My own personal heaven

After my first day of work, I decided to go for a walk and explore my new city. Our temporary apartment is in South Beach at the south end of the Embarcadero (the main street that runs along the bay), so I turned left and headed north. The city has so many smells, but three are always present - cooking food, salty sea, and car exhaust - the first two being much more pleasant than the last. After about a mile, I crossed underneath the bay bridge and saw a large building in the distance with people milling about outside, so I went to see what was going on.

It took me a few seconds to fully comprehend where I was. It was heaven.

The Ferry Building Marketplace is a building (temple) dedicated to one of my favorite things in the world - food. Dozens of shops each completely devoted to some aspect of food or a particular type of food. One store sells only mushrooms - dozens of varieties of mushrooms, and most locally grown (organically, of course, this is San Francisco after all). I walked in a daze from one end of the building to the other, and with every store I passed, another smell came to me - cheese...olive oil...chocolate...strawberries... On Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings there is a farmers market in and around the building with stands full of produce, meat, and other (organic) goods, so I decided that Nick and I would come back and check it out this coming weekend.

It was difficult to leave, but I had a long walk back. Plus, I had a feeling I would need to burn alot of calories if I was going to manage to not turn into a cow living here.