another day

another amazing day.

first class, then a quick falafel on the way to the BART with patricia and june. we exited in san francisco then got a taxi to the deyoung museum where we saw an exhibit of dale chihuly's work. if you don't know, he's a glass blower from seattle who does pretty outrageous work. the colors and shapes were overwhelming and inspiring. but it didn't take long to become exhausted by it all. thankfully, around this point the exhibit was over, and we got to rest.

we took a break at the japanese tea garden, then finished up our time wandering around and checking out various other collections. afterwards we took a taxi over to a chinese restaurant that i had researched called "house of nanking." it wasn't your typical chinese restaurant, but the food was excellent. we had a rice custard soup, bean shoot salad with tofu, sesame chicken, fried calamari in a garlic/rice vinegar sauce, green beans. the tea was served with fresh peppermint and flowers floating inside. unexpected but lovely.

we were stuffed after dinner and made our way back to the BART sloooowly, stopping on each corner, looking at the various architecture hiding up and down each long, narrow city street. our eyes were called to the combination of lines and curves and stone and brick layered upon one another high in the sky, then brought down by an orange sunset beaming off of sparkling glass, and down further to signs in chinese, japanese, english, filipino, and people of all races and ages and sexes and genders and classes and bodies and faces. sometimes the concrete where we stood was different and worth noticing; often it was enough to simply listen to the voices that passed by and got caught in the nooks of our ears. and on each corner we'd repeat this ritual, looking left, right, up, down; patricia would grab my arm and pull me over to the massive metal keys that stuck out of the ground as some type of sculpture; june would scream when she saw grass on a roof and thought it looked like a giant chia pet. i yelled jesus' name when i saw just how many blocks chinatown went on for. and so it went until we reached the BART station, our legs tired, aching, from walking the hills, ready for a break.

and we took one; back to our station, berkeley, and directly into the gelato shop where i tasted the most perfect pistachio iced cream/gelato/anything i have ever encountered in my entire existence. it was exploding with pistachio flavor, its color a caramel brown rather than a strange green or a creepy white. the flavor was...how do i say this....REAL...it was like toasted pistachios ground up, mixed with cream and sugar, frozen, and served. yes, it tasted the way it should taste, but never does. i had a scoop of it with a scoop of scharfen berger chocolate, and my night was pretty much complete.

we sat for awhile eating our gelato, talking about religion, spirituality, and eventually began to wander back to the dorms. up the hill, past all the lovely flowers, the gardens, the cacti, the hobbit houses. patricia generously offered to give me a massage to help the pain in my back. it did indeed help, and afterwards i returned home, putting a nice, relaxing end to a long but really wonderful day.

i'm amazed at how much i have bonded with some of the people in my class in such a short time. its been only 4 days but it feels so much longer. so strange.

i remain inspired, excited, and dreaming. i remain interested in creating. being in san francisco tonight filled me with a buzz i never usually feel, not even in new york. it was a true, deep excitement and wonderment, a bubbling joy.