Aunt Annie and Uncle Wally were visiting from the East Coast on the same weekend as Treasure Island Flea Market. First we had to do our obligatory swing by Baker Beach, my favorite spot in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All guests to our apartment are required to walk the 5 blocks to Baker Beach and take the obligatory Golden Gate Bridge picture.

Then we drove across the city and half way across the Bay Bridge down to the Treasure Island Flea market. No one really bought anything this time. I got a pair of Ariat paddock boots to wear with jeans for $12 because they just so happened to be size 7.5. My excitement waned when I realized there was a piece of horse poop still stuck to the bottom. After sharing this discovery with my companions, no one wanted to shop anymore. Our group had become hungry by this point, so we began assessing our food truck choices. The Chairman was there as usual, as was the Slider Shack. Our group decided on Adam’s Grub Truck, thanks to the ridiculously alluring names on the menu– with choices like “The Kraken,” “The Double Dragon” and “The Mad Phoenix,” I didn’t think I would ever be able to choose.

Fortunately, the jalapeños and “Liquid Dragon Fire” sauce caught my eye, so I settled on “The Drunken Master.” This was an excellent choice– pulled pork, jalapeños and Asian slaw on a brioche bun. We sat on the lawn enjoying our various creations from Adam’s Grub Truck.

Picture of Adam’s Grub Truck… now you’ll know what to look for! Follow them on Twitter @adamsgrubtruck, as they tweet out their location!

When Treasure Island flea market is not in session, Soma Street Food Park is your best daily bet for SF’s amazing food trucks! They have plenty of good seating over there, too! I’ve been over there three times already, despite it being on the complete opposite corner of the city from me.

Yesterday I finally pulled it off- I combined two of my loves, that is, yoga and working on my tan. Sunday on the Little Marina Green, Wanderlust yoga did its tour through SF. I ended up with a righteous sunburn on my forehead and a perfectly sore body.

Danielle and I arrived shortly before noon, and we had front row seats in front of the yoga stage. I had never done yoga with such a large group of people and certainly never done yoga outside. Even better was that all the Zico coconut water, Luna bars, LYFE food samples, and Kefir chapsticks were free! We even got cool things like recyclable grocery bags, temporary yoga-themed tattoos, and hair bands. Did I mention the yoga classes were FREE all day!? If you take into account my $2 SF Muni bus fare, my afternoon of yoga cost me a whopping $2!

We took the first class with Pradeep Teotia, who is a teacher who teaches at Yoga Tree Castro on the weekends. Danielle, Monica and I go to Yoga Tree Castro on Tuesdays and Thursdays to do Vinyasa Flow with Buddy Macuha at 8pm, and it was cool to try Pradeep. I may go to him this weekend. Pradeep’s class was followed by Susan Hauser who teaches Vinyasa also at Yoga Tree but at the Corte Madera location. Both classes were invigorating. Pradeep was hilarious and Susan played really good music– Matisyahu primarily.

Wanderlust’s next big thing is their yoga retreat up in Tahoe (Squaw Valley) in July. I feel like the atmosphere there will be like an outdoor music festival, except that the people going there want to do good things for their bodies and health. I may go, except that it backs right up to my summer trip to Chile with my students!

I get the impression that most San Franciscans would switch my ranking of Alameda antiques fair and Treasure Island flea market. San Franciscans freak out about Alameda and not so much for Treasure Island, but I am the opposite. They are both amazing, but at Treasure Island I know one of the vendors, and knowing someone there really made the experience more meaningful for me.

I find the items at Treasure Island to be really artisan and really artsy. Everything at Treasure Island is like artwork to me.

I wanted to buy every piece I saw, but I didn’t.

But I did cave in when I saw this Bloodstone and gold-plated hand-made ring. It was made by a girl about my age.

Then the nerd in me wanted to check out the antique maps from around the world:

Then I picked through the colorful wooden picture frames and sparkly vintage hand bags, but didn’t get any of those.

By this time I was hankering for a snack. There are lots of trendy delicious food trucks at Treasure Island flea. I wasn’t hungry enough for a meal, so I opted for this organic, still-warm fresh baked chocolate chip cookie from the Cookie Time truck.

The Chairman Taiwanese food truck would have been my choice if I had been more hungry. It is incredibly popular in SF.

Then I wandered around the yard enjoying the view of San Francisco and the beautiful Bay Bridge and checked out the live music.

Then I ran into my friend Erin who owns a lavender stand and often rents a spot for herself at Treasure Island flea market. Her purse-size hand lotions and candles made great gifts for my mom and the ladies in my family.

You can check out more info on Erin’s lavender business here at pelindabalavender.com. Back at Christmas time I used her lavender lotions and votive candles as stocking stuffers.

