The final spin

I woke up in a slight panic: There are only 3 fully days left in San Francisco! I spare you the usual cry-out of "how unbelievably fast this went by". Yet, it frightened me, because I am unsure if: 1) I have produced enough text? 2) Had enough sun yet? 3) Enough melon cakes? For the cakes, it is a definite negative.

For the text, I went straight to Starbucks and wrote a bit to a call cappuccino and an apple fritter. For the sun, I got some when I was walking back and forth between the laundromat and my house.

Washing! How easily I can still fail American daily life. I DO know how to generally manage an American washing machine. For a European, this is almost ridiculously simple: Open the lid, throw it all in, pour in some detergent, close lid, choose if you wash "colors", "bright colors", "whites" or "wool", and there you go. There is nothing like a temperature control (this works over the color selection) or spinning speeds, let alone a button to save water. It does it all by itself. Great. The countdown function told me to be back in 26 minutes. That's quick. But when I came back, it had stopped by 12 minutes, and in the display there was some blinking: "unbalanced", it read. - What do you mean, washing machine? Is the balance wrong, like you want more money? Are you broken, as in "disturbed", unbalanced? I walked around the 24 machines, looked for signs, by making sure I did not look like I wanted to steal anybody else's laundry. Finally, I found a sign INSIDE another washing machine (under the lid), explaining that "unbalanced" would require the washing individual to rearrange the laundry for its final spin. Great placement of the note! So, I opened the lid, "balanced" the laundry, it washed, and I collected it later. All is clean now.

There are still so many things I need to learn in that culture. And I fear 3 days will not do.