SF/Berkeley

So, I arrived in San Francisco yesterday morning, around 10. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to sleep very much on the flight. I headed into the city, and met my friend Josh at his office in the Ferry Building.

We went to a nearby bar for lunch, and watched the Italy/Ukraine World Cup Quarterfinal match. Italy won. I was surprised at how many people were at the bar watching the game. I mean, granted, it WAS the Friday afternoon before the 4th of July, so I think a lot of people were gearing up for an extra long weekend. But, for some reason, I guess I didn't imagine that many Americans were really interested in the World Cup. I guess things have changed since I was last here.

Anyway, I was going to try to stay up until night time, to try to kick my jet lag, but I was just way too wiped, so ended up taking an hour or so nap in the afternoon. For dinner, we met two of Josh's friends at a Mexican restaurant/bar, which was supposed to be "right around the corner", but ended up being a 40+min walk, with Josh taking a few wrong turns along the way... Oh well.

My fajitas were pretty good, and it was nice to have a cold Negra Modelo, but I was glad when we hopped in a taxi and headed back to Josh's place. By 10:30 or so, I was exhausted, so I crashed on Josh's inflatable mattress. Amazingly, I slept reasonably soundly, and didn't wake up until 6 am, which is better than it sounds.

This morning, Josh and I watched the England/Portugal game, which England managed to lose on penalty kicks. I guess it's kinda cool that Portugal made it to the next round, considering they've never won a World Cup, but I kinda feel it was a lot of wasted opportunities, and talent, on the England side.

After the game, Josh drove me out to Berkeley, so I could make a Noon appointment to see a vacant apartment. The location was great, and it was a decent size, but the apartment was in pretty crappy condition. The place we saw later in the afternoon was similar, with the added minus of it being REALLY dark and poorly lit.

I'm starting to get a little worried about the quality of apartments available in Berkeley. I found a real estate agent's site online that said the average age of apartments in the area is something like 60 years old. And only 5% or so were made within the past 10 or so years. Not a good prognosis.

But, I'm not giving up, yet. I'm trying to arrange more visits over the next few days. Unfortunately, I might have to bump up my budget a little bit. But we'll see what will happen.