Virgin Islands, Part 3: Yes, I Actually Have to Work

Yesterday, we started working on the website for the school here on St. Thomas-- technically the reason we are here. It has been a pretty pleasant experience so far, just working for about 6 hours, then back to the beach and piña coladas. The view from my room is so beautiful, so here are a few shots for your viewing pleasure.

Virgin Islands, Part 2: St. John

Today I slept in until 11:30 or so. It was really nice to get some good sleep after the long, long, plane ride. After eating brunch, my coworkers and I took the ferry to St. John, one of the other islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Here is St. Thomas from the ferry leaving the island:


St. John is the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Here is the legislature building, pretty laid back:


And St. John from high above the city:


One of the gorgeous views from St. John:

Virgin Islands, Part 1: The Hotel

So I arrived in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands with my company today after a grueling ten and a half hour overnight flight. I spent the day at the beach sipping piña coladas, playing water frisbee, and reading. St. Thomas is a beautiful tropical paradise and my hotel is amazing. The hotel is literally on the beach, and my huge luxurious hotel room overlooks the bay. I am really excited about spending the next week here.

Here is the view of the bay and the beach from my hotel room's balcony:


And my hotel room, with flat screen TV and huge bathroom out of the picture:

Swedish

Over the last few months I have been learning Swedish because I love learning new things, and languages in particular. Also, a good friend of mine speaks Swedish fluently, so I have a great resource to help out my learning. There is a school in San Francisco (the Scandinavian School) that offers beginner to advanced classes in Swedish, so I have been taking classes there for the last month.

Two of my best friends in Tampa are moving to Armenia in a few months, so maybe with my Swedish skills and friends in Armenia, I can go on a multi-country tour of Europe next year.

Swedish-American Hall in San Francisco, a legacy of the formerly large Swedish population here:

Milk and Sean Penn

I was walking through the Civic Center last weekend and happened to catch the filming of a new motion picture called "Milk," which tells the story of a murdered city councilman in the 1970s. Sean Penn is playing the title character, and he was there at the filming as well. For the scene, they were recreating a famous rally that occurred at San Francisco's City Hall.

Here is a 1970s-era bus:


And here is Sean Penn in the middle of filming a scene:


An City Hall all draped out (complete with 1970s cars) during the filming:

New Apartment

I have been living in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with two roommates, but I decided it was time to get a place of my own closer to work. So this weekend I moved across town into my new apartment in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. The differences between the two neighborhoods are very apparent. Haight was filled with hippies, hippie-wannabes, and vagabonds of every race and socio-economic group. Hayes Valley's streets, on the other hand, are walked by the well-dressed and upper-middle class.

My new neighborhood has a very active street life. Here is a little storefront across the street from me where people where sitting out front watching a basketball game on TV:


Here is the inside of my new apartment, now complete with furniture:






Here is a little cafe on the corner next to my new place:

Tahoe Weekend

Last weekend, I went with big group of friends to stay in a cabin on Lake Tahoe. We set out from the San Francisco bay area with three cars and finally arrived at the cabin about 6 hours later! Thankfully we were in a four-wheel drive SUV, because with a huge blizzard going on, the roads were really treacherous. I had not seen so much snow since I lived in Utah over 17 years ago (I can't believe it has actually been that long!).

Our snowy drive:


In the middle of the blizzard:


Melissa and Kerri's snowman in progress:


And complete!


Our cars, covered in snow and surrounded by five feet of it:

My Eclectic Home

Everywhere I go in the city I try to bring my camera and take snapshots of some of the strange and wonderful things there are to see.

Nearly every corner in my neighborhood has a little portrait of Barack Obama painted on it. I've never seen anyone running for president so admired before. It seems like no one has a negative opinion of him, at least in San Francisco. Is he this loved everywhere else?


The roads are filled with cars painted and decorated in strange and wonderful ways, like this minvan covered in a model of a city, though not San Francisco:


I was walking along Market Street when a streetcar passed by that I had never seen before. At first Melissa and I thought it was a new streetcar, but according to the Muni website, it haas been in the city since 2005. Strange because I thought I recognized all the cars. This one is a gift from Zürich, Switzerland:

If The Groundhog Saw His Shadow, Why Is It Warm Out?

So the world's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow last week, predicting six more weeks of winter. We celebrated by throwing an awesome two-day Groundhog/Superbowl party (as previously mentioned). Highlights of the party included...

Gratuitous picture-taking:


Awesome t-shirts designed by Samantha and Melissa (left and center, below):


And general hanging out, snacking, and enjoyment of the most exciting Superbowl in recent memory:


We also watched Bill Murray's Groundhog Day movie three times in a row (including once in Portuguese). I think it likely that Phil is not such a good weatherman now, because this weekend has been amazingly warm. Today was bright and sunny outside, and it got up to 63 degrees... the warmest it has been here since October! It was so nice, a couple friends and I hung out on the sidewalk most of the day knitting, making t-shirts, and snacking:

Wake Up Woodchuck-Chuckers, It's Groundhog Day!

Today is my new favoritest holiday, Groundhog Day! I am going to my friends Eric and Samantha's house for our first annual Groundhog Day Party. Samantha and Melissa designed a t-shirt for the party and we are having two bartenders: one for winter drinks and one for spring drinks.



I also just finished reading three Kurt Vonnegut books in a row, namely: Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five. I really like reading Vonnegut, but he is definitely cynical. I seem to see the world the same way he does: without some great meaning, lacking free-will, and humans being a relatively unimportant part of it. But it seems he takes these beliefs in a generally pessimistic direction, while I see these things (maybe with the exception of no free-will) as being freeing and exciting.