It’s been a month since we arrived in the USA – we haven’t seen a lot of the country, but we have seen a lot. We saw a bank robbery in Millbrae, California when we went to go meet my friend for dinner. Officers had the Bank of America surrounded and were using AR-15s and drawn handguns as curious onlookers took pictures with cellphones – and yet, no mention of it on the news. It was real, there were no film crews and those were real cops with real concerns – but there it is. We went to Folsom, California and my daughter and I caught a case of the Folsom Prison Blues, while the wife scoured through antique shops looking for Moroccan tea glasses. No luck on her part. As I wrote before, we got to experience the emergency room, an ambulance and surgery when my mom’s back injury took a sudden bad turn. I’m glad to report that she’s recovering from two surgeries and doing much better. In fact, we’ve only done a small triangle in Northern California thus far. We arrived in San Francisco, stayed in San Mateo where we loved the park and little museum at Coyote Point. Then we went to Redding to stay with my mom. From there we came to Sacramento where my friends are fighting the legal system to try to keep their house from being stolen- technically, the bank considers them squatters – we’ve been house sitting for them for two weeks now while they traveled in the Southwest. So we’ve been house-sitting a very nice squat. While here, we’ve explored the American River, old town Sacramento, and checked out the history of California at the Sacramento History Museum and the California Museum of History. We’ve strolled through the grounds of the State Capital and I’ve introduced my wife to American Car Culture. We’ve gone to a drive in movie, gone through fast food drive thrus, and even tried to buy Caladryl at the pharmacy drive through. We’ve also driven all over looking at thrift shops, dollar stores, and garage sales.
Last weekend we went to San Francisco and visited the California Academy of Sciences with my sister and her kids – my wife had never seen a dinosaur of any kind before so the bones/model was astounding to her. She asked if they have dinosaurs in the zoo – which I found completely awesome because since her studies were focused on English in Morocco, she never studied zoology – it’s one reason I’ve brought my daughter to the USA – say what you will about the schools here – they are better than most in the world albeit certainly not the best the world has to offer. While we’ve been in the USA, I’ve been perpetually on the computer looking for work, finding a car, earning what money I can from my own business. This has yielded a handful of interviews and may bring a job – but until it does, I’m hesitant to rent a house anywhere because I want to keep my options open – rent in the Bay Area is freaking steep – first, last, and deposit will kill our savings (because I just spent the rest paying visa fees, flying my family from the other side of the world, and buying a car and making it all legal) and without a job to follow up on that – life could get fairly terrible fairly quick. It’s astounding how fast the money flies out even without rent…gas and food aren’t cheap. Still, we’re making it. So far, so good. Next for the job and the house….resting time is almost up. If the right job doesn’t happen in the Bay Area, I’ll take us up the coast to Seattle and Bellingham and then onward to Hawaii- at worst, we can live on the beach and fish all night. It’s better than blowing my wad on an expensive house that I may not be able to pay rent on in two months time. That’s my thinking anyway.
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