Culture Shock

Although I have experienced firsthand the shock that comes upon returning home from an exotic voyage, it was--well, shocking. I arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon to a city that was exactly the same as I left it. Wonderful, but San Francisco had seemed so exotic when I moved here last year. Now, it's just not Buenos Aires...

I made amends with the cat yesterday, and today made the restaurant rounds. I headed back to The Restaurant, which seems to have made some exciting changes in my absence. I'll return there next week, sigh.

After spending way too long gossiping with my coworkers at The Restaurant, I headed home but first stopped by The Bistro to see my friend who'd gotten me the ill-fated job in the first place. The elephant-graveyard waiter who'd been so mean to me when I worked there for a few weeks had forgotten all about his anti-Restaurant Girl malaise, and everyone was warm and welcoming. It's always touch-and-go on the status of returning to a restaurant to say hello when you've quit without notice. I was treated to a Negroni, some radishes, French fries, and a bowl of homemade pozole that chef had cooked up with his wife over the weekend. It's nice to know I'm not despised (though I have been encouraged to visit Mondays and Tuesdays, when the fussy GM is not on the floor).

Tomorrow I'm attending the invite-only opening of some new bar on Castro street, with one of my best friends from back home who is also a charismatic bartender at the newly-revamped Transfer Bar on Church Street. It's amazing how so much has changed inside of me the last two months, but now that I am back in San Francisco my life is exactly the same as it always was.