San Diego Food-Trip

This past weekend I went down to San Diego for one last hurrah in order to see friends still in the area and in order to go back to some of my favorite food haunts before heading further south. As I did with my East Bay Favorites, I thought I would give a selection of highlights followed by some photos from my travels.

Mama's Bakery: This place is somewhat out of the way, right off of El Cajon Blvd near University Heights. The food is consistently tasty and the portions are generous. This time I got the Grape Leaves Wrap, though I also highly recommend the Fried Eggplant Wrap.

Café Sevilla Salsa Night: Thursday night salsa dancing has a live band!! Tons of fun, though the bar claims to not have tap water (you have to pay $3 for a small bottle of tapped water) which is lame, so go well-hydrated.

Amarin Thai: Best lunch special in town. I went on my first full day in San Diego with the lovely Vera and Boyko. I got the spicy eggplant, which is my favorite dish ever, but the food choices of my lunch-mates (yellow curry and drunken noodles) were also quite tasty.

Balboa Park Tea Pavillion: Along with being in a great location, these guys have some excellent tea (try the sakura green tea) and their mochi was really incredible (I recommend the red bean mochi).

La Jolla Farmers Market: After years of going to the Hillcrest Farmer's Market every Sunday, I did not realize that there is another one going on just up the coast in La Jolla. While there are slightly less produce options, the prepared foods and artisan stands are excellent.

Balboa Park

I went to the Botanical Building in Balboa Park for the first time this trip despite having lived next door for two years! The building has free entry until 4pm every day except Thursdays when it is closed, and it has a really neat variety of plants from all over the world. These sunflowers were at the main intersection on the PradoView of the sunset from the outlook point off of La Jolla Farms RoadTami and I in Coronado with the Hotel Del (coming up on the 50th anniversary of Some Like it Hot!!)

Food Edition (and less than one month to go!)

Since my last post, I have been hard at work eating as much wonderful food as possible and seeing friends, ideally at the same time. I figured I would give some shout-outs to my favorite eating places around Berkeley. Last week I met up with my friend Rebecca P. We first headed to Cafe Mattina on Telegraph (for those of you who went to Berkeley before, the cafe formerly known as Cafe Intermezzo) and shared a HUGE veggie salad, which was fabulous and filling. After eating til it hurt, we walked to the original Berkeley Bowl to check out the peaches from Masumoto Family Farms.

A few years back when I studied abroad in Mexico, I had the pleasure of living with Nikiko, a family farmer from the Central Valley whose farm grows organic peaches and grapes. Her father, David Mas Masumoto is an accomplished writer and proponent of slow food and along with his peaches, I recommend his book Harvest Son, which is a simple and beautiful recounting of his family history and life on the farm (I like it so much I am taking it to Guatemala with me). A little over a week ago Nikiko advised me that her family had just hand packed some of their best peaches and sent them up to Berkeley Bowl. The display was impressive and the peaches tasted even better than they looked:

The joys of Berkeley Bowl could keep me entertained and well fed for months, and when I cannot get to South Berkeley I am equally impressed by the nice selection at Monterey Market, but I was born to roam, so I have also been to these restaurants/eateries, which I summarize below:

Metreon Farmer's Market: Last Thursday I headed over to the city with Emily R., officially my favorite silk-screener, and instead of going to the Jewish Contemporary Art museum, the intention of our trip, we decided to eat instead. The Metreon and Yerba Buena gardens, which are located just a few blocks from the Embarcadero bart stop and close to the Jewish Art Museum, MOMA and Folklore Museum, are a great place to grab a bite to eat, especially this summer since there is a free concert series going on in the gardens. Inside the Metreon there is a daily farmer's market, which is odd insofar as it is very subdued, but there is a wide selection of prepared foods, from tamales to vegan health bars to Afghani food, which Emily and I indulged in. After Afghani food I was ready for some self-serve frozen yogurt, and I saw tell-tale signs of a nearby location. When we got to the place, which shall remain nameless, I saw that exorbitant prices were being charged (43 cents per ounce, robbery!). I knew where we had to go...so we crossed the Bay and headed straight back to the Berkeley campus where we ate at the newest and most popular frozen yogurt stand.

Yogurtland: Following the footsteps of all the self-serve yogurt stands in San Diego (my favorite being YogurtWorld at UCSD), Yogurtland allows you to fill up your cup with the flavors and toppings of your choosing, while making claims about health. At only 30 cents per ounce, you can get thoroughly stuffed without having to break the bank.

Good to the last drop

Berkeley Farmer's Market: This past week I attended every single farmer's market (thanks to RoseAnna on Tuesday, Nicole on Thursday, and Daria on Saturday). As can be expected, great though possibly overpriced food can be found.

