Photo credit: Madhu

I’m here, I made it! It was rough at first - flying into SFO with two gigantic bags and making it up to my friend’s in Berkeley was an unbelievable hassle, especially when you don’t understand how BART works. I spent the first week checking out apartments that I found on Craigslist and not a single one was how it was described. “Renovated kitchen with stainless steel appliances” translated to renovated in 1984 with yellow appliances and a strange odor permeating the carpets. I’ll spare the gruesome details. As I was starting to become pretty glum, thinking all was lost, I met up with another friend who took me to his buddy’s house on Haight to chill. His buddy mentioned that he was taking off for the summer to do some traveling and half-jokingly I asked if he was interested in subletting. To make a long story short, I got hooked up randomly by a friend of a friend who by some weird circumstances was best friend’s in high school with someone I know back in Philly.

So I am currently living in Lower Haight - a half mile from Haight-Ashbury, The Castro, downtown and Golden Gate Park. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect location, seriously there are bars and restaurants everywhere. The house is a late 1800’s Victorian that is rumored to have been one of Janis Joplin’s spots back in the 60’s. I have two really cool room mates - both girls that have been so nice and helpful pointing me in the right direction around the area.

Despite my long commute on Mondays and Tuesdays, both my jobs have been great. I am working with some incredibly talented, bright and friendly people and I couldn’t ask for more. I have no doubt that I’m going to be doing some really exciting things this summer and the experience I am gaining both in life and in the professional world will be unparalleled, at least compared to anything I’ve done before.

I’ve made it a point to start carrying my camera everywhere I go and I’m going to start updating with random pictures of memorable spots and things I’m doing. Although I’m going to try to update here as often as possible, the best place to keep up with me is Twitter - I’m on it all day long, way too addicted. I’m also reviewing every restaurant I eat at and shop I visit on Yelp.

I miss my family, friends and Philly so much, <3.

I already have a location picked out for tomorrow’s photo post - let’s just say it’s been immortalized in the opening credits of a famous late 80’s/early 90’s sitcom.