tired feet from pointe shoes!

At the SFB school they do EVERYTHING en pointe.  The schedule isn't overly intense, but I feel like the technique classes en pointe make it really hard!

Some girls here only use paper towels in their pointe shoes to protect their toes, or nothing at all.  They are so hard core! I always have to wear toe pads and my feel still hurt! I swear by lambs wool toepads- I think they are amazing because they are comfortable but thin enough you can still feel your feet working through the floor.  And I also dedicated to masking tape.  I am convinced masking tape is better at protecting toes from blisters than any other medical tape or fancy cushions.

Its funny to see what people do at the end of a long day to relax.  I like to stick my toes on an ice pack some nights because I feel like they get so swollen! Some of my friends fill their empty trash cans up with ice from the cafeteria and soak their feet in ice water.  Epsom salt is really popular too...

One of my favorite things to do after ballet class is to roll out my calves with a pinkie ball or a tennis ball.  They get so tight from wearing pointe shoes all day!

In spite of my constant complaining throughout the day about how much my feet hurt, the long hours of pointe is my favorite part about the SFB intensive.  I think that pointe is more enjoyable than wearing flat shoes, and I hope that it will make my feet stronger!

Me and street vendors and Union Square

So I've been keeping busy this weekend.  I've been walking SO MUCH.  We only have one class on Saturday, so we get to go out into the city afterwards...

Between dance class and seeing/crying about the end of HARRY POTTER (huge Harry Potter nerd here), I kept ending up at Union Square this weekend.  It's very easy to end up and very dangerous because that's where a girl can spend all her money if she's not careful....

Union Square is like the Times Square of San Francisco.  Meaning everything's supersized.  There's a huge Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters (my favorites) and a gorgeous mall with the biggest Nordstrom I have ever seen.  And then there's the designer stores like Prada where you walk in and they give you dirty looks because they know you aren't going to buy anything...

biggest nordstroms ever...

There's also a few street vendors which are always fun.  It's really strange to me though, because there's all these little Asian ladies who sell these handmade earrings but all of the different vendors carry  almost the EXACT SAME earrings.  Do they buy the beads at the same place or something? And if they're selling the same thing, then why do they set up their carts right next to eachother and offer them for the same price?  It puzzles me. Anyways, I'm not exactly the best bargainer.  I tried to get a pair of little coy fish earrings for 3 dollars because I thought they were 5, and the lady laughed at me and told me they were 7 dollars.  So I made a face and offered 5, but because they had a "pretty crystal" she gave me 6.  So all that work and I only got 1 dollar off...

learning Japanese

she said she goesto an all girls school and she has to wear a uniform- just like the animes !!

So right now I'm listening to "Wouldn't it be nice" by the Beach Boys, sitting in my dorm room by myself because my roommate went to visit her Japanese friends on the other floor.  I already mentioned this before- but my roommate is this adorable girl from Japan who doesn't speak  too much English...but if i speak clearly she understands a lot.   She definitely knows more English then I will ever learn of Japanese...and shes SO good at picking up new words.  However, whenever I ask her how to say something in Japanese, I almost immediately forget it or mess if up so much she can't understand me when I try to say it later.

Sometimes we have a hard time understanding eachother.  For example, I'll say "do you want to go to breakfast or just wait here for a little bit?" and she'll say "yeaaah!" (not an option).

But I admire her so much for coming to a foreign country to train and for being so diligent about learning the language. She has this little electronic dictionary that she studies sometimes...

Here's three things I learned to say in Japanese

sen cha : green tea
tsukareta: i'm tired
onaka suita: i'm hungry

So now I can complain in Japanese at the end of the day when I'm tired from dancing! I'm still loving the program.  Theres only 2 weeks left!!

Balanchine style

the middle girl is sofiane sylve who taught us last week, and the right girl is sarah van patten, who took class with us yesterday!

