On Friday after work, we went for drinks at Drake’s with a bunch of colleagues from Cuberg. It was really fun to chat with new colleagues on different teams, but unfortunately, I had to leave pretty early to move from the corporate apartment to a studio in the Richmond in San Francisco. When I say, TGIF, I really mean it too, time to get out of the shitty San Leandro and head back to the city.
The funniest part about the Vrijmibo (as we say in Dutch: VRIJdag MIddag BOrrel - Friday afternoon drinks) wasn’t related to the drinks, it was about how we got there. People actually drove to Drake’s. It is less than a 5 minute walk from Cuberg to Drake’s (I think about the same distance from my house in Rotterdam to the Albertheijn in Schouwbergplein - practically across the street).
The other hilarious part was my ride (so yes, I joined a car… didn’t really think that through). De’Leon was waiting for me outside in this very old insanely battered-up, sticker-covered, loose parts hanging everywhere car. His first comment before I got in was, “sorry if it smells bad, my friend spilled some bong water on the seat". I thought my Suzuki Alto back home in 2005 was crappy, but this definitely topped it. It was such a shitty car, he didn’t even bother locking the doors because no one was going to steal it anyways. Apparently, De’Leon collects these cars and has a couple back home.
the rest of the evening
I left the drinks early to head back to the apartment, gather my things and head to my new place, which was really nice. I didn’t stay long because it was 20:30 by the time I got there, still needed to have drinks and had asked Lucas out to get drinks after his comedy show. We met up on Haight St. in the Thai place that I had spotted that Monday, which wasn’t too bad and headed to my very first dive bar, MILK.
When we were about to enter, we saw an entry fee of $10 and turned around, just for the bouncer to call us back and let us in for free. A dive bar is another term for a cheap bar, not sure if that also means it needs to be dodgy looking, but I would call MILK pretty grungy. That could also have been because of the psychedelic rock-style music that a band was playing and the extremely alternative crowd (around 15-20 people in total).
The crowd included a woman wearing flower power flare pants (she could have been playing a hippie in a 70’s movie) and her partner awkwardly dancing off-beat to the music as if they were on LSD. Behind them and next to us, there was a short guy with long brown dreadlocks wearing either a beret or a bucket hat, but pretty much dressed like a rasta hippie guy which reminded me of the tourists I’d met in India. Other than that there were mostly heavily (and heavy-looking) bearded large men and the occasional partner.
Although I actually liked the music (Universe People), we left shortly after their break because I was going out for a surf with Himank, Lucas’ roommate on Saturday morning, and I was stoked (and a bit tired).
that other thing that happened this week…
To give you some context as to why I was so happy to leave, heres the deal:
There was an old black man waiting outside one of the apartments when I arrived to pick up the keys last Saturday. When the apartment manager came to let me in, he immediately grabbed my bag and insisted on helping me take it up to my apartment. I didn’t really know what to do and could hardly try ripping my bag out of his hands, so I left it. However, this meant he knew where I was staying.
He showed up at my apartment later that evening, unannounced, to ask for my number. At the time, I still thought he was just a lonely old man, so I tried to be friendly. But then, before he left, he grabbed my hand, started rubbing it, and told me what a cutie he thought I was and gave me a look that made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
Since that moment, I was constantly on guard: checking the hole in the front door to make sure he wasn’t waiting outside before I left and hesitantly walking up the stairs when I got home hoping he wouldn’t be hanging out in the hallway. On Tuesday evening he showed up at my door unannounced while I was on a call, and thanking god or whomever that I had locked the door after coming in.
On Thursday, when I got back to the apartment around 11pm, I found him hanging out at the entrance of the apartments. It was dark, quiet and late and the setting really scared the shit out of me, because I had already concluded that San Leadro is so dead and empty that you could get shot, kidnapped, or beaten up on the street and no one would ever know. I wanted to run, but tried to keep my cool and sped walked past him ignoring the conversation he was trying to start with me, and ran up the stairs as soon as I got into the building and locked the door behind me.
The lesson here by the way is, it’s good to lock your door after going inside and don’t be too friendly to strangers.
Anywho, that was pretty much the moment I decided I needed to get out of the flat, because it was really not a pleasant situation. Luckily, I had met Nick online via someone from Delft and he and his sister had a studio in the Richmond, just a 20 minute walk from Ocean Beach. FYI, according to the locals,“ Richmond” is a city in East bay and “the Richmond” is a neighbourhood in SF. So after contacting Nick’s sister Violetta and explaining the situation they agreed to let me move into their studio on the same day for a couple of weeks until I found something. THANK YOU NICK AND VIOLETTA!