Bike and Build and Beyond: More Life in SF!

It's been almost 4 months since I've written last, and the other day I realized it's been almost 6 since I arrived here in San Francisco. It definitely doesn't seem like it's been that long, but when I think back to the day I arrived, and to approaching the Golden Gate bridge that first time, it really does seem like lifetimes ago.

Since I last wrote, I've moved to a new apartment in the Mission where I now live with two other girls and a dog, Max.

One of my roommates works for the SF Bay Guardian, a free weekly newspaper analogous to my beloved Boston's Weekly Dig. She's a movie critic there so our house has an amazing library of old, new, and future (pre-released!) movies. My other roommate is gearing up for a bike ride of her own. She's riding in this years AIDS Lifecycle from SF to LA in June. For those of you who find joy in donating money to people who ride their bikes crazy distances for big causes, first of all, thank you again, and secondo of all, I'll give you the opportunity to find joy yet again by donating to my roommate Lynn. Here is her fundraising page. PS - she's been training on a mountain bike - she's going to leave the peloton in her dust (not that it's a race...)! Needless to say, I've really been enjoying the company of my new roommates and I'm excited to be acquiring a fair bit of furniture now and really settling in here. These are a couple views from our roof and the new home for Bruiser and Naranja:

In other news, the Urban Girl's Basketball team, who I've been assistant coaching since October, is now entering the playoffs. We finished our regular season 11-1 in our league, sadly losing our last game to Convent of the Sacred Heart. This week we'll play on Thursday, and with a win we'll play in the league championship on Saturday. Depending on how all that goes, we've got potential Thursday and Saturday games next week as well - playoffs to determine the North Coast Section champion, who then goes into the state-wide tournament. I've really enjoyed my time with this team, and will sorely miss spending afternoons with them once the season is over. And, speaking of the season being over, though I do not like to mention it before the time comes, I have officially signed an offer letter from PowerReviews, Inc. to start working full time as of March 1. I'll mostly be working with data pertaining to their product reviews website, www.Buzzillions.com.

Upcoming news: in April, I am planning a trip to Europe to visit my brother who is now studying abroad in France. If all goes as planned, I'll make stops in Dijon, France (to see Garrett), Barcelona, Spain (to see Adela and Carrie from Bike and Build), Copenhagen, Denmark (to see the Danish Couchsurfer Oliver), and Bremen, Germany (to see where Marianna, Garrett's gf, lives). It's a lot to cover, but I'm going to do my best to do it all. And then, in July, I've got a wedding to go to in Boston (congrats Fay and Robyn!) on the 18th. From there, I'll fly to Iowa to ride in this year's RAGBRAI with a bunch of my Bike and Build buddies July 20-26!

That's a lot of news for you. I'll leave you with a couple photos from a 6-hour hike I went on this weekend from Muir Woods to the top of Mt. Tamalpais with my new friends Maya and Jesse.