I LOVE SF

Yep, the news is in the headlines. I am completely head over heals in love with this city.

View of the City on my daily commute

I always new that would be the case (and I was told that I was meant to live in San Francisco by many people before I moved here). Be it my love of yoga, my obsession with local goods, or my inability to throw out what should be composted, the culture of this city is like an embodiment of me.

So, I guess I should tell you the reasons I'm so in love (along with filling you in on my life here so far).

UCSD+Housemate dinner party!

I arrived into the city to the welcome of my good college friend Joeva, who, just so happened was looking to sublet out her room for the month.  For both of us the situation was perfect, I arrived into the city with a 'legit' place to stay while I got settled and started work, and she got to spend some time at home with her family rent-free.  The apartment is a beautiful old victorian right off of the Golden Gate Park, with a muni stop nearby (the strange SF rail/bus/subway) that would take me to the office in 15 minutes. The roommates are an awesome mixture of "young professionals" (aka recent college grads with jobs) and we enjoyed weekly 'family dinners' and a few great morning walks to the muni.  And yes, I still go over there for family dinners even though I'm no longer a roommate....technically.

I lived there for the month of October and was able to do some house hunting from there (what a fortunate event, the housing market here is tough and I'd never have found a place from afar).  I sent out a ton of emails looking for a more permanent place to live and managed to catch the attention of my current roommate, Jeff.  After a successful 'interview' we had an agreement and I moved in at the beginning of November.

Roomate Dolores and I doing acro-yoga

And with this living situation, what a lucky girl I am!  I live in Noe Valley, an adorable neighborhood in SF that boasts 24th street, a cute area of shops, restaurants, libraries, and really everything you could look for in a neighborhood. I knew I was meant to be here when I found the "bulk liquids" shop, in which you bring your own containers to fill up with whatever household liquid supply you may need (shampoo, laundry soap, etc) and pay by the ounce! It's funny to say, but when I found this store, I knew Noe Valley was perfect for me :)  I even love my ride to work!!

So now I'm living here with 2 roommates, Jeff, a 'grown-up' who copy-writes for a living and sings/plays guitar every evening that he's not working on his autobiography (which I'm excited to read!). And the most charming roommate of the house, Dolores, Jeff's 8 year old daughter who is a sweetheart and a great reminder of how much I miss my little sisters at home.

So for now, living situation=superb.

Unveiling of the HT Gong

And what about work! Well, if you call work awesome and ping-pong and snack filled, with gongs and random winery tour adventures awesome, than I guess that's what my work is!  HotelTonight has really offered me an awesome opportunity to be part of an early-stage startup (a year old in December!) and to have a really rewarding role within it.

What do we do you ask? Well, HotelTonight is a mobile only last-minute hotel booking application for the iPhone and Android.  We are a service that allows you to book hotel rooms, tonight (only). And because it's last minute we are able to get you a really good deal. Some special things about it-we only show 3 Hotels per night, per city, they're all 3 star or above, and they're either basic, charming, or luxe style hotels. So take a "staycation" or go out on New Years Eve and don't worry about driving home, instead you can pull out your phone and in 3 clicks book a hotel for the night!

A view of the HotelTonight
app on the iPhone

What do I do? I work on the Partner Development side of things, which is basically reaching out to prospective partner hotels and getting them to come on board with us.  I specifically am doing lots of prospecting for new cities-so for example, we're interested in opening in Vancouver. I'm learning all I can about the hotels there and the layout of the city (where people will be at night and want to get a hotel instead of drive home), and trying to find the best ones in the city for us to partner with. Lots of research and discovery--the only negative is that it is really making my travel bug start to itch!

From the sheer number of exclamation points, you can probably guess that I'm pretty happy about my living situation and work.  And life in general is great too! I have an amazing network of friends from college and life (and I found out this weekend someone from high school in Wyoming!) that live here and they're doing great job introducing me to the best parts of the city, I've just this week found 2 amazing yoga studios that I can guarantee I will be spending lots of time at, I have finally gotten back into a good running routine, and overall I'm loving staying busy and exploring the city (I LOVE walking around and popping in and out of whatever places look interesting).

In conclusion, I'm completely in love with living here. It works wonderfully with my lifestyle, I have an amazing community of friends, and my work excites, inspires, and challenges me.

Life Is Good!