…revoir.
So, we are temporarily homeless, all our worldly possessions are in a van making the 2,563 mile trip coast-to-coast and we’ve said a sad farewell to our friends and to a great city that’s been our home for 22 months. So long San Francisco, it’s been fun.
As testament to the good time we’ve had, I’d like to do a not so brief top ten highlights of our west coast experience.
- The outfits: Not that I like dressing up you understand, but over the last year I’ve adorned outfits for the grim reaper, one of the blue man group, the black night from monty python’s holy grail, and Goose from Top Gun however the sheer accuracy of my Magnum P.I. impersonation probably makes it my fave. And yes, I do have a thing for moustaches
- Those impromptu bar crawls (especially if they’re on an amphibious vehicle): the best nights are often those you don’t plan for and the evening we were unexpectedly swept along on the Corona Girls promotional tour of San Francisco on a Bay Area Quacker. We came back with more swag (whistles, glowsticks, sweatbands, maracas) than we could ever hope for and visited a slew of vaguely Mexican themed establishments. Never made it in the water though.
- The music you listen to…: One thing we did manage to do was see a lot of bands. Killers, Razorlight, Wombats, Bravery, Decemberists, the Verve BUT most outstanding were Vampire Weekend at Mezzanine…including this top notch Fleetwood Mac cover
- …and the music you make!: Although Silver Cloud (see above image) was the destination of choice on more than one occasion, it wasn’t the standout largely due to its barely functioning microphones. I’d say that particular honor would go to live karaoke with The Inflatables at both this year’s spring fling and retreat when we belted out winners including Mr Brightside (awfully) and Brown Eyed Girl (slightly less so) till the early hours. Honorable mention also goes to the place in Japan Town whose name I can’t recall where I discovered a great love for Bonnie Tyler at client drinks.
- Birthday celebrations: This year was a civilized brunch at Top of the Mark however 2008 saw an innovative bar crawl where we took to the streets adorning white T-shirts with pick-up lines (chat-up lines for the English) scrawled across them in black permanent marker. It loses something in translation I realize, but none of them were clean enough for reprint here.
- Polk Street: Living three blocks away, Polk was basically the epicenter of everything we did in SF. Great wine at the originally named Wine Bar; great cheese at the originally named Cheese Plus; and great dogs at the AWESOMELY named (wait for it) WAGS Boutique
- The sport…: Whether it was a poorly executed tailgate party at the Raiders, a night in the nosebleeds at the Warriors, or watching the Giants in an exec box, WATCHING sport in San Francisco takes some beating. PLAYING, however, is a different story. Signing up with “United Chaos”, the most painfully serious co-ed soccer team in North America meant that despite great results, we all stopped playing after three games.
- Unexpected holidays: God bless the pilgrims. without them there’d be no Thanksgiving, a great four day excuse for eating, drinking, singing and dogsitting. OK, perhaps the last two were just us but TG08 will live on forever as the year we truly embraced American culture…ate marshmallow mash and played singstar till the early hours. (We also dogsat for these two awesome gents, but that’s a separate story)
- Boozing the bay: Whether its the offically sanctioned Brews on the Bay, the unofficial ‘hire your own boat’ brews on the bay, or just getting the ferry across to Tiberon that stretch of water will probably only ever be associated with one thing
- The view from our balcony: So there were few houses between us and the ocean but being able to watch the sun set over one of the worlds most famous landmarks was quality (question: does Nadia appear drunk in this photo?)
Please note the criteria for the above were that they all had to happen within an hour of San Francisco. Otherwise bday celebs in Vegas, New Year in Russian River and an epic trip to Coachella would definitely feature.
Anyway, despite being in-between homes, we are now officially New York residents. Here’s to repeating all of the above on the right coast.
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