Between the food trucks, the 360-degree views of the San Francisco bay, the dancing lady statue, the organic chocolate chip cookies and the hip handmade jewelry, Treasure Island flea is my favorite market in SF Bay Area. From my house it is only half as far as Alameda, so I’m loving it. Treasure Island flea is the last Saturday and Sunday of every month, so I’ll be there this weekend- bringing Shane’s aunt and uncle! Can’t wait!

Alameda is the largest market on my list. It is set up on an old navy yard on Alameda Island in the East Bay, not far from Oakland. Here in the background you can see the cranes that lift the enormous containers off the huge freighters.

Alameda has really high quality goodies, and the stuff is really cool. You get a lot of random bizarre stuff, but it is all mint quality at Alameda. You’ve always wanted the pair of these, right?

This pink elephant is featured on the flyer they hand you when you walk in. I wonder if anyone has bought him yet.

There is a lot of quality vintage furniture. Shane and I bought really cool wooden stools for our kitchen bar for $35 each. The items are not cheap here, but worth the splurge due to the great craftsmanship. There is colorful furniture like this all over the market:

You get a lot of awesome tchotchke collections here, too, just like at Alemany, but everything here is in better condition.

Alameda also has an extensive collection of food trucks. We ate at Le Truc. There are amazing artisan burgers and garlic fries. It was excellent. We ate sitting in the benches inside the truck. It’s a cool concept and was a fun experience.

We ended up getting this beige / yellow colored desk from 1940 for our living room. We brought it home, and we are in love with it! It was 65 bucks.

You can visit the Alameda antiques fair the first Sunday of every month. The next one is May 5!

It even has glitzy things like these appliquéd mirrors; there is a small selection of vintage handbags, jewelry and tchotchkes.

You know you’re in a flea market when you see a poster for Tournee du Chat Noir. Alemany Flea also has a good selection of jackets and coats including decent brands like JCrew and Banana Republic.

A snazzy second-hand guitar might strike your fancy:

Or this fishing pole collection:

Shane was particularly excited about the vintage external frame Jansport hiking / camping backpacks.

Shane and Scott check out the mountain of tools.

As you can see, Alemany Flea market is a mish-mosh of decent vintage items. Shane and I ended up getting three rugs for our apartment. Scott got a wooden chair, a milk crate and a calendar from December 1992.

If it’s the weekend, and you’re hankering for a flea market experience, and some of the more awesome ones aren’t on that weekend (posts forthcoming!), you’d be fine to go to Alemany and have a satisfying flea market experience.

San Francisco has markets. I would have left by now if it didn’t, obviously.

For me, when it comes to markets, I’m looking for the flea market to meet several stringent requirements. It must be bustling and colorful, it must offer unique artisan items as opposed to things we could buy in a regular store, and there must be a good selection of local food vendors as well.

Here is the first post in this week’s series that recounts the best SF Bay Area flea markets in the order of least awesome to most awesome, according to my criteria as outlined above.

LEAST AWESOME of the best SF Bay Area flea markets: Berkeley flea market at Ashby Station, Berkeley, CA (every Saturday and Sunday; free entry)

The website I’ve linked you to does this flea market way too much justice. The main reason I didn’t like it is because nothing there seemed particularly unique. Vendors sold items like bootlegged CDs and DVDs, and it really felt like a garage sale rather than a market.

That being said, I still managed to buy something. I figured Berkeley was the best place to buy tie-dye, so I bought a scarf for $10. I think I should have bargained, but the vendor lady seemed to need the money, so I just paid.

Here I am at China Beach back in the city later that afternoon trying it out against the wind.

The scarf passed the test.

A redeeming factor of this scruffy flea market is the charming surprise of the drum circle.

And per usual, the best way to Marisa’s heart is through her stomach. I’m a sucker for hot dogs. This guy claims that his “hot dog salsa” is a unique recipe in the Bay Area, warning me that I will never find it anywhere else. The dogs and accompanying salsa were tasty despite being probably unhealthy.

At the end of the day, I’m all for an adventure. I say still go to the Berkeley flea market at the Ashby Bart station. It’s only uphill from here.

Stay tuned for more posts about flea markets in SF that are more awesome than this one!

In this 1987 work, Rushdie illustrates Nicaragua the way he experiences it during the Sandinista dictatorial rule, to which he was sympathetic. The book put a lot into perspective for me, (despite likely glossing over of the more gruesome details of the dictatorship, due to the fact that Rushdie was there on the Sandinistas’ invitation).

Reading this book was an important experience for me in my development as a critical reader. (NB: While reading this particular work, I did in fact keep it in mind to take all of Rushdie’s statements with a grain of salt, seeing as he is so well-known for his incendiary prose.) First of all, it was perspective-altering to read about the tumultuous political and social goings-on in a tiny country that would one day mean so much to me (I have visited Nicaragua twice), but seeing as I was busy being a toddler in New Jersey a few miles from the Newark airport, the upheaval in Nicaragua didn’t mean anything to me at the time the book was written.

