NYE in San Fran

For New Years I decided to head down to San Fran and meet up with some I met at Burning Man. I have always wanted to go down there, and since Ben lives there it seemed like a good chance. I left Calgary on Friday with a bit of drama. Jeremy was coming in from Denver, and they were having their second major snow storm in as many weeks. I met Caley and Ben at the airport in Oakland, and found out that not only had Jeremy got on a flight as well, he ended up arriving at the same time as me, rather than that night as was planned. It was just the first of many things that happened that weekend where everything fell into place.

Ben lives in the Mission District, so we headed down there and got some food, then Jeremy and I got dropped off at our hotel. It was only a 10 minute walk from Ben's house, which was great. That night we had a nap then went for a walk around, but ended up staying in.

On Saturday we did some tourist things, saw the Golden Gate bridge and went to Muir Woods, and old red wood forest. We were really lucky, it was sunny and gorgeous out. The bridge looked amazing, and the woods were really beautiful. You can tell that its a big tourist spot, there were tons of people there. I was trying to imagine exploring it with no one else around, I think I could stay down there for hours.

That night we went and met up with a few other Colorado burners that were in town, including Dave who had stated making glowfur, something that started with a coat that he made at Burning Man. A few of them, including Caley were all dressed up in it, and Caley of course looked amazing. His website is http://www.glowfur.com/ if you want to check it out, and see super sexy Caley modeling some of the clothing.

The bar we went to was called Mighty, and it was in a really cool space, almost like a big loft. One thing I really liked was outside there was an art car parked playing music, with a bus parked blocking the street. I like the music out there better, so I hung out there most of the night dancing. I had the biggest grin on my face, cause well it was December and I was dancing outside at night in a tank top.

On Sunday we drove through the Golden Gate park, and I was amazed that they had such a huge beautiful park in the middle of the city. Ben said that it was bigger than Central Park. There was green everywhere, I was trying to soak up as much as I could to tide me over for the next five or six months.

We drove to a place called Mile Rock Beach, where you walk along a path at the top of this cliff, and then take some stairs down to the ocean. It was so nice, everything seemed almost neon green. I'm not sure if it was because I haven't seen green for too many month, but it felt so good to be surrounded by it.

You had to walk down quite a few stairs to get to the beach, which was all rocky. You could see the Golden Gate bridge from there. It was grey and cloudy out, but it made it seem warmer and it was perfect for the day. We walked around and checked out all the star fish on the rocks and then sat down for a while and hung out. There was an old structure down there that Ben had done some art on previously, so we sat on there of a while and just relaxed. I haven't seen the ocean since I got home last March; it was good to just hang out and listen to the sounds.

After that we went to the Haight District and walked around a bit, it was really busy; I could have sat there and people watched all day. I bought some new earings, then we got food and headed back to the hotel for a nap.

That night we had ticket to go to Sea of Dreams (http://www.seaofdreamsnye.com/), a huge Burner party. The line up was unbelievable, Lorin Bassnectar, Tipper, String Cheese Incident, Zap Mama, it went on and on. Of course I was most excited to see Lorin, but the party just had everything. There were cabarets and belly dancing and tons of different kinds of entertainment. We got ready and went to meet the other Denver Burners before we headed out. They were staying at the house of a friend who was out of town who had a swing right in the middle of their living room, so we took some pics on there.

Once everyone was all done up we headed down to the party. When we got there we found out that the tickets I had bought were not at will call, and that me and Jeremy didn't have tickets. We were standing there at 10 minutes to midnight, and I couldn't even speak I was so upset. Then up walks this woman, who has two tickets and says 'It looks like you need these'. I could not believe it, since there were other people following her asking for them and she came right to us. So everything fell into place and we got in just before the count down.

The night was amazing. The music was great, most people were dressed up in costumes, the building was huge with tons of stuff going on. I danced all night, met a gorgeous girl from Oz and another one from New Zeland, met someone with a snake and took a bunch of pics. I talked to tons of people, and it just felt like a little piece of Burning Man for the night.

The next day Jeremy and I were on the same flight to Denver, where I caught a connecting flight. Of course I was sad to leave San Fran, I knew I would be. It was what I thought it would be, the houses and the hills and everything you see on tv. But it was a lot more than that, it just feels good to be in that city. It was somewhere that as soon as I got there I could picture living there. I don't know if that will ever happen, but I'll definitely be back.