welcome to the rock

I'm even more excited about moving to the city than I was earlier this week, mostly due to the fabulous day that I had with Irish Matt. I went into the city via BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) -- considering that I've lived around here off and on for almost nine years, it's an indication of my disdain for public transportation/love for my car that I've never ridden BART before. But one of the Berkeley BART stations is only a ten-minute walk from John and Jess's house, a BART ticket to the city is only $3.30, and that saved me the bridge toll, gas, and $30+ parking fees that I would have ended up paying. And city people ride public transportation, so I guess I should get used to it.

Matt and I met at Osha Thai on 2nd Street. Long-time readers will remember that Matt was in India with me, and our dinners out there, in Sri Lanka, and in Ireland were usually more of the alcoholic variety than anything else. Today was no exception -- we each had a green tea mojito with our appetizer, and then ordered a bottle of wine to split during the main course. A cocktail + three glasses of wine was enough to make me rather gloriously buzzed, which made the trip to the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) even more entertaining.

SFMOMA has a special Frida Kahlo exhibit on right now, which Matt wanted to see, and I was quite excited to see it with him -- I did a project on her husband Diego Rivera for Spanish class in high school, and while the project was best remembered (at least by Katie) for the fact that my left nipple was "cold" and therefore visible during the entire presentation, I was quite interested in Kahlo's work as well. The exhibit was packed, but very good; they had several of her most famous paintings, and while I'm not really into art, I like a lot of her stuff.

After the MOMA, we grabbed a taxi and went to Alcatraz. I wanted Matt to say 'welcome to the Rock!', but he claims that he can't do a Scottish accent, so my request was denied. But we did do the guided audiotour, which is quite good; it was no different than when I saw it with my parents, but there is something moving about the whole place, and it was nice to see it again. If you live in San Francisco and have never been to Alcatraz because it's too 'touristy', you should really go -- it's v. interesting.

Getting back to downtown turned out to be difficult, due to a dearth of taxis and the completely overcrowded state of the MUNI that would have taken us back, but we finally made it in time for me to catch a BART back to Berkeley. So Matt and I parted ways today, and I don't know when I'll see him again, but I'm glad that we had a chance to hang out in a completely non-work setting for a few hours.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, and by uneventful I mean awesome because I played Rock Band. Now, though, I'm exhausted -- it's going to be so hard going back to work and actually having to get up in the morning. I got up at nine today and it almost killed me. So I think I'll go to bed, hopefully get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow, and perhaps try to accomplish something worthwhile. Goodnight!