next stop...

...San Francisco! Had a lovely short flight in to Oakland yesterday, was nice to be in small airports instead of the scary big confusing ones. Flew in over soft green hills and sprawling farmlands, some hills even had a bit of snow still clinging to the slopes. From Oakland I was collected by my gorgeous composer friend Jen, and her husband Sean, and we travelled in to Berkeley where they both work. Jen treated me to a delicious lunch at a little French style bistro - I tried her gingerbread pancakes and was jealous ;-)

While Jen went back to work, I braved the public transport system and successfully got myself in to the centre of San Fran to visit the Meridian Gallery. It's a beautiful space, spread over 3 levels, and right in the heart of the city. Thankfully it's also just at the base of one particularly steep hill :-) Once again the staff were brilliant, really going out of their way to make sure everything was as it needed to be. Unfortunately one artwork has to be removed from the space as it's using the DVD screen that I'll need for one of my performance pieces (Jen says hi) but other than that all the groovy artworks are staying put. yay.

Back to Berkeley for some more pottering (including a wonderful bookshop, and a soul-warming mocha with whipped creammmmmmmmmmmm... and then dinner at a cajun/creole restaurant. I couldn't see a single thing on the menu that didn't sound absolutely mouthwatering. I went for the fried chicken with ginger-vanilla-mashed sweet potato and beans (drool), and shared some sides of hush puppies and baby back ribs (smothered with bourbon-BBQ-sauce). we drank beer from jars (I kid you not - I even have photographic proof) and finished with bread and butter pudding with brown sugar syrupy buttery sauce stuff. good lord. i could barely fit anything else in (but monsieur, it is only wafffffer thiiiiin....), but made a special effort for the sauce.

Today we're having a slow start, but plan to head in to the city and do something terribly touristy - maybe a ferry ride on the bay, maybe go to alcatraz, perhaps some wanderings around golden gate park. Jen has promised some amazing chinese food for lunch, and by the sound of it we're going to have a laundry party tonight as i'm down to my last pair of (holey) socks.

ciao!