San Francisco and Raphael

Just returned from my home leave back to San Francisco where it was amazing to catch up with friends, garden my yard watching Kelly’s sunsets, teach my old aerobic classes and put out forest fires friends start in Yosemite. I was only gone for ten days, but it was apparent that I now have two lives on each side of the globe along with a portion of it traveling through Europe right now.

Two weeks after the trip to India, I met Raphael, yes he is named after a Ninja turtle, at the cycling team’s jersey release. He is a very handsome, athletic, successful German who speaks six languages, including Japanese, lives down the street from me in Singapore, trains with the ANZA team, and is a member of the gym I teach at. We had five dates in five days in Singapore before I left for Hanoi and he for Frankfurt, where he will be until I return back from the Middle East in July.

After three weeks of long distance communication he joked about flying to San Francisco for the weekend to visit. Four days later, I picked him up at SFO to spend 48 hours together. What an amazing weekend. We were able to spend a day mountain biking Mt. Tam above the fog and the other in San Francisco hanging in North Beach and the Presidio.


A Jetset Girl living in a Jetson World
So the new communication mean we are using is Skype. The Jetson age has come! I am talking to a guy in a tapas bar in Mallorca, Spain with flamenco music in the background, while I sit in my living room in Singapore or I get a tour of Raphael's childhood home in the Black Forest while I sit at my desk at work in SSF. Not only can we hear each other over the internet, but we can see instant video.

I am getting ready to leave for Dubai on Friday where I will meet up with a couple of Raphael's friends, including one who is the director of an architecture firm there. On the 6th, I'll head to Beirut for a week to attend Brian and Nancy's wedding.