And We Are Back in Business

Well, that was a crazy couple of months. Guys - moving is hard. Let me just repeat that. Moving is really really hard. I kind of thought we would just throw all our stuff in a U-haul, drive down to San Diego, and be unpacked and get settled in a week - immediately having tons of free time for blog posts and cosplay and kitchen experiments. In reality - I think there's STILL a box or two hanging around and we've been here almost 4 months! I'll probably unpack it in November and then we'll decide to change apartments or something.

To add to the madness, a month in I decided that I absolutely could not continue to function without "just going to look at some puppies." We came home with the first one that seemed like she could be a good medium sized puppy that would fit our active lifestyle. Oops.

Aside from just unpacking and getting used to a baby animal in the house, moving is so much more than that. When you get to a new place, especially one as awesome as San Diego, you want to explore. We go out more at night. We've been making friends. We sign up for a lot of events. We are doing a lot. It's always so nice here. My free time isn't spent in front of a computer, it's going on walks, or swimming, or getting some sun at the pool. Finally though, I realized I missed by blog and there are a couple of clouds outside (which is probably as close as we are going to get to good blog writing weather) so it's time to fill you guys in.

One thing that I've loved about this blog is the way it's evolved. It started as My One New Thing a Week - a way for me to get out and explore SF because I wanted to move to San Diego. Ironically, after that I decided I wanted to stay in SF longer - but hey! looks like we made it to San Diego eventually after all. From there, it just became a way to document all kinds of adventures and personal journeys, and then I just wanted to step out of talking about my personal life for a while because I was hurt and a little broken and it was easier to talk about exciting new movies and my favorite books and go into another world. When I came back again, this blog became about all of those things and more. It's a place for my adventures, nerdy interests, recipes, craft ideas - everything.


So I figured all of those branches of what this blog was and is - they are all part of where I want to take it. I want to share with you my recipes and cooking adventures (and trust me, I think all the time about trying to do another cooking challenge), I want to share event and restaurant reviews, and I want this to be a great way for friends near and far to get a good pulse and what's going on with Nikki and Dan in San Diego Ville.

Anyways - we are back! I spent a strenuous afternoon at the pool taking lots of notes on blog posts for you guys so I need to get busy writing and sharing all of our adventures with you!

Week of July 11th 2011: San Francisco Zoo

Is it ok if I make up for missing weeks by doing two posts in one week? Can I just average 52 posts a year? Ironically, I tend to have a few "draft" posts but none of them were quite ready for publishing. In either case, my warning is that with studying, work, and some semblance of a life - I'm stretched a little thin for the next few weeks but I will definitely make it up to you. Anyways, enough of my excuses...

I love animals and so I really like zoos. Growing up in LA, I went to an amazing zoo fairly often. When I was in college, I decided to check out the Oakland zoo and was really disapointed. I'd heard bad things about the San Francisco Zoo as well so I was skeptical about going. However, my last job started having an annual volunteer day and one of the options was a day doing landscaping at the zoo. I don't mind manual labor and it was a chance to check out the zoo so I decided to sign up for it.

I got to pet you!

The morning at the zoo was really fun. Because there were a few different options for the volunteer day, it really split up our company and I got to interact with some people I don't get to talk to as much. Even though I knew I wouldn't be there much longer, it never hurts to be nice and get to know the people that you work with.

Since we had a pretty big group, we finished the area of the zoo that they had set out for us with plenty of time before we had to go back to work. In order to thank us for the hard work, the zoo gave us a special treat - we got to pet a Koala bear!!!

Koala bears aren't really what you'd expect... they fur is almost like petting a coarse poodle... very fluffy. The eucalyptus leaves make their fur smell amazing as well. The Koala we got to pet was "friendly" but you could tell he was still quite shy.

After the Koala bear petting, we got a brief tour of the zoo. I was really excited to get to see the tigers. Say what you will about tigers in San Francisco (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not going to learn here), they are my favorite animal. The SF zoo had several tigers and each had their own habitat, plenty of room to pace, and were easy to see. I feel like whenever I go to a zoo, the tigers are sleeping or hiding. In Oakland, the viewing areas were so small it was impossible to see anything. However, at the SF zoo, they were awake and almost eerily watching us. I made a little video of one of them pacing.

The rest of the tour was pretty brief. We saw a lot of the usual animals but there was one other stand out. The SF zoo had a few little penguins. Apparently they are a special breed that can handle warmer climates. I'd never seen those before so that was really cool.

Like I said, I really love animals and I really want to go back to the zoo some day. They actually have volunteer days some Saturdays and I've been meaning to go back. If anyone would like to join me, let me know and I send you the information.