On Saturday I attended an early morning yoga class at Yoga to the People (donation-based yoga, how much more Berkeley can you be?) with Daria to work up an appetite for serious eating. Post-class, we walked to the Gourmet Ghetto to hit up one of my favorite places, The Juice Bar Collective, an eatery that I started going to once a week in high school and which I attempt to give as much business as possible every time I am in town. I usually order a large soup of the day and a muffin, and Saturdays are the best because on Saturdays they have yam and buckwheat muffins, which look blue, and taste GREAT. Right up the block from The Juice Bar Collective is the first Peet's Coffee & Tea, which was recently remodeled to have sitting room, nice restrooms and mini-museum-like displays. Not far away are other Gourmet Ghetto stalwarts: the Cheeseboard Collective, Gregoire's, Masses Bakery, and Chez Pannise, all of which are really good (I speak from experience for all but Gregoire's and Chez Pannise, but I have heard only good things).

I have yet to make it out to the Elmwood/Rockridge area of Berkeley/Oakland, but when I go, I intend to hit up Nabolom Bakery, another cooperative bakery which has killer fruit cakes, and Bittersweet Café, a chocolate café with hot chocolate to die for.

I could go on forever about food in the Bay Area, and if anyone has any questions or comments either about places I recommended (like about specific foods) or about types of restaurants eateries not mentioned, leave a comment and it will be my pleasure to reply at length.

In non-food related news, on Sunday I attended my first official IRPS Alumni event as an alumni less than one month after graduation at Coyote Park in the South Bay, where I ate and mingled, much like all events with free food at UCSD minus the stress. The class of 2008-2009 contingent took a photo by the Bay:

Me, my hair, Preston under attack, Olivia, Oliver, and Taiga

After a few weeks of just focusing on consumption, I got an email today with the following letter attached for my parents about communicating with me while I am abroad, which reminded me, less than a month to go (I head to DC for staging on August 10th and then go to Guatemala August 12th). I figured the more people who want to communicate with me from afar the better for me, so attached for your viewing pleasure is some Peace Corps literature. Feel free to comment about anything and everything, and I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Communicating With Your Peace Corps Volunteer
While Overseas

July 13, 2009

Dear Families,

Greetings from the Central America Desk in Washington, D.C. It is with great pleasure that we welcome your family member to the 2009 Guatemala training program. We receive many questions from Volunteers and family members regarding travel plans, sending money, relaying messages and mail, and general correspondence inquiries. As we are unable to involve ourselves in the personal arrangements of Volunteers, we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance by providing specific examples of situations and country-specific best practices in managing communication concerns.

1. Written Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Antigua, Guatemala.) The mail service in Guatemala is not as efficient as the U.S. Postal Service; thus, it is important to be patient when sending or waiting to receive written mail. It can take 4 to 6 weeks for mail coming from Guatemala to arrive in the United States via the Guatemalan postal system.

Volunteers often enjoy telling their “war” stories when they write home. This is one of the exciting and adventurous elements of serving as a Volunteer. Anecdotes in letters might describe recent illnesses, lack of good food, isolation, transportation challenges, etc. While the subject matter is good reading material, it is often misinterpreted or exaggerated on the home front. There are two Peace Corps Medical Officers at the Peace Corps office in Guatemala. In the event of a serious illness, the Volunteer is sent to an approved hospital where medical care is managed by our Medical Officers. If Volunteers require medical care that is not available in Guatemala, they are medically evacuated to a nearby country (in most cases, Panama) or the United States. Fortunately, these are rare circumstances.

If for some reason your normal communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member for an abnormal amount of time, bearing in mind that many sites do not offer constant or reliable communication options, you may want to contact the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Washington at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that we can inform the Volunteer. You may call the above number during regular business hours, as well as after hours and weekends. Tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency and the Duty Officer will return your call.

2. Telephone Calls. The telephone service in Guatemala is relatively good and service in and out of Guatemala to the United States is mostly reliable and can be fairly inexpensive. During training, your family member may have scarce access to email, but some of the host training families may have phones in either their homes or at a nearby location. Your family member will communicate what that phone number may be. Most Trainees purchase cell phones in the first month in Guatemala and are able to communicate relatively frequently with families and friends.

During their service, access to email should be available—albeit not necessarily at all times. They will also be able to inform you of their telephone number once they arrive at their permanent sites in the country.

The Central America Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Guatemala through phone calls and email. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, email, or personal phone calls- unless there is an emergency and you cannot reach your family member.

