Photos of the city and first days at school

  So wedenesday, I was going to go visit some of the art galleries and in particular the MOMA, but to my disappointment, I discovered that a lot of the galleries are actually closed on a wednesday. I actually found out since that it was a good thing, because a lot of the galleries here are outrageously expensive (between $15 and $25), but with my SFAI student card, I'll get free entry or at least a lot of money off, so I'm glad I had to wait. Instead I went to do a bit of shopping and wandering around the streets. One of my favorite things about San Francisco are all the beautiful flowers and exotic plants:

Impromptu piece of percussions on pots and pans, the guy was very talented!

I found an art store on Market Street, which is very convenient for me. As it turned out, it wasn't exactly what we'd call a store in european terms, but more like a warehouse... It was huge! Security even made you check in your bag at the front desk to stop you stealing anything. But at least I'm sure to find absolutely anything I need. Going clothes shopping next, I discovered that the States have a different take on shopping assistants. Instead of just identifying themselves then waiting for you to come and see them if you need them, American shopping assistant have more of a stealth technique. They dress in a totally non-descript manner then side up to you, acting like they're just looking at clothes like everyone else before opening up with a "How're doing?". At this point, I'm thinking it's just an over-friendly shopper and give a vague answer before they pounce and start asking if I need help, have I seen this special promo or can they offer me a bag to carry my purchases? It was very disconcerting, a bit like having a shopping stalker...

I had to take this photo, because in a world where everyone's being told to quit, this looked like the smokers' last bastion of defense :-)

 A few first impressions on my school SFAI... It's realy close by to where I live, only a 15 min bus ride, which is great, or at least I thought so until I saw the hill I'm gonna have to climb up every morning to get to the school...

It turns out my school is on one of the tallest hills in San francisco, so there's really no escaping it, whichever way you try to get there, there's always a hill to climb...Oh well, at least i guess I'll get fit... :-s

I realised how steep the hills were when I started seeing these signs around the school. Apparently, a few days before I started school, someone parked their car wrong or forgot to put their handbrake on properly and it rolled down the hill and smashed into another 3 cars...

The entrance to the school. The school looks like a big italian villa, it's really beautiful!

  Entrance courtyard and the fountain actually has gold fish in it! My first thought was that anyone coming to the Glasgow School of Art on exchange from SFAI is gonna be in for a big disappointment if they end up in our crumbling old sculpture building...

  The school is full of murals, it's really beautiful! They treat it like an exhibition space, so you can apply to paint a mural and it stays up for a set period of time.

These are the sculpture facilities, they have a woodwork, metal and ceramics department and more. The only downside is that you don't get any dedicated studio space, so it'll be interesting to see how we're gonna manage space issues.

During orientation, they took us through everything from school schedules to how to get a mobile phone or open a bank account. It's surprisingly easy to open a bank account over here... All I had to do is show them my passport and visa along with a bank card! No need for any proof of address... When i think how long it took me to be able to open my first UK account, this was a dream in comparison! My favourite bit of the orientation was the earthquake bit in the safety presentation. Apparently most people around here have an earthquake kit near their desk and at home, which is meant to allow them to survive any catastrophy for up to 72hrs without assistance from the authorities. We got given this website http://72hours.org/index.html where we could find advice on how to put together our own earthquake kit. Apparently one of the faculty members has a bottle of whisky in her earthquake kit, so she can trade it on the black market if necessary. I hope it's some of the good stuff :-)

Courtyard outside the school's cafeteria, I love these skylights!

Last, but not least... The view from our school with Alcatraz peaking out of the fog... Nice!