return from the escape from los angeles

Roomate-Andrew and I just got home from San Francisco -slash- Oakland. We (and our respective hangovers) left very early yesterday to go see Nine Inch Nails last night. Which was a fantastic show, but I shall address that in the post that I wrote on my laptop in the car & will clean p for upload tomorrow.

We managed to pack in a lot of Things and People though. We made killer time up to the City, and were in line for the Bay Bridge six hours after leaving Venice Beach. We had enough time to spend a couple hours yesterday shopping in the Haight, because my roomate wanted me to help him look for clothes (something I have done for a few guy friends in the past.) And then we headed out to Oakland to find dinner (barbecue!) before meeting up with the jentwo and going to the show.

Then this morning, everyone woke up in time to go to Lois the Pie Queen (link goes to review written by one of my Bay Area cousins) Where we met up with one of Jen’s local connections, as well as one of mine, and proceeded to consume grits and hot links and biscuits for breakfast. And I had just enough time today to walk around Golden Gate Park, and then go to the Cartoon Museum to see the “Gross, Gruesome and Gothic” exhibit.

So it was a fairly jampacked weekend, but we made such good time getting to and from the City that it didn’t feel like we spent the whole weekend in the car. And we did manage to cram a lot into a very short time in a very big city. And it was nice to be out of Los Angeles, and in one of the cities that is more like home. Coming over the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate reminds me a lot of the Lion’s Gate in Vancouver, and of the moment of Zen I always had mid-bridge on my way home each day, looking out west past the Inlet. I’m going home on Wednesday, but right now, I can use all the time I can get in places more like what I’m used to, time in cities that are less mentally exhausting than L.A.