I was just beginning to feel better from the bronchial infection when a handy man, who was repairing a heater in our house, stole my iPhone along with another house member’s from our bedrooms. It was very frustrating because we confronted the man and when he didn’t admit to the act we called the police who were unable to do anything without any evidence. All we know is that he is the only outside person who was in our house the two hours that the iPhones went missing. Mostly, I am just tired of all my possessions getting stolen by unsavory outsiders, but, as my father told me, it is an important lesson. I guess you could say that I am experiencing a bit of culture shock coming from Alaska where I was able to leave my front door unlocked any time of the day to Berkeley, which has the highest rate of petty theft in all of the Bay Area.

To top it all off. I became violently ill last night after thinking that I was finally better. But this is a stomach thing that is completely unrelated to my bronchitis. I am lucky to have such a sweet boyfriend who loves me and does all my bidding. He drove all the way across town today to get me gourmet chicken noodle soup, saltine crackers and Popsicles. I am just so tired of being stuck in bed!

Instead of feeling sorry for myself, and to distract me from the mundane, I have decided to focus on all the positive things that are happening around me. It has been very exciting moving to Berkeley to volunteer full time with CouchSurfing. I am proud of myself to realize that I wasn’t happy in Alaska and having the courage to leave my family and friends and venture into the unknown.

I’m sure some of you are curious exactly what we do here at the CouchSurfing house. I’m sure that I have mentioned that I live with anywhere from 12 to 20 roommates at one time who are all full time team members of CouchSurfing. A group of our techies left last week to start a collective in Costa Rica so our house is finally at a reasonable level of human bodies.

Our House

At the moment, our house is pretty homogeneous. The majority of us are from the US, but we are working on diversifying our household. A lovely woman named Erin just arrived from Canada as an admin specialist and we are expecting a woman from Brazil to arrive in the near future to be our Events Coordinator.

Family dinner

I get to have meetings outside

Other than overseeing the kitchen I also keep a finger to the pulse of how team members are feeling and relating to living in such a unique situation. It’s great, I get to hang out and talk to my friends all day and it is all part of my job! I also make sure that the house keeps clean (yes mom!) and run weekly house meeting in which we discuss house issues, upcoming events and guests. I also have weekly meetings with my supervisor who was TTT, but now it’s Jim with the new organization structure that was put into effect. It’s kind of weird that my boyfriend is now my boss, but going better than I expected.

Our sock puppet party

Jim and me making breadmen

I have also been trying to get out of the house more and experience the area surrounding us. Walked and I decided to go on a date and spend a Tuesday in San Francisco (another great reason to work for CouchSurfing). Our plan was to spend the day riding the historical cable cars all over the place and get off in every neighborhood. Unfortunately the cable car we jumped on made it half a block before every cable car in the city broke simultaneously. Apparently a cable came off the line and they were down for the day. Luckily it was a beautiful day out so we decided to do walking tour instead. It was great, we just wandered aimlessly and ended up hitting some pretty cool spots. China Town is a must see for any visitors. There are tons of shops with live animals that they will butcher right in front of you. We saw a lot of tubs full of live frogs and turtles. The produce is sitting out on the curb all nice and fresh. I decided early on that we should eat something in every neighborhood so we grabbed some dim sum from a tiny shop. Next thing I knew we were in Little Italy where we stopped at a nice cafe, Pinnochio, to soak up the sun and sip mimosas. It almost felt like we were in Italy as we sat outside watching passersby. We kept the drinking theme of our day going by walking down to Jack Kerouac’s bar where Walker announced that he was craving an awful sounding shot called a statutory grape. The bar tender had never heard of it so we had to google the ingredients: 2 ounces Southern Comfort, 1 ounce sour mix, 1 ounce grenadine and something else that I can’t remember. It wasn’t long after this that we hopped on the BART and met up with one of my favorite people here, Camtastic. We were on a mission to find cheap socks for the sock puppet party, but the line was so long at the discount store we lost interest and decided to find a bar instead. Fate was with us and we found the best dive bar ever! The drinks were ridiculously cheap and the bar tender, a complete asshole. But we loved it.

