My journey turns out to be a lot less linear than the straight line on the map may suggest. There is a lot of back and forth but that’s not a bad thing. By the time of writing I made it down to Colombia where my trip came to a stop as ran out of money.

San Francisco Skyline

I decided to fly back to Costa Rica and spend a few months there to focus on work and make some money (I’ll explain this in more detail in another post). My Costa Rican roommate works for an airline and when he said he’d go to San Francisco I got jealous and begged him to get me one of those cheap tickets, so I could come as well. The rest is history; I am back in San Francisco for a few weeks. The swift change of environment makes me realize all the things I missed in Latin America – and those I didn’t. This must be my fifth visit here and I’m always happy to be back. As one of my friends said ‘Welcome back home.” The Bay area is certainly one of my favorite places in the United States.

Love & Peace

I like here is the vibe of the city. There is still a bit of ‘peace & love’ left from past decades and that’s beautiful. Besides that, I love the cafés where I spend the majority of my time, working, chatting, blogging… That’s certainly a thing I miss in Costa Rica and other places in Latin America.

The Castro

My favorite cafés to hang out are in Church Street, Castro and Noe Valley. San Francisco also offers a great variety of excellent restaurants that I visit more frequently than my budget allows. But there are many more ways to spend money in San Francisco.  Today is Thanksgiving. Unlike three years ago, this time I was not entrusted with the turkey-cooking (for good reason…) but asked to make some Spätzle. As I have no clue of how to prepare them I opted for Bratkartoffeln instead. Let’s see how this goes… The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday and major retailers open extremely early (some at 4 a.m.) and offer great discounts to kick off the shopping season. I’ll have to do some serious clothes shopping – I got few T-shirts, a single pair of trousers and shoes and only 4 pairs of socks.

Occupy Berkeley tents

I’ve made a few friends here during my previous visits who let me crash at their place (thanks Binh & Kevin). Since my last time Rebecca from Knoxville and Olli from Mannheim moved here, too. Visiting Olli gave me the opportunity to see Berkeley. The Occupy movement seems to have died down these weeks but in Berkeley there is a small Occupy camp site in a park.