First day on the left coast

Nick and I got into Oakland airport last night and after an unusually long ride to pick up our rental car, started making our way into "the City" (I've been told that native San Franciscan's call San Francisco "the City". Natives can always tell tourists because they say, "Frisco", therefore I have banished that word from my vocabulary lest I be found out).

We had to find a hotel for one night because the corporate apartment we rented wouldn't let us check in after 5:30 so we ended up staying at a Courtyard by Marriott which happened to be right next door to the meeting Nick had this morning, which made him happy, and right above a Starbuck's, which made me very happy. Despite a minor dried urine incident which resulted in free breakfast, the room was nice. We had dinner at a tiny Indian restaurant across the street which turned out to have above average food - a nice beginning to our culinary tour of the city.

Today we moved to our short term apartment at 2 Townsend Street right on the San Francisco Bay. The picture is the view from our balcony...not too bad. I think we are definitely going to
have to learn how to sail a boat sometime during the next two years. The air is salty and cool, and so far we haven't seen any fog.

I had a two hour conference call with work today, and have been amazingly productive for my first full day telecommuting. It's so nice to be able to concentrate without someone constantly coming into my office. It's going to get lonely, though, I can tell.

When Nick gets back from work tonight we're going to investigate the area, drive by the new apartment, and then pick up some groceries for the next week. I'm really feeling a mix of emotions being out here - it's so gorgeous and new and exciting, but I miss everyone already so much.