Day one: Ohio is boring

I do not recommend taking this trip the opposite way across the country. This day wasn't so bad when it happened, although Ohio dragged on a bit, but mostly that was because I was excited to get out of the city. Pennsylvania is really pretty, but make sure to stop at rest stops when you see them, because sometimes there won't be any for another 2 hours!
Day one was where we established our love of visitor centers, and realized how awful our audiobook was.

This is how I felt about the tunnels.

At this point I started to get bored...

West Virginia! Time to crank up the tunes!

I'm bored again. Ohio is boring.

We made it to Nick's home! Where we spend a lovely night with his family, and also stocked up on some snacks from Trader Joe's.

Goodbye New York

Sooo...I went on this road trip....

Chain stores and food

It's a weird thing about San Francisco, the people here do not like chain stores. Apparently.
Total strangers have told me how much they hate chain stores here. This is mostly after asking where I got something I'm wearing. The answer is usually Target.
They have chain stores here. Lots of them. And while they'll go on tirades about how they don't want the new Target put in, they seem fine with all the other stores already here.
I get what they're saying. I also don't want mom and pop stores all put out of business. I guess I just don't understand why such the fit over Target, a store I love. There's plenty of worse chains already here that I wouldn't mind seeing closed.
In any case, my relationship with chains is weird, because I love having something from home accessible no matter where I am. I love that I can walk around Target and then talk to people half a country away about a skirt we both liked. I love that I can go to Panera here, or in NYC, or in STL and always order the same thing. It's wonderful to me.
Which brings me to what I ate the other day.

Ta-da!! Bread Co Cheddar Broccoli Soup! That I bought in a Target! Craziness!

Makes you hungry just looking at it...

Clearly when I saw this I had to buy it and try it. It was not that great. I had a hard time getting it hot enough, and then when it was it got really soupy and never thickend right. And it kinda had a weird rubbery taste. Sooo...maybe if you actually live close to a Bread Co just go there for soup. But! If you live far away, and just want that familar taste and don't mind throwing in a lot of cayenne pepper to kinda hide the rubbery taste, then this will definitely hold you over till you can get to a real Panera.

Also! For Easter!

Have I had these before? I feel like I've had these before. Or maybe it's just that I feel I should have had these, with the parents I have.
Anyway, the dark chocolate covered peep is surprisingly good. I had two! I was a little disappointed that there was no sugar on the marshmellow part, and briefly considered making my own with a peep and (much better) dark chocolate, but something about that seems wrong. So for now- these! They are good! I recommend them with coffee!

I've also been eating a lot of fruits and vegetables on my patio outside and feeling like a real California stereotype. But I don't care. Cuz the food is delicious.

New City views

I'm sitting here writing this in the Daly City Library. I'm not even going to try and take a picture, because it will not show how beautiful it is right now. I'm working a a little laptop station next to a full wall of windows. To my right there are hills covered in trees and big fluffy clouds. Below me is the street and a little garden area to sit in. In front of me is more trees and then the ocean. There are no clouds above it, and the ocean is so blue. Very blue. I can see the trains go by every once in awhile. I've been watching a sail boat slowly make it's way from the bay out to sea. Now a barge is coming in.
This city is so beautiful. There are parks that are so dense with trees and shrubs that you can see in them, like a wall of plants. There are Victorian buildings painted spectacular colors. No matter where you are you can look in a direction and see hills or the ocean or the bay. There are beautiful clouds here all the time, and crazy plants that I've never seen before. I was told before I came here that it's not like anywhere else in the world, and it's not. It's all very strange, but wonderful, so far.

This was the view as we crossed the bay bridge, coming into the city for the first time.

Seeing the pacific ocean for the first time.

OMG I love sea lions!!!

Walking through a park.

Waiting for a bus outside the capitol. The buses all run on those electric power lines. It reminds me of eastern europe.

The capitol at dusk, walking to the library.

I can't get over how crazy it is that they have compost, recycling, and regular trash at almost every place you go.

My friend Nick was in town! It was wonderful to see him. It's only been a month, but I am homesick for things in New York sometimes. Mostly people. Also behind us are the Painted Ladies, which are really famous houses.

You said it, crazy Japanese ponies.

New City

So I said goodbye to New York and I'm in San Francisco now.
This is still pretty strange and sudden for me. I cried a lot when I was leaving, but I don't miss NYC as much as I thought I would. This is surprising only to me.
I miss friends. I miss certain places. I miss that feeling of home that I finally had built up.
I'm still not sure what to make of San Francisco. I think I like it, but I've only been here two weeks and I still don't have a job or apt. So, I guess we'll see.
I'm still not sure if I made the right choice and I guess I'll never know. What I do know is that I was living in a place where I was occasionally happy and often sad. I loved my co-workers, but my job was giving me panic attacks. I loved my roomate, but the long winters were wearing my down. Making a clean break of everything was easier for me than trying to fix what was wrong with my life in NYC.
So here I am now. In a new city, starting over almost from scratch. I'm so very lucky to have family and friends to support me. I never could have done this alone.
I'll try to put up pictures from the trip here soon. It was amazing to get to drive all the way across the country, to see so many different landscapes.
When my sisters visited me in New York, they told me about how magical it was for them to see the skyline of NYC breaking through the clouds when the plane was coming in for a landing. I'm not sure when NYC lost that magic for me, I'm not sure if it was ever as strong for me, but the last time I flew in I tried to take some pictures, mostly for my sisters, and I found myself not looking at Manhattan, but instead searching the streets of Queens, looking for familiar sites. My home, my favorite coffee shop, my library, my route I walk to the park.
I loved my time in New York, I'm so glad I went. I keep introducing myself as a New Yorker now that I'm not there. New York is on my fuzzy list of where my "home" is. And it's always gonna be there if I decide to go back.

But for now, I'm excited to be learning my way around a new city. And it already has its selling points. It's warm! And green! There are seals! I think my parents would actually like to visit here! Also, this:

That, is the cover of my new planner, which I purchased from a dollar store in Japantown. Japanese dollar stores- possibly the best thing ever?