Blogging From San Francisco

It's our last morning in San Francisco before heading to Carmel today and continuing the rest of our trip. It's been a fun few days and I have to admit that despite how much I love NY (and in particular, Park Slope, Brooklyn), I've made many a comment to my wife during this trip about how it would be cool to live here someday. Could this blog eventually be renamed "The Bay via the Slope via the Lake"?

Although NYC is still the center of the world and there's nothing quite like it, there comes a point where it sometimes wears you down and you get tired of the effort of it all: always having to be "on", competing in the rat race, fighting for physical space - in apartments, in restaurants, on subways, etc.

Of course, SF is not perfect. Their mass transit is not always best explained and certainly not the model of efficiency that ours is, there seems to be a more tangible presence of panhandlers (who are quite able-bodied!) than NYC (though that may have to do with SF's great weather and fact that it's smaller than NYC), and the cost of living is just as expensive if not more than New York's. For example, we checked out a neighborhood called Noe Valley yesterday, which seems to be comparable to Park Slope, Brooklyn and picked up a copy of the Noe Valley Voice. The average condo price in April 2007 for Noe Valley was $1.2MM!!!

Not cheap at all but things appear easier in SF - you get more space, you're close to parks, the Pacific Ocean, the Bay, etc. Maybe after my wife's done with grad school, we'll embrace our inner-hippie (or is it yippie for yuppie/hippie?) and get our hybrid car and live by the Bay. Or maybe we'll stay in Park Slope. Or maybe we'll just move to Jersey.....