Entries Tagged 'Travels' ↓

We got to have most of the day in San Francisco before we left this time so Bev and Dan took us to a cafe in the East Bay that a friend of theirs had opened. It’s in the RockRidge/Oakland area, practically under the freeway and just down from a BART station.

It was a great corner spot but the poor barista was run off her feet – the cafe was reasonably busy and she’d run out of cups and saucers so was washing and making coffee at the same time.

The coffee was good, nice strength, although Bev and Dan commented it was quite strong – I think they normally drink lattes and we insisted they try cappuccinos.

One very cool thing they had in the cafe seeing as it was near a BART station was a screen with a feed of approaching trains and times – direction and time until the train arrived in the station. Very useful!

BiCa Coffee House, 5701 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618 @bicacoffeehouse

Walking around San Francisco yesterday we spent our first day this trip in the shopping area. I noticed that if I picked up crocheting again at least if it doesn’t work out with Xero here I could have something to fill my time – this is one of several women sitting on the sidewalk crocheting animal head hats!!

San Francisco Bay Bridge – you make my heart skip a beat – such a majestic structure and in a series of amazing coincidences we have an apartment to live in for the next year at least where we will get to look out at you every day!

That’s right folks – the unexpected happened and providing we check out on paper we’ve been accepted for an apartment in San Francisco! Much much earlier than we thought but just too good to pass up

• When we were last here we walked around in the area south of Market St and took a couple of photos of buildings we thought might be cool to live in to remind us to check them out when we were here in August apartment hunting.
• On our tour of apartments with the broker during the week, without knowing it she brought us to one of the apartment buildings we’d taken a photo of.
• The apartment had orange(ish) walls and a gorgeous view of the Bay Bridge.
• We met the owner and without paperwork passed inspection so for now all the scary stories are not true – she’s taken us on as tenants without money or fingerprints and with a long lead time until the lease (obviously until we sign it could all fall through!)
• The owner’s favourite colour is orange

Now it *does* feel real. When we come back in August we’ll have somewhere to live. Can’t believe it.

Well, it’s been so long since we’ve rented a place to live, in New Zealand, let alone in another country so there’s rather a lot to take in! We’ve found ourselves in the hands of an amazing broker, Marie, who’s been wonderful and spent an entire day driving us all over San Francisco showing us a range of places – houses, apartments, lofts, furnished, unfurnished, rent, sale …

And we’re learning to use a whole lot of new terms too … PG&E, HMO, doorman, credit check, security deposit, white zone, ball park traffic, broker, realtor, agent, lease, guarantor, monthly gross, The Bridge, fog, micro-climate, fob, trash, water … I’m sure we’ll be asked to submit yet another set of fingerprints at this rate!

So now we feel very informed and practiced when it comes to choosing a place in a couple of months … unless of course the perfect place jumps out at us this week, but that would be too good to be true and oh the paperwork.

It’s all starting to feel a whole lot more real now.

Having a busy time again in San Francisco and can’t stop myself falling back into the tiring routine of trying to clear all my emails and other stuff requiring a response in the evenings because NZ is online and the email just keeps coming. We end up having a full day of meetings during the day then try and jam a full day of computer work in at night – when we live here I’ll have to find the discipline to just leave emails and queries alone until my working day. Ha!

Anyway it’s lovely looking out the hotel window at night to the Bay Bridge and the hotel has fresh-baked cookies and milk at 9pm so have to be up and about enough to rush down and get some! The first night one jug of milk was finished so I started the next one … it looked a bit grey and shiny … thought it might be soy milk … took a mouthful – YUCK it was! So we got down to the lobby last night at 9:01pm to make sure we could drink from the first jug – much better.

So as we progressed through our descent into San Francisco this morning and I looked out the window I noticed my empty water bottle with its lid on slowly imploding and crackling. Made me wonder if that was happening to my internal organs or ear drums – I quickly grabbed some gum to chew out of my bag.

On 3 hours sleep (flight wasn’t too turbulent, just couldn’t sleep) we lined up at a huge bank of rental car counters to collect our car, drive 45 minutes or so on the freeway, collect coffee for us and Bev and Dan at a town near where they live then get across to their place before it cooled down. We made it. And the car is just like the Suzuki Liana track car from Top Gear (just badged differently here)!! With a lady telling The Mister which way to go so I had to be quiet again.

We’re moving! There was even media coverage about it – my 2nd ever mention in the NBR!

