In awe

San Francisco, the 21th of April 2009

I'm just so grateful to get to be here. I remember crying to my mother during Christmas holidays because I didn't know what to do with this spring. Somehow I knew that God had something special to planned for me. And now I live in San Francisco. Every week I get to experience so much new things and get to see amazing places. I've just been in awe about everything so many times. I'm starting to fall in love with this city and already planning when to come back here. God is such a fulfiller of dreams. It's funny how you sometimes think that everything is always gonna go the way that they've gone in the past. But God has come to give us future.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares
the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11

That's a bible verse that really spoke to me last fall. Cause sometimes I tend to think that things will never change. Even though I didn't want to think like that but on some unconscious level i did. So I just tried to stick to what is written cause that's the truth in spite of my feelings. And now I think that I've learned a bit more about that. God is a good God and wants only good things for His children.

Performing on Broadway

Last week I worked with many different things. I made some lunches, prepared some rooms for visitors and worked in the office. On Friday afternoon I was signed to go for a prayer walk to the Pacific Heights with Saeng from Thailand.

A look to the Ocean from the Pacific Heights

Up on the hill

The Pacific Heights is an area where rich people live. Because of its beautiful surrounding, hills and awesome houses, there has been filmed many movies also.

This place is known from the movie Ms Doubtfire

It would be a dream place to live. It was almost like in movies; people had gardeners taking care of their beautiful gardens and it was so peaceful all around.

Houses of the area

In the middle of the week I reseived a gift card from the Journey church I visited on Sunday. The card was for Peet's coffee and tea shop which is a local coffee shop chain. They wanted to send it to me and welcome me to their church by having a bevearige on them. And it sure did make me feel welcome and happy. It was so kind of them. That is something that we should also be doing in my home church back in Finland.

Our Saturdays have turned out to be active days here. This Saturday I went for a bike tour with Hannah and Manny. Biking is very popular here and if I move back here, I'll definitely get one for myself. Bikes here are different from Finland's. Almost everybody rides a racing bike and I got to ride one too.

My ride

It was so cool riding the same lanes with cars and buses. We cycled around the city; through Chinatown, through Little Italy, by the Ocean, through many different parks, by the Palace of Fine Arts, up to a very steep hill, down the hill and so forth. I got to see even the famous fog of San Francisco for the first time. It looked so cool. I've never seen anything like that in my life before. It covered almost the whole Golden Gate Bridge and continued out to the Ocean.

The fog covering almost the whole bridge

The fog seen from the North Beach,
I think it was that beach

When riding a bike in San Francisco it's almost impossible to avoid uphills. They were quite killers but it was worth it. And a good work out is always welcome.

The Palace of Fine Arts

There's this one Thai food place callet the Old Siam just a block away from my home. After the bike ride I was starving and went to get some veggies, tofu and peanuts with rice. It was so good. I think thai food is my favorite.

The rest of the Saturday night I spent hanging out with people at the base. We played killer uno and watched a movie. I'm starting to feel more relaxed here around the people and really like them. This place is beginning to feel more like home and that's nice.

My friend Luke lives in a building that has a pool and a hot tub on its roof. On Sunday I headed there with three lovely girls Eva, Mindy and Holly. We spent sun bathing and swimming for a couple of hours. It was so nice cause the weather was extremely hot. The temperature went up to 95 Fahrenheits witch is 35 Celsius degrees. We don't even get that war weather during summers back in Finland. So you can only imagine how much I enjoyed. Hope i caught sun tan on my skin. Yey, this year I get to have a long summer.

After coming back from the pool I headed to the center for coffee and to see some shops with Eva and Holly. They're both dts student. Eva is from Australia and Holly is an American. Me and Holly are quite alike in many things. It was a nice day and I was really happy to get to spend it with such such great girls.

Sunday I was the first time that I pumped into some Finns here. I've met plenty of Swedish but they were the first from Finland. I got to speak Finnish with them for a minute or so but it felt funny. I have wrote and thought in Finnish but haven't spoken it ever since I got back from Redding. I think I even made some tiny mistakes which is weird cause it's my native language. Another thing that I noticed was that I spoke like an American. Here people are more excited and use stronger words when describing something. So I was telling them about me starting to fall in love with the city and hoping that they have a great time here. Well, now that I say it, it doesn't seem like such a big of a deal but in that moment I noticed that this culture has affected me in some way.