The story of Battle-Hawk, and other adventures...

Well, there have just been too many crazy stories I could tell since moving to the city, I have a few to tell right now and since they are relatively related I figure I can clump them into one post. Ok, here I go.

Battle-Hawk!
My first week here I decided to go the the girls flag-football practice, having never really played football I was a little nervous at first. I didn't know anyone, and I wasn't exactly sure how to get to Kezar Stadium in the Golden Gate Park, but eventually found my way to the stadium and sauntered over to the group of YSA, well I assumed they were, and timidly joined in. We did a few warm ups to start, and I felt like I was getting a good idea of what I was supposed to do. Offense- try desperately to find an opening and catch the ball! Defense- attack the other player to throw them off their play! Well, lets just say I quickly got over my nervousness and started to try and play football! Well, apparently I wasn't that bad, this was news to me of course, but some of the girls were asking, "Are you sure you've never played football?" I was thinking, what the heck am I even doing that's good! ;) I was just trying to get the ball, or defend. Apparently I'm a natural, or that was just a complete and utter fluke! Well, we kept playing and soon the guys came for their practice, and we ended up playing defense for them because guess what! There were way more girls than guys that came to play! Can you believe that! Anyway, I was playing defense and I was thinking, just cause they're guys doesn't mean I need to back down, and so I tried to stop them from getting the ball, and occasionally ended up doing a pretty good job of throwing off they're plays. Then I saw it, the ball was heading right towards me and there was this guy coming up to catch it right in front of me, well I thought, there's no way he's getting that ball! Well, he caught it,  but there I was right behind him to knock him down! So I kinda tackled him, I ended up falling and then all the guys were freaking out, saying, hey that was awesome! And then this one guy gave me the nickname of Battle-hawk! And now every time I see them they start saying it! Now I'm not writing any of this to brag about myself, I'm writing it cause, well, it's completely hilarious to me, and I never in my wildest dreams would have ever pictured myself even playing football, let alone getting a nickname like that! Well, the girl in charge of the jerseys ended up putting that on mine, so I guess it's gonna stick! It's crazy, I know!

An adjunct story to this is the next week! But this is more about my even getting to the stadium, and I have to say I made some pretty stupid moves! So that first week I had a car, but my mom needed it back, and since there's so much traffic in the city and lots of public transportation we (my mom and I) decided that I could do without a car, which is sad, since I haven't had the advantage of having a car for very long, and it has been wonderful!!! Anyway, so now I get to try to make my way through the city using the buses, Muni, and Bart. It's really easy and convenient to get to work, and anywhere downtown, but other places it takes a few different transfers, and I'm still learning my way around the city. I also get a little nervous riding alone at night, so I haven't gone too many places, but I had to go to football! So I looked on 511.org where you can plan your trip and I figured out my way to Kezar stadium. But 511 wasn't exactly right, It said to take the M line, get off at SFSU, that was right but then it says to get on bus 29, and it will take you down to the park and all along there, well it does, in a really round about way!! I got on bus 29, and asked the driver, does this go past the park? He said yeah, then after I got on he was like, "well actually I'm not sure, this is my first time driving this route, I think so." Well, I said, "I hope, I'm trying to get to Kezar stadium." Then he started talking, and kept talking to me the entire trip, we ended up going all around the sunset district, but did eventually make our way back to Lincoln and 19th ave, which is along the park, but still really far from the stadium! He talked to me all about his life the entire time, he was from New Jersey, he was a nice man, but he wasn't too helpful in getting me where I needed to go. So I got off at 19th and Lincoln, which is still about 20 block from where I needed to be! That was mistake #1, don't take bus 29, take bus 28.
 Anyway, so I was gonna try to take another bus to get down to the stadium. There was a bus stop so I waited, there was another man there, mistake #2, I tried to ask him when the bus was supposed to come. But he didn't speak English. I tried asking what language? Mandarin, Vietnamese, Tagalog? He started talking at me, I assume saying, " I don't speak English, don't understand."  He was talking at me for like a minute, so I left, and started just running down to the stadium, I thought it might be faster. Thankfully I heard the bus and hopped on till I got all the way to 2nd. I got off, but, mistake #3, I thought I had gone past the stadium, so I walked back to 7th Ave, and realized that no, the stadium was actually back the way I had come! It was pretty frustrating! Mistake #4, I had started along a path in the park, now all my instincts were telling me that this was stupid, you don't go walking through a wooded park at night, especially in San Fran, but I thought the stadium was around the corner so I went a little farther, and realized my mistake, by this point I was thinking just running through this path would be faster than going back, so I started to run, and thankfully for the GPS on my iphone I knew I was headed in the right direction and that this path would be leading back out to the main road.
So, finally I made it to the main road, alive and well, I was so thankful. Then this cute older black man in an Art Institute van pulls up completely confused and asks me where Kezar Stadium is, I'm like, "I'm trying to find it myself buddy", but I knew what direction it was in, just not where it was exactly, so I told him where I thought it was. He asked if I wanted a ride there to show him the way, and I was said, "no thanks", I'd like to keep on living. He didn't really seem like the creepy type, and seemed genuinely confused, but there was no way I was going to make mistake #5!! Well, he left on his way and I ended up seeing the stadium myself, finally! I made it! After jay-walking to get to the other side and trying to find the entrance, (oh my gosh, at night they lock the entrances so there's only a few ways in and only 1 way out after a certain time, it's so confusing,) I made it to the stadium!!! Anyway, I was finally there and made it safely. But do I want to have another adventure like that? Heck no!