Yesterday, we explored Rockridge, a nice neighborhood in Oakland/Berkeley, scoping out bakeries for me to work at in case we end up living nearby. We walked around College Ave., which is a cute downtown shopping area. I was excited to go to Market Hall, because its website claimed it had a butcher, bakery, fishmonger, produce stand, and all sorts of other cool shops. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the fishmonger or the bakery, but it was still a nice place. There was also a similar market up College, near Claremont Ave., that looked like it would be a nice place to shop as well. I like the idea of having a bunch of little specialty stores instead of one big grocery store, even if the grocery store is more convenient.

Here's a summary of my thoughts on each bakery listed for Rockridge:

• Buttercup Bakery: closed, being replaced by a Japanese restaurant
  
• Grace Baking: couldn't find it in Market Hall; maybe closed; there was a generic Market Hall Bakery, which looked okay
  
• Great Harvest Bread: a chain (which I'd rather avoid), but they give out free samples and do their baking on-site, which are both appealing
  
• Katrina Rozelle Pastries: this place was geared towards made-to-order wedding cakes. It might be fun to work at, but a little more upscale than I'm looking for
  
• La Farine: big open kitchen in the back, good-looking breads and cakes, employees not very happy-looking, but maybe they'd just had a long day. I'd be most likely to try and work here if we ended up living in Rockridge.

After exploring, we had dinner with Tree and Andrew at Zachary's Pizza, which happens to also be in Rockridge. I agree with the general consensus, which is that it is awesome pizza. We'd been there once before, with Noah and Jenny, and I would be happy to go there many more times. They have this stuffed pizza, in which the cheese and toppings are in between two crusts, and the tomato sauce is on top. Very yummy. I wonder if we could make something similar at home. Hmmm...

After dinner, we went back to Tree and Andrew's apartment, where we had huge gingerbread cookies from Great Harvest Bread, along with big, tall glasses of milk. Good stuff :) It was an enjoyable evening out.

Today, I haven't done much of anything, except for making a list of food to buy at the store. I think we'll be using our cast iron pan for dinner tonight! I want to start working out regularly; I feel like a lump! Patrick will help me get into shape; he works out every day for his triathlon training. Have I mentioned that he's training for his first triathlon? Oh yeah, I did, about 2 months ago. Anyway, he's totally buff now!