Secondly, Rushdie blatantly depicts the United States as the bad guys throughout the entire book, and it occurred to me while reading this book that this was the first time in my literary adventures that I had ever read a work that portrays the US as the antagonist. While the truth usually lies somewhere in between what the parties say on opposite ends of a conflict, Rushdie’s work made me realize that the US policy towards Nicaragua not only had immediate effects in the 80s, but also led me wonder whether the US’s role in Nicaraguan politics at a significant time in the country’s development may have had effects that potentially are at the root of some of Nicaragua’s modern problems – poverty, lack of access to education and health care in rural areas, and so on. After all, I was there with my students on a service trip to break ground for a pre-school in a remote village that has no running water or electricity. There is one teacher with an assistant, and doctors only come in the form of volunteers who come every so often from non-profits- Nicaragua has some of the worst poverty levels in the western hemisphere that afflict the small population of less than 6 million. Therefore, while reading the book, I had to ask myself if any of Nicaragua’s modern problems could be attributed to the US embargo, Iran-Contra and subsequent events. I suppose not all of Nicaragua’s problems could be ascribed to those specific incidents, but I wonder if one could entirely rule out such a significant part of the country’s history either. (for example, look how the US embargo has stunted Cuba’s development)

our group on the work site breaking ground for the pre-school

Despite the complicated history not too many decades ago, I was under the impression that Americans are very well-received in Nicaragua. Our group received nothing but the most effusive welcome and extreme gratitude for the small project we worked on. In the event that my own country had purposefully or inadvertently set policies in motion a long time ago that stunted Nicaragua’s development at an integral time, our group felt as if we were doing our part to remedy that unfortunate time period through our good work.

In sum, my reading of The Jaguar Smile was typical Rushdie– controversial, shocking, bold, and very well written. The book moved at a good pace; I was done in a handful of hours.

Recently the Rustic Pathways northern California salesperson came to my school to drop off brochures / view books for all the students. As he helped me transport the heavy boxes, he finally said, you look so familiar, but I don’t know from where.

After brainstorming, he remembered that he had recently seen the above video that was made at the end of Rustic Pathways’ inaugural summer in the Dominican Republic.

Seeing my cameo towards the end of the video brought back many great memories of leading inspiring service projects in the bateyes of the DR for high school students last summer. Most people don’t realize that the programs are just as rewarding for the trip guides as for the student participants! My own experience with Rustic Pathways was invaluable.

Statue of Ignatius J. Reilly guarding the hotel Chateau Bourbon Wyndham in New Orleans.

My favorite book of all time was published posthumously after Toole’s suicide. Most readers report that they find the protagonist’s escapades exasperating; at a recent book club, one of the girls voiced that she found him irredeemable. I, on the other hand, find endless enchantment in all of his antics, as Ignatius J. Reilly’s daily jaunts read like a Seinfeld episode. I cut him a little more slack and feel that at one time or another, everyone has always felt as if they don’t “fit in” in the society or situation in which they currently find themselves. Ignatius bemoans the state of modern society– that all people are wholly lacking in “taste and decency.” Ignatius is well-read but lacks the social graces to construct a productive and fulfilling life for himself. My favorite quote in the book:

“You could tell from the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.”

Ignatius was college educated, and Toole himself was a Tulane and Columbia graduate and later on a college professor; more and more in the 21st century we are finding that formal traditional education just isn’t cutting it, as it doesn’t necessarily predispose an individual for success in society or in his or her field. In fact, traditional modes of education seem to be depriving individuals of the new skill sets they need in order to adapt to a constantly evolving society. This is what ignatius and most likely Toole suffered from so acutely.

The book is quasi-biographical; I have read the book two or three times and love everything about it except for the Deus Ex Machina at the end. It just wasn’t plausible. However, seeing as the author’s life ended in suicide, perhaps the saving out of the blue at the end was just what he had been hoping for.

Traveling to New Orleans between my two readings of the book added to my understanding of the culture in which the protagonist (and author) found himself.

Getting to engage in conversation with Sindiwe Magona was an incredibly enlightening opportunity, as she articulates what life has been like in South Africa, particularly in the Cape Town area and surrounding townships, over the past several decades.

In her poetry she puts historical and social events into a personal context. She depicts how South Africa’s racial circumstances have an effect on people on a personal level and on a daily basis.

Sindiwe Magona’s ebullient personality is infectious; in her presence I was inspired by her wit and sense of humor. I was entirely in awe to be in the presence of an amazing modern writer!