Where am I, again?

As I mentioned in my previous post, David and I went back to San Francisco last weekend for the first time since we moved away. I had a meeting for work at my old office last Thursday, and I decided to take Friday off, with David flying down Thursday night to join me for the weekend.

I thought of this trip as a chance to say goodbye to our old home, which we didn’t really have time to do in our down-to-the-wire frenzy of getting ready to leave in September. We stayed at the Sam Wong Hotel at Columbus and Broadway in our old neighborhood — I really wanted to stay at the Columbus Motor Inn, which is where my parents used to stay when they came up from San Diego to visit, but a room wasn’t available for us there this time.

We walked around the familiar streets (when it wasn’t raining — on Friday there was an all-day downpour of a duration and intensity we haven’t seen in Seattle); visited the Hyde Street Pier, the fishing boat docks at the Wharf, and Aquatic Park; saw a play at the Marsh in the Mission on Friday night; and made Café Greco on Columbus our headquarters for visiting with friends. On Friday afternoon, we gathered with Paul, Barry, Tirtza, and Tom and chatted over coffee, and then Paul, Barry, and Tirtza went home and Tom, David, and I met Terry and Nancy down the street at Chef Jia’s.

On Sunday afternoon we went back to Greco and met Linda, who had been too sick with the flu to join us on Saturday; Tom came along too and we hung out at the same table we had occupied the day before, in the annex the café added several years ago.

I had some interesting moments of disorientation. For instance, the same content provider shows news broadcasts on little TV screens in the elevators in both my former office building in San Francisco and my current one in Seattle. Some of the content is tailored to the location, and during one elevator ride I saw a Tahoe ski report and thought, “Why are they reporting on Tahoe ski conditions in Washington state?” For a few moments I thought that the ski areas around Tahoe must be an even more impressive draw than I had ever realized, until I remembered that I was standing in an elevator in the Bay Area. This kind of thing happened a lot; I would see something that was very familiar, and because it was so familiar I would unconsciously assume I was in Seattle.

When we were having dinner at Chef Jia’s, Nancy predicted that this trip would be good for us, because as much as we love San Francisco and as painful as it was to leave, seeing it again on a visit would make Seattle feel more like home when we got back. Having been back in Seattle for five days now, I have to say that I think she was right.

Here's the gang at Café Greco on Saturday: