Our host in SF was the infamous Zig-Zag (known to local authorities and his grandmother simply as Mike). After kicking off our visit to San Francisco at Mike’s place of employ, a bar called Zeitgeist, we headed to Oakland to the Kindle magazine release party -- it was held at the new Flow Toys space, and was essentially a FireDrums pre-party. (Could we have more links in that sentence? In fact no, we couldn't. We tried and the wording just got awkward.)
The weekend we arrived in town was the beginning of Bay Area dance week - hundreds of free dance classes all across the city. Monday evening we went to a beginners Argentine tango class. We showed up to find that it was not actually a one-off dance class, but instead an on-going 12 week course, open to the public for this particular week. And they were in their 10th week. But the teacher was fantastic (she brought snacks!), and introduced us to vals, a tango style set to a waltz count.
After ocho-ing our way through the class (and escaping with our toes mostly un-crushed), we met up with Mike to go to the weekly fire jam in Golden Gate Park. We made a detour to check out the SF Circus Center and watched the students practicing trampoline and trapeze, then worked on our own circus skills at the burn. Fire eating + partner acro = great idea.
Tuesday morning Ellen strutted her stuff in a super secret women's only dance class, then we went into the city to explore. We walked through Haight/Ashbury, which was underwhelming, then relaxed in the park. As we were laying in the grass, a gopher showed up to keep us company. Watching him poke his head out of his hole was more entertaining than browsing the Haight.
Wednesday morning we went rock climbing (you’re all shocked, we can feel it), then visited Roger’s good friend Cynthia, who lives in Oakland and would be our host a few weeks later, post-Hawaii. After tea and catching up we drove back across the bridge for a swing dance class. We would have gone to the Vulcan spin jam later that night, but the Vulcan is in Oakland, and there’s a law in San Fran about crossing the bridge more than once a day. We spent the rest of the evening hanging with Mike and getting ready for… Firedrums!
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