So today, after a few days enclosed in the apartment due to illness, I woke feeling I could take the world. Have you ever felt like that? Just fed up with being inside with a glazed look and you just want to break into dancing in the street?

Well, that is how San Francisco makes me feel.

Of course, I don’t. Not physically in any case.. just mentally. I walk down my apartment building corridor swoosh-swooshing Gene Kelly style.. I continue with jazz hands in the elevator and I tap-dance out into the street after I slide  gracefully like Fred Aster out of the elevator. I am never sure if people can tell what is going on in my head, because they stare. Or maybe it is the boobs, I don’t know really. I choose to ignore it.

Anyways, so today I was meeting a friend at the Financial District of San Francisco. I decided to walk it as it was only a thirty minute walk from home.

Having been deprived any outside walking time (other than Oliver’s long walks in the morning and night and a short afternoon one that ended up in me being drenched in sweat and coursing the bloody heat) for fifteen months living in Sing Sing, I charged up my iPod with Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 and off I went.

I then thought “Why only this far, just walk all through the downtown area to North Beach then onto Bay street into the fancy Marina District since that is where I was viewing my first apartment in San Francisco.

And so I did.

This might seem trivial information for people who haven’t lived in San Francisco: It was making my walking trip a modest 5.3 miles (8.5 kilometers).

It was a lovely peripatos as I would say in Greek, and I also had a little pit stop to refuel at a lovely Italian (duh!) restaurant across Washington Square. I found a lovely pet store, heard Italian being spoken with incredible flair (as it should be), I scoped a new tattoo place and I scanned all the coffee shops for potential future trips.

I took the bus home and then I had to walk more to view another place. By the end of the day I wasn’t walking home, I was kinda pushing my hips forward and dragged my feet along carefully (so as to not harm the pretty little ballerinas I was wearing) feeling most definitely sore but extremely pleased with myself.

I know tomorrow is going to be a hard day to walk Oliver.

It was worth every step and I can’t help but think that this city is probably one of the most amazing ones I have lived in.

San Francisco, we meet at last.

Song of the Day:

Proclaimers, I’m gonna be (the man who walked 5,000 miles)

Pretenders, Middle of the Road