3. Sending packages. Family and friends like to send care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to the high incidence of theft and heavy customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. We do not recommend that costly items be sent through the mail. Expensive or large items sent through the mail will be taxed by customs in Guatemala and your family member will have to pay a substantial fee upon going to the postal office here to receive the package. You may use the following address to send letters and/or padded envelopes to your family member until he/she has informed you of a different address:

PCT Jon Doe
Cuerpo de Paz
Apartado Postal 66
Antigua Guatemala
Sacatepequez 03001
Guatemala
Central America

It is recommended that packages be sent in small padded envelopes only, as boxes, and large or heavy items will be taxed and the Peace Corps Volunteer will have to pay to receive the package.

We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala. We understand how frustrating it can be to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the Central America Desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone numbers are 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2520 or 2521, or locally, 202-692-2520, or 202-692-2521.


Sincerely,

Kimberley Coyne Joshua O’Donnell
Central America Desk Officer Central America Desk Assistant
kcoyne@peacecorps.gov jodonnell@peacecorps.gov
202.692.2520 202.692.2521

Updates

Hello my few and faithful readers (probably just you mom, don't worry I'll do the dishes later). It has been a long time since I last updated my blog, so to be brief: I went back to school, suffered through some classes, moved to my third and final apartment in San Diego (three places in three years) and finally graduated on June 14th, 2009 as an official MASTER of the Pacific.

With my dad, mom, and an uncomfortable hood.

My fabulous friends who came to visit, Tami is now officially two for two in college graduations.

Overall I would rank my second year as far more enjoyable than the first, not least of all because the light at the end of the tunnel was a lot closer (the light of unemployment), and I took easier classes (Supply Chain Management or Portuguese for Spanish speakers, hmmmmmm).

Anyhow, I finished up my degree, packed up my last apartment with fewer boxes than when I moved in, and came back home to the Bay Area with new found wisdom and knowledge...and a bed in the same room as my sister. Who was it that said the more things change, the more they stay the same?

After just a few days at home, I flew to Washington, DC complements of your taxpayer dollars in order to interview for a job I applied for back in February to serve as a foreign service officer with USAID. The flights took me through Minneapolis, which I have never visited before but which I always associate with snow, so I was quite surprised when I got into the airport to find that it was hot and muggy. I participated in a two-day interview process for a position in the Foreign Service as a Project Development Officer. The first day of the interview I interviewed with three other candidates. We started out by writing a policy memo on a computer based off of information we were given in a document for a fictionalized developing country. We were then ushered into a room in front of a panel of three career USAID consultants who observed us for half an hour as we discussed the case, came up with a consensus, and then presented it to them. Finally, there was a one-on-one interview, which was also infront of the panel. Overall it was an awkward experience, and I think I did ok, but then again, I have no idea what the three people watching us were looking for since they were quiet and gave no responses to any action on my part...

The second day, I was the only candidate to return in order to undergo security clearance. The security clearance process is usually undertaken after a person has gotten a job offer, but since I will be leaving the country before the job offer is made, they wanted to jump-start the process just in case. I went to the basement of the USAID building and spent three hours getting interviewed and asked for contacts for every activity or place I have lived in the past ten years and then getting fingerprinted. The best part of the interview was probably when the interviewer asked me what I was doing now that I was graduated and I told him I was thinking of volunteering and he cut to the chase "You're unemployed." When I argued that my volunteering was a valuable contribution, I got shut down, "Unemployed." So much for subtlety. My three days in DC (one day flying out and then two half days interviewing) were probably three of the longest of my life since I could not fall asleep (on CA time) and then would wake up early anticipating the interviews. Now that I have interviewed I get to sit tight until the end of August to find out if I am going to be offered a job, so I will keep you posted.

I am not really sweating the USAID job since I already accepted my invitation to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala starting in August 2009! I was assigned to the Municipal Development Program, which sounds pretty similar to the work that I did in Bolivia last summer, so I am really excited for my assignment and have already started packing for the trip. In case anyone is interested in visiting me in Guatemala, I will have three months of training and then officially swear in as a volunteer in October 2009, at which point I will be assigned to my site. During training and then my first three months on site, I am not allowed to have visitors or travel around, but after that, starting in February 2010, I can have visitors or travel myself, so if anyone was planning a trip to Central America or wants to plan one, let me know so we can coordinate:) I plan to keep up this blog as I start my service in Guatemala, so also make sure to check back if you want to know what I am up to and I will attempt to update it more frequently than every eight months.

For my last month before heading out, I have started volunteering with East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, and I am also planning on participating in Aids Walk SF on July 19th. At the end of July I will make one last pass through San Diego for a few days to catch up with anyone still in SoCal, but otherwise I'll be in the East Bay. If anyone is interested in participating in Aids Walk, coming by EBSC to volunteer, or just hanging out before I leave the states for a while, let me know, I look forward to keeping in touch!