First day in San Francisco!

Well here I am. Living it up in one of the coolest cities. EVER. Now this isn't the first time I've been here but i don't think the past encounters really count because both times were under 3 hours and gave me enough time to run through the men's floor at H&M and eat a crab at the fisherman's warf.

So I'm pretty sure my love of San Fran came from all the movies I've seen that are set in this city and the fact that there literally aren't any that I haven't liked. Movies such as:

Vertigo: Amazing. One of my favorite movies of all time. Jimmy Stewart? Bernard Herrmann score? Give it to me all day long.

Pursuit of Happiness: Gets the tears running everytime.

Homeward Bound 2: Lost in San Francisco: This one clearly speaks for itself.

Milk: Inspiring

The Princess Diaries: Anything with Julie Andrews is pure gold.

Herbie Rides Again: Well ok actually this was a pretty terrible movie. As if having a Volkswagon Bug with human emotions wasn't weird enough, at one point i vaguely remember Herbie driving up to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. I was probably 7 at the time and even I knew that was just plain silly.

Superdad: One of my families favorite movies and a very underrated Disney comedy from the 70's. I even learned how to play the theme song on piano... Disney big notes of course.

Now as previously mentioned I am slightly obsessed with the movie Vertigo. Jimmy. Hitchcock. Great music. Beautiful shots of the city. Drama. Drama. AND MORE Drama. So my goal for this trip has been to retrace Jimmy Stewart's steps and thanks to google they were kind enough to supply me with addresses for my first Vertigo pilgrimage. Last night was quite the thrill because my sister and I walked all the way from Ghiradelli Square up the squiggly part of Lombard St. where in the movie Jimmy lived! (900 Lombard if you care to know). So there I am awkwardly standing outside someones apartment (cuz Jimmy don't live there no mo) staring like a deer caught in the headlights at the steps that Kim and Jimmy once stepped upon. I would liken the experience to the viewing of the cloak of Jesus by young peasants during the early days of the Catholic Church. Life changing.

So today I decided I was going to hit the city hard. See as much as i could see and for some stupid reason i decided it would be nice to walk as much as possible as a way to become accustomed to my new surroundings. It would not be an understatement to say that i walked close to 7 miles today around the city and by the end of the day i finally caved and decided public transportation was necessary. Although i did have a frustrating incident with a man who got incredibly angry when i sat down in one of the seats near the front of the bus and yelled "THIS IS FOR ELDERLY AND DISABLED PEOPLE. WHY DON'T U MOVE!?!?!" But how was I to know the rules of bus etiquette? Do i look like someone who regularly rides public transportation!!?!?! The correct answer would be no. I don't. After telling him to can it I decided it would be polite to stand. I cave in so easily.

Anyways many sights and sounds i did indeed see today. City Hall. Union Square. Harvey Milk's and Scott's camera shop. :'(. RIP. Amazing vintage shops on Haight Street. Sunset over Golden Gate Bridge. And most importantly Mission Dolores. And why you ask would I visit the oldest existing building in San Francisco and the oldest Mission in all of California?? Because Jimmy went there. Duh?! In the movie he follows Kim into the mission where he finds her staring at Carlotta Valdez's gravestone. And for 5 whole dollars I got to see the whole thing. I may or may not have been playing the films soundrack on my ipod as I walked through the chapel where Jimmy once tread and I may or may not have tried to find Carlotta's gravestone. Turns out she wasn't a real person but it was still well worth my time.

It's a new year and I'm back to the land of below 0

Well here I am. Back in Iowa. Three flights and 15 hours of travel later.

My first flight went pretty smooth. Pasco to San Fran. Once in San Fran we were stuck on the runway for a while and the man next to me started talking to me and asked me where I was going and what I did. So I explained the whole AmeriCorps thing where I’m giving my country a year of service by helping with disaster relief, building houses for people in the south, etc... You know, the usual. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Then I asked him what he did. He told me he worked for the government and was flying to DC for work. I was intrigued so I asked him to be more specific. Turns out he’s a nuclear engineer who’d been hired by homeland security to develop technology that would keep America safe from nuclear attacks from places like North Korea, or maybe it’s South Korea…I always get them confused. Anyways how do you even top that!!! Needless to say I felt kind of lame and wished I had a more exciting job.