So I would say that my time down in the Bay Area has had its hits and misses. I am still glad I am here, but I need a break from the city life for a couple months. I have Costa Rica in my sights for April, which is keeping me sane for the moment. I’ll go down there to rest up for all the craziness that is going to be happening this summer. Jim’s family is having a huge reunion in New Mexico and this is my first year to attend Burning Man at the end of August. I can’t wait!

Jim stole me away for the afternoon yesterday and we had a great time eating in the Gourmet Ghetto and then bowling $1 games at Albany Bowl. We ended the night with dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house in the Oakland hills. Their house has an amazing view of the city and we arrived just in time to take in a beautiful sunset.

The whole afternoon and evening was a much needed break from the chaos that is the CouchSurfing house. The drive home was a nice transition from small intimate dinner in the hills to crazy raucous family in Berkeley. When we walked up to the house I could hear a lot of people in the kitchen talking and laughing and it made me smile. To realize that although I get burned out on being together all the time, I also miss it a lot when I am away.

I couldn’t help but get a bit warm and gooey inside when I walked in and everybody was together cleaning the kitchen and having a great time. It made me realize how lucky I am to have such a cool family to come home to. It’s really amazing that we have so many people living together in this house and, somehow, we all get along. Nobody fights and there isn’t one person who is passive aggressive. How did we compile a group of such amazing people from around the world?

I am back in Berkeley, thoroughly enjoying the weather. It’s a balmy 60 degrees here while my family and friends are freezing in -20 temperatures in Alaska. Sorry guys!

The post holiday come down has been nice and relaxing. There are only three of us at CouchSurfing BaseCamp this week and it has been lovely having the place to ourselves. Jim and I have decided that we are probably going to be here for another three months so we have started getting settled in. Before December I wasn’t sure if I was going to go to the Costa Rica collective or not, but if I do, it won’t be until March. Since I lived in Costa Rica during college I think I would rather save my money and go to the next collective, especially if it is someplace that I have never been before.

So with that in mind Jim and I went to the Berkeley Public Library and got Library cards. We also applied and were granted financial assistance at the YMCA. I am really excited about working out there. It’s a really nice facility and they have three pools! I’ve been feeling so lumpy and out of shape lately. I can’t wait to start feeling fit again!

I am also coming to the realization that if I don’t make an effort to actually do the things I want to do while in San Francisco, they will probably never happen. With that in mind, I have been hounding Jim to walk the Golden Gate Bridge with me for a week. The weather was finally sunny yesterday so we drove into the city. Of course, it happened to be sunny and a Saturday so the place was packed. Luckily, we found a free parking lot and walked a little through the park and then up the hill onto the bridge.

Jim and me at the Golden Gate

Being on the bridge and looking over the railing to the water hundreds of feet below made me think about how desperate those people must have been feeling. Just looking over the railing made me nauseous. I can’t imagine any person having the guts to climb over and let go.

Jim and I were wondering how long it would take for a person to fall so we started spitting over the edge (immature, I know). It took the average spitball about 11 seconds to hit the water and when it did, it had picked up enough velocity to make a noticeable splash. I can’t imagine knowing that you are going to die for 11 seconds! It would feel like eternity.

Luckily our day was a bit more lighthearted than just contemplating the affects of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove through Golden Gate park, which is beautiful. We stopped for a few minutes to check out the Dutch windmill that is sitting next to a lawn of poppies. It was all very beautiful.

I am trying to come up with our next adventure. I’m sure there are some other activities that one must accomplish when living in the Bay Area.

Pondering on the Golden Gate

Our drive on the Cassiar was incredible! I was worried that there wouldn’t be many gas stations and most of the road would be unpaved, but we didn’t have any problems. The fall colors were vivid and gorgeous and, except for a blizzard north of Glennallen, the weather was beautiful. We got to see a lot of different animals included a herd of buffelo, a wolf, foxes and I almost hit a black bear when it ran in front of my car. We only spent two nights in Canada. Sunday night in White Horse with a couchsurfer named Pam and Monday night in a hotel.

