July 2005 Update

Hey there ho there Gosh we are so darn tootin' excited about coming home in December, we will be home for 1 whole month and we can't wait !
Here's the latest.... After deciding Manu couldn't carry on doing a 4.5 hour daily commute, we handed in notice at our current apartment and commenced finding a new residence. We didn't have to look far.... Aussie friends, Goce & Stacey, were living in an apartment complex which happened to be located almost half way between San Francisco and Santa Clara (Manu's current project location). So after spending a great weekend staying at their place and checking out the facilities we paid our application fee of $60 (!) and signed up on our new place. We're going from a Studio apartment to a 1 bedroom apartment with lots of added features. One of the best things that Manu is looking forward to is using the pool to do some morning exercise, he's also got his eye on the volleyball court and is thinking about starting up a team with the local residents. Shortly after signing up on our new place we went out to dinner with some other Aussie friends to 'The Stinking Rose' - we'd always wanted to check out this restaurant, firstly because of it's intriguing name and secondly cause we'd heard they saturate all their food with garlic - they even have garlic ice-cream !! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it - Manu was in heaven ! the food was great although we weren't quite adventurous enough to try the ice-cream....and the next day............well enough said about that.....
It was around this time that we started getting text messages from Manu's Mum asking us to catch up with her neighbours son who was in San Francisco on a backpacking holiday. We got an inkling of the urgency of her messages when she informed us that he'd been hit by a truck trying to cross the street.
We immediately gave his hotel a call to make sure he was ok, it turned out that he was fine but quite significantly bruised across the ribs.
He'd been hit by a large Chevy ute (we and Daryl's mum of course had been thinking 18 wheeler up until this point - what is with the American pre-occupation with making everything larger than life) while attempting to cross the street - he was taken to the hospital and told by the staff that he could sue the driver. Fortunately for the driver Daryl wasn't the suing type. We ended up organising a dinner out with Daryl at Anita's favourite Thai restaurant and we all hit it off immediately. When the 4 day Independence weekend rolled around (a week later) our friends (Atish & Nisha) arrived from Seattle, and we made sure to invite Daryl to join us during the weekends frivolity. A bunch of us (Manu, Anita, Atish, Nisha & Helen - Atish's friend from Aussie on holiday in the US) went to Alcatraz on the first day of the holiday - amazingly we hadn't visited Alcatraz before - it has always been something we didn't get time to do - it was great to do it and see the amazing history behind it (see the photos). On the Saturday, 7 of us (Manu, Anita, Atish, Nisha, Helen, Daryl & Cisca) went to Napa Valley. We hired a mini-van and Manu chauffeured us all around the valley. It was beautiful weather, Napa tends to be much hotter than SF, so it was around 100F. The vineyards were gorgeous and they all seemed quite different - we visited about 3 or 4 of them over the course of about 4 hours. One of them, one of the last ones, was a bit over priced it had single glasses of wine for $25 and bottles for $160 - that was all they offered, there weren't even any cheap options for thirsty drunks!
Sunday 9 of us (7 from Saturday plus Bryce & Georgina) went down to Fishermans Wharf (Pier 39) to check out the seals and the seafood. The seals didn't show up so we went to a place called Lou's had brunch, then we went to a Jazz Festival being held on a street close to our apartment. The festival was really packed - there were 3 stages spread out along the street seperated by numerous stalls selling the usual stuff (hand made jewellery etc).
By this time we were all getting pretty tired, so 8 of the group came back to our tiny little studio apartment and watched "Alfie" while ordering in Indian food. We were sad to see everyone go on Monday but also pretty knackered from the fun filled days. American lessons learnt:
- Blokes, boot (as in car boot) and Zed (the letter Z) are further items of ridicule from our American friends
- A few people have told us that we really should go and visit the 'real' America - apparently SF is far too different from the rest of the US to be considered a real American city
- It's no wonder SF smells terrible sometimes, the other day we were walking around the city and Anita had the misfortune to spot a homeless man taking a whiz in a nearby alley. He'd wrapped his blanket around him and was staring down at a quickly forming puddle near his feet - Anita is most unhappy that for 2 consecutive months her American lesson learnt involves the locals toilet habits - she's vowed to put her blinkers on and report something a little more tasteful next time.... That's all from us for now, till next time dear readers.... Love and big Manu hugs
Manu & Anita