My longest flight was between San Fran and Chicago and it was roughly a four hour flight and I had planned ahead and asked for an isle seat because I knew with all of the cran-apple cocktails I tend to consume on flights that I’d be visiting the little boys room probably twice every hour and I hate having to climb over people and ask them to move. Then from the end of the isle I see this red headed kid with freckles hobbling down the isle on crutches with those sad puppy eyes and wouldn’t you know it he is supposed to sit in the middle seat of my row. So the cripple(I think he had a broken foot) comes up to me and just stares at me with those crocodile tears welling up and I’m trying to stay firm but I totally cave and offer him my seat so that he can get out easier. I figure why not, be the bigger man, what’s another crown in heaven to lay at the feet of Jesus? So I got stuck in the middle seat, which also sucked because I’m extremely claustrophobic on planes. 4 hour flight. Had to ask the poor little guy to move out of his seat three before I nearly wet myself from all the juice. And the only movie they showed on the plane was Four Christmases. Apparently Delta didn’t get the news flash that Christmas is long over and its actually 2010 now. Happy New Year.

Another awkward thing that happened during my travel was while I was waiting for my Chicago flight to board I figured what better time to whiten my teeth with my new crest white strips then while I’m waiting for my plane. So I go to the men’s bathroom and slide on the strips with the thought process that I’m not a very sociable person when I’m flying and tend to keep to myself so I won’t have to try to talk to people while wearing these things. Go figure, there I am clutching onto my Eclipse book of the Twilight Series and up comes some lady who’s holding the first book and she wants to know how I like it, if I saw the movies, am I team Edward, blah blah blah. Meanwhile I’m doing my best to not drool all over myself when I speak as I make sure my lips are constantly covering my teeth and of course whenever I give a courtesy laugh to something she says I turn the other way so she’s not wondering what the hell is one my teeth. Moral of the story: whiten teeth only in the privacy of your own home because those commercials are misleading where they pay actors to make it seem like you no one notices when you’re wearing them.

It was nice being back home for the holidays. Mama hooked me up with a $50 gift card to McDonald's which means any weight loss aspirations i dreamt of just flew out the drive through window. I also got to see tons of great friends and family, learned to knit slippers, and had myself a Disney marathon which is always delightful but it was more work and less play as I tried to make up for lost time and get some more community hours. I’m trying to get the Presidential award this year which is a piece of paper that Obama will sign if I complete 100 hours of individual community service. Kind of a gold star kind of thing. It’s gonna look pretty sweet on a resume if the fact that I served at an old folks home and cleared nature trails means anything in the graphic design world. You never know. But either way that thing is going to be framed and hanging about my fireplace for all my guests to see unlike mama and papa Sesser who used to have a Christmas card from George and Laura Bush on their mantle. Tomatoe, tomatoe.

During the first week of break I went and volunteered at Odd Fellows Home, which is where my grandma lives. While serving there I did tons of exciting things like rewinding 45 VHS tapes and playing dominoes with elderly women suffering dementia who must of thought I was born yesterday with the amount of times they tried to cheat. The Wednesday before the holidays was the big Christmas party so I was pretty stoked to help out and spread some Christmas cheer. I put together little gift bags, wrote some of the residents Christmas cards and set up all the chairs for the concert. After all that it was time for the party consisting of what turned out to be a cart full of peppermint schnapps hot chocolate and a local Elvis Presley impersonator who I would have sworn was Ted Kennedy in a blue jump suit if I hadn’t been in DC during his funeral. RIP. So I can’t say I’ve ever been much of an Elvis fan and I’m even less a fan of Elvis impersonators so it quickly turned into an hour and a half of pure torture. I mean I know I was getting community service hours for simply sitting there but I would have taken laying sandbags along the Mississippi river in the pouring rain over this any day. Even grandma hated it and kept asking me when he was going to be done. I think she really just wanted a smoke. We both agreed we wished there had been a Bing Crosby impersonator instead.