The road trip was without incident except for the time that I took a wrong turn and we almost ended up back in South-East Alaska. Luckily Jim is a good sport and we were able to laugh it off. It also allowed us to see a beautiful glacier that ran into a lake right off the side of the road.

My week in Berkeley so far has been relaxed as I settle into the life of living in a huge house with 15 other people. I am starting to get into the swing of things and will soon be working on Fundraising with Kelly and taking more menial tasks off of Casey’s plate. I’m also beginning to look for jobs in the Berkeley area. I’m not sure what I’m interested in yet, but hopefully when I find it, I’ll know.

Living in the CouchSurfing house has been a blast. It’s wonderful living with such fun people who are never boring! There’s always so much going on. Communal living also has its trials and tribulations. We have a chore list on which people are assigned to teams of two and have a chore to complete each day. For the most part this has been working really well except that the floors tend to get forgotten. Oops! We are also lucky in the fact that we have a volunteer, Derek, who cooks for us five nights a week! Most dinners are the equivalent of a four course meal with yummy desserts each night! Have I mentioned that we are a bit spoiled? I love that we all sit down and eat together family style. Derek also brings volunteers from the community to help with dinner so we are meeting new people every night.

Being so close to San Francisco makes our social calendar pretty full. This weekend was especially busy. We went to a potluck at Jay’s house Friday night. A house party at a mansion Saturday night that included AcroYoga, all you can eat Sushi that was being prepared in the kitchen, full bar and a dance floor. There were also a ton of people in the swimming pool and hot tub, but we never made it in. Sunday was the most fun of all! We all dressed up and headed to Decompression in the industrial part of the city.

The Boof photo booth

Even the drive to Decomp was amazing! We were crossing the bridge to the city and the Blue Angels were buzzing the bridge as part of fleet week. Kelly was asleep in the back seat when they first flew right over our car and it woke her up with a start!

We went ahead and paid for parking in a lot so we didn’t have to worry about the car. When we were walking into the festival a car pulled up and asked if we were going to Decomp. Kelly, being a smart ass, said, “No, we’re going to church!” I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically since we were all dressed up in some pretty interesting costumes. Jim was wearing red velour pants with fur, I was in a bright pink wig, corsette and tutu, Weston was wearing tiger print chaps and Kelly was looking adorable in a dirndle.

Me looking pink and adorable!

The driver of the car ended up being Stephen from the band Third Eye Blind who I met this summer when they were up in Alaska. I said, “Hey, I know you! Weren’t you in Alaska?” They parked the car and ended up walking with us to Decomp where we let them cut in line with us because our friends were already there.

Hanging with Stephen from 3EB

The festival was so much fun! I’m lucky that Shameless Heather let me raid her closet for my costume. She lives in SF in a townhouse and the closet for her costumes is bigger than her bedroom! We spent the afternoon and evening walking up and down the boulevard looking at the art cars, art installations and watching the performances. Heather MCed a variety show at a club that included a political satire from the Butt Hole Puppet Players. I would go into more detail, but it’s impossible to describe.

I had a great time looking at what other people were wearing as well. Some of the costumes were incredible! There was a group of men who were in these metallic multi colored outfits that they obviously have spent a lot of time on. They all matched from their head to their toes. There were also some people who wore nothing at all. We went to get shaved ice at the Lost Penguin tent and the woman serving it was completely naked. I’m sure that’s against food regulation, but hey, it was free and delicious!

The fabulous rainbow men

As the night wore on and Decomp began to wind down. We headed over to a club called Retox where a lot of Burners were hanging out. We had a great time dancing and meeting people. Hearing people’s stories makes me excited about going to Burning Man next year. I’m going to have to start accumulating costumes now!