Gone East girls go... west? Further east? Where?

Part 1: Answering the question, "Where are you and what are you doing?" 

We'll start by going back to late January.

Kim and I had been having periodic discussions about when to decide that Ithaca wasn't working for us. It was clear that it wasn't, but the question was whether to continue trying to make it work, or to throw in the towel. I think we both knew that it wasn't where we should be and were planning to leave. There was never anything particularly bad about it, but life there felt like getting by instead of the growth and joy that we both wanted from the move. We hadn't settled on what would make us decide to move, but we hoped it would become clear.

This clarity came to us in the form of a library fine--a $94 library fine. We still can't figure out their math. Something like $50 for a book overdue for more than 30 days, the daily fines, and some other mysterious charges. It sounds a bit silly and dramatic to decide to leave over a library fine, but that got us seriously considering it.

Note: the public library system of Tompkin county in New York is not after us. We called them, got it down to $17, and paid it.

Our options were looking like we were going to have to change our blog title (by going back west to Fairfield), but then I got an amazing phone call. It was Ben and DuCiel (who you may remember from our blog post about going to their wedding in October) with the proposal that we could move to New Hampshire with them and another friends of ours from Fairfield. Du's mom owns a company that does magazine distribution, and she apparently was looking to hire someone. So Kim was offered the job, and we were offered Du's old room to stay in. Of course we were hesitant to accept, simply because we both want to avoid being a burden on anyone. After much assurance that we were not going to be trouble and that it was definitely fine, we set our course for farther east. 

We spoke with our landlord, and we agreed that we'd leave at the end of February. So we packed up, Kim left mid-month, then I kept on packing and left on March 1st. Kim had to leave early because she was needed to work. I arrived in New Hampshire at the tail end of a snow storm. I spent my first Saturday sledding, building a snow fort, having a snowball fight, and then playing games by the fire. There was immediately so much more joy than we'd had in Ithaca.

That seems like a nice bow for the end, right? Wrong! That's the bow for the first part.

Part 2: Kim's Job Perks

The Monday after I got to New Hampshire (I arrived on Thursday night), Kim and I went to San Francisco.

I'm sure you're asking why and with what money we traveled all the way across the country? The answer is because part of Kim's job is to travel, and apparently because of the clever use of frequent flier miles, I was invited along. Kim was there for the annual Exceptional Women in Publishing conference. According to her, the women she met there were successful, driven, intelligent women who were completely willing to help out younger women just starting in the industry.

We stayed in an adorable hotel between Union Square and Chinatown. Like many hotels, they had complimentary breakfast. In this case, it involved cloth napkins and a waitress taking our order. Kim and I helped make gift bags on Tuesday morning for the conference. It was a balmy not-wear-a-jacket out, so we walked in the warm sunshine to Union Square to find lunch. We ate Thai food, and then wandered through a large mall just to see what all there was. On Wednesday Kim had the conference, and I had a short jaunt to Chinatown (until I was chased back by sore feet). I did find the supposed best bakery in Chinatown, and we had bubble tea later. The bakery reminded me of being in Beijing, but the bubble tea wasn't as flavorful as I remember.

Our last day, Thursday, was a free day. We took the ferry to Sausalito, and walked around there. I love seeing cities from the water. You get such a good idea of their character. San Francisco has the skyscrapers, but only in a small area and then it's all hills and people-sized buildings. Sausalito was adorable for walking in, but we were so exhausted from jetlag and walking around earlier that we went home early. We ate more delicious Asian food (soup and curry) at a vegan restaurant. I'd never eaten at a strictly vegetarian restaurant with such an extensive menu. It was remarkable to go through pages and pages of options without having to sift through for a few dishes I would order.

On Friday we went home to New Hampshire. We arrived to a light snow shower and friends picking us up. It was good to be back.