The thing I love about the San Francisco ballet program is how they are so focused on diversity.  Even though they train classically, they also mix in the more expressive, extreme Balanchine style.  I'm not an expert on the many different ballet curriculums, but I know that I have been trained mostly in the ABT (American Ballet Theater) style.  Many of my teachers encouraged training in only the one style, because they thought it was important to maintain consistency and also because ABT training is supposed to be anatomically correct...  But instead of adhering to the rules of one school of thought, the San Francisco ballet seems to promote an acceptance of all styles.  There are instructors who prefer the classical and others who lean towards Balanchine.  I think it's great to be open to the other techniques.  I understand why many teachers want to maintain focus on one style, but for this summer I am happy to get a taste of Balanchine( even though Balanchine classes are so hard for me!) I think that all the styles of ballet are beautiful, and so far this intensive has made me appreciate all equally.

Fisherman's wharf/pier 39/Ghirardelli Square

The ballet program is so intense for me because I'm not used to so much pointe work! Its fantastic and I feel like I've already gotten a lot out of the program.

But I've been too tired/lazy to post anything so I'm behind on my posting- here's some cool, touristy stuff I did last weekend that I thought was worth sharing.

We took a "bay cruise" tour that took us around all the famous landmarks- the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Angel Island...It was a rare sunny day so it was really beautiful.  I never understood why the GOLDEN Gate Bridge was red...but seeing Alcatraz made me want to go back and check it out! I know it's kind of creepy that some torture chamber prison is now a huge tourist attraction, but its so cool!

Afterwards we wandered around the Pier 39/ Fisherman's Wharf area. Even thought it's really crowded, the area is actually really charming.  And there's a Boudin bakery that smells AMAZING...I think sourdough is a San Francisco thing??? I actually got lunch at this cute little shack called "Tish's Dishes" - huge sourdough bread bowl and clam chowder that I devoured...yummy.

oh yeah artsy shot from my cameraphone

And to finish off the busy Sunday, we walked to Ghirardelli Square.  It's only a couple blocks away from the Fisherman's Wharf area.  Definitely worth visiting! Firstly because the whole place smells like chocolate.  Theres a couple big Ghirardelli gift shops full of those little chocolate squares, and they hand out whole squares as samples (free samples are always fun).  And theres a really delicious ice cream parlor where they make all these super fancy sundaes and stuff that are 500 calories a lick (100 if you look at it)...but REALLY expensive! I shared a single scoop of chocolate ice cream with my sister and it cost me almost 4 dollars! It was worth it though- so rich and chocolatey.  As you can see I had a whole day of eating last Sunday...

cool mermaid fountain in ghiradelli square

doesnt sound too authentic japanese does it?

 Here's a couple pictures from Fisherman's Wharf- I'm obsessed with mermaids so I thought the mermaid bar sign was really cool and the "flying ninja sushi" just needed to be documented...

chinatown

sorry my phone was out of battery and i didnt take any pictures this is from the internet its the chinatown gate we saw

After ballet class last Saturday I got to go to chinatown! Asians are VERY good at taking advantage of tourists. Chinatowns are generally packed with cheap, touristy junk, but they have great food and you can usually find some interesting stuff.  The Chinatown in San Fran is definitely the largest and most picturesque that I've seen.  New York Chinatown/Canal street is great for finding knockoffs, and LA Chinatown has some fun shops , but its easy to see why the one is San Fran is so famous.  Sure it's a little run down and dusty looking (and not a great place to be at night) but for some reason it has this charm to it.  Something about the banners hanging over the busy streets and the carts of exotic vegetables mixed in with bins of plastic toys...it has a really interesting atmosphere.  There's actually a lot of cool buildings that imitate asian stye roofs.  Even though its all plaster and show, there's an ironically authentic feel to the San Fran Chinatown, just because it is so old. It's where so many Chinese immigrants made their home in the United States.  I loved it and since I'm going through a cut-up shirt phase, I bought a couple cool T-shirts.  I won't worry about ruining it if it only cost a couple bucks right?  It's so funny- I saw this really awesome vintage looking "Port of San Francisco" shirt on display under a bunch of newer shirts and I asked the lady if she still was selling it.  She kept telling me that it was not for sale and there was no more, so I asked her if I could just buy the display (it was taped on the edge of a table).  She thought I was crazy and tried to convince me that it was too dirty until I begged her to let me have it for 2 dollars.  I should have just asked for it for free.  She obviously didn't want it and look she got 2 dollars off of me for an old T-shirt no one else was going to buy.  Lesson learned- next time bid lower.