During my recent trip to San Francisco for an academic conference, I took advantage of the fact that my roommate is a California native. The afternoon after my poster we struck out for to Chinatown in order to unwind:

and the the evening after my talk we headed to the Mission to relax:

Clearly, in my vocabulary, “unwind” and “relax” are euphemisms for “assuage presentation jitters with mountains of delicious food”.

Fortuitously, while in the Mission, I noticed that the street grates providing protection for tree roots were decorated with jaunty, dancing skeletons:

These were appropriate to my mood, since they perfectly capture the joy one feels when concluding all of one’s professional obligations for a conference and setting out to eat one’s own weight in tacos.

Had I been wearing a skirt, I too would have hiked it up for a quick jig.

San Francisco has been a fantastic trip so far, and over the next few days I’ll provide some updates about what, exactly I’ve been up to (besides eating copious amounts of tacos) during my time here.