then arrange delivery. So I am hoping that quite soon and certainly before the end of the month, we will have a fully Ikea furnished flat to live in. Then I can sit down, put my feet up and relax.

Exchanging views: a few pictures

One of the last days in Wales, when we were packing our life up, the sun came through the clouds and the view from my kitchen window was like this.



I shall miss it. But I think I will miss it less than I might because our new apartment is near the top of one of those precipitate SF hills, and on the top floor. So the views are phenomenal. Here's a taste.