But now we have visas, it’s all a bit more public – hoping to relocate in about 3 months. A different kind of exciting to New York which obviously tops all levels of exciting but very very cool to be in the centre of Xero’s entry into the US with the set up of an office, search for new staff and getting our brand and product out there. If I was to be honest, probably 49% exciting, 51% scary! Still SO many details to be worked through – still have to untie some of the red tape tied and knotted tightly around the visas and work permits and figure out all that other stuff we don’t worry so much about in NZ like how do you see a doctor, personal insurance in case someone trips over your bag at a cafe and sues you, social security, driving, paying for water etc etc so watch this space!

But thanks to our recent trip, there is decent coffee to be had, we’ve met some nice people and the site of The Big Orange Bridge does thrill me

When I was packing to come home from our trip to San Francisco and Portland, I realised most of my coats and scarves smelt like coffee … lovely … and better than the turmeric smell I used to come home with when I was a fresh young PA working at Davis Trading in Petone – direct importer of food ingredients … every spice and flavour you could think of plus some other strange things I’d certainly never heard of until I spent 18 months there (rollmops, prawn crackers (yes I was surrounded by foreign food!)).

Anyway, reflecting on the cafes I’d been to in San Francisco and Portland – a general comment about baristas – they’re all about the same age, perhaps around 30 and seem really committed to coffee as a profession.  Didn’t get the impression or see anyone following a recipe, taking shortcuts (with the extraction or reusing milk (in fact most times jugs washed out between customers)), or looking like they’d been rostered on and were waiting for the end of their shift. We’re getting quite a few places of this quality around Wellington now, but we still have our fair share of cafes slamming out the coffees to go with muffins or toasted paninis. Perhaps being about the craft and appreciation of coffee rather than primarily about food or getting through a morning tea rush is what makes the time taken to do it properly possible. And the customers there like me were waiting for a perfect coffee not a flat white that tastes different every time you visit.

As for the customers – there are always half a dozen people in a cafe whether together or on laptops; no-one wears a suit and those in meetings have a yellow work pad; all the cool dudes have little beards; the cafe smells of coffee, not whatever last thing was cooked on the sandwich press and is now lingering in the air. And this is definitely what I wish for in Wellington – no-one stays just 15 minutes or as long as it takes to drink coffee – they stay, they use their computer, they use the cafe’s free fast wi-fi, a group swells and trickles out as acquaintances come and go, whether it be bike couriers, students, other guys from the office; no-one clears the cups noisily (in fact you put your own cup on the bench when you’re done). Hanging out is serious business. I’m going to try more of this in Wellington – will be interesting to see how long I feel comfortable staying for.

I was really pleased to find Water Ave coffee after my big walk across the drawbridge by myself on The Mister’s last day of conference. My sinuses were cleared out by the open-air walk but I felt a little thrill when I could smell the coffee roasting when I turned onto the block. I mean, here I was in the city of coffee and I hadn’t yet smelled any actually roasting! I stepped through the door of the ground floor low-rise warehouse and was greeted by a very cool shiny wood interior and blue neon sign. Coffee.

My cappuccino had gorgeous glossy milk, and tasted quite sweet on first sip, then mellowed to an almost neutral taste which I would’ve possibly been critical about but as it was my third coffee of the day it was just what I felt like.  As I drank down the cup I had this epiphany that it tasted just like water – that slight taste that cool naturally running spring water has – I had a small debate in my head … I’m not sure it was by design that they crafted it to taste like water, Water Ave is just name of the street! Or is it?

Eventually I found their wi-fi – had certainly come to expect it by now. Couldn’t resist bringing back a bag of beans for my coffee friends at Supreme – hard to resist the orange.

Water Avenue Coffee, 1028 SE Water Ave, Portland @wateravecoffee

Hadn’t been over to this part of town but I had a work meeting arranged in the railway station, meeting someone coming from Seattle, so decided to go via one of the 2 Baristas. It was a really cool part of town, lots of trees and brick buildings with raised footpaths in some areas and almost cobbled village traffic.

I was greeted in what looked like a lofty entrance-way in the brick building – a few tables and a rather long line of people waiting for takeout. I didn’t realise until I got there and saw the sign that they used Intelligensia beans. I got in line and ordered an 8oz latte – they made their take out cappuccinos in the traditional 5oz cup and I didn’t feel like something so strong. Might’ve been a bad choice because it was the weakest coffee to date and the most bubbly. Mind you we had takeout lattes from Public Domain and they were OK so not an uncommon thing to order. A really funky part of town – would love to have had more time and if we’re back in Portland I definitely want to go and sit in the cafe and experience the great surroundings and undoubtedly better coffee in a porcelain cup – mine still tasted good though! Just compared to the others so far this week it was a little disappointing.

Barista Pearl District, 539 NW 13th Avenue, Portland @baristapdx