A Life By The Sea

"I could live here and write songs" - my thoughts 10 years ago when I visited SF for the first time...And now, 10 years later - I've finally made it to a life by the sea. Last year, when we were searching for a place to live in SF, we explored the Outer Sunset and I just knew that this was the place. I found this cute apartment on Craigslist - hardwood floors, a retro kitchen and walking distance to Ocean Beach. It was my first apartment inquiry ever on Craigslist - one week later we moved in. (Here's a link to an interview I did with Chapter Friday, where you can find pics of my casa)

Days in the Outer Sunset consists of...hearing fog horns in the morning... seeing Golden Gate Bridge peeking through the hills while running errands...answering that everyday question: "do you wanna go for a walk?"...seeing the waves break at the end of the street while waiting for Muni...eating cornbread Benedict at Outerlands down the street - My wanderlustin' heart has finally calmed down and I'm ok with that. Life's a (foggy) beach right here. 

A couple of blocks from where I live is Noriega street. If you been there before you must have seen that turquoise mural by Zio Ziegler. Walk through the door and you'll find a couple of retail stores - Indosole, a footwear company featuring repurposed tire soles made in Bali... and also Nosotros - a custom accessories company offering handcrafted hats made in Peru. Founders Kyle and Ryan have been extremely supportive by letting me perform in the Church of Surf, OB fest and other places around town. Their creativity, ambitions and social missions are super inspiring, so this blogpost is dedicated to these guys. 

I'm wearing.. the Vaquero Stone Nosotros hat,  mall beads neckless by Tiny Devotions, sweaterdress by HM trend, jacket by Zara and top by Free People

 Pics are shot by my new friend Sofala Mai 

See you in the Outer Sunset :) 

"Greetings from Fickle Island" by Milou Neelen

So this one day I was scrolling on instagram and via Barts Boekje, I landed at Milou Neelens feed - a cool Dutch girl that was traveling solo in San Francisco. I commented on one of her pics, mentioning my fav places to go to in SF and when she suggested we should go for coffee together, we ended up going bar hopping in the Divisadero that night (and... I had my official FIRST hangover the day after - ay caramba). Both being Dutch with a dry sense of humor, sharing the same amount of wanderlust,  in another part of the world - made her instantly my new.favorite.friend. 

Milou illustrates for ELLE magazine and designs prints for Love Stories and Scotch & Soda and was traveling solo to get inspired by all the pretty things the West coast offers. At one moment I was telling her, that I had been waiting to meet an illustrator that can design a postcard for Fickle Island. I showed her a vintage Hawaiian postcard I found on pinterest and one day later, she emailed me a sketch of the above print, which she created in one night ,when she arrived in Portland to continue her search for pretty things. I was over the moon.

In return, I hope to sing at her future wedding ;) and hmmmm I feel a collab for album #2 coming up...Gotta keep this talented lady close, that's for sure. 

Read more about Milou here at Chapter Friday.

www.milouneelen.com

Instagram: @milouneelen

Want to get a "Fickle Island" postcard? email me at angelamoyramusic@gmail.com / or come see me at a live show and I'll give you one.

Expeditty SF: Mission District

After a year of travelling between San Francisco and Amsterdam...I fiiiiinally received my greencard in March. It feels so good that I'm here to stay and that I can finally settle in my new hometown, without having to worry about my expiring tourist visa.  Now my guitars are hanging on the wall, keepsakes are neatly stored on my desk and it feels like home here in San Francisco. If you look at my insta, you can tell I'm a little obsessed with this city - Ocean Beach, murals, hipster cafe's, even the SUN...I try to stop at every corner and capture everything, to my hubs annoyance. 

(@angelamoyra > follow along though...)

I'm slowly discovering all the neighbourhoods.  They all have their own colors and characteristics and I wanna know ALL ABOUT THEM. My friend Titia, from Dingen Over Dingen is in town for a couple of months and we visited the Mission District a few of times already. Last week I dragged my heavy Canon 70D with me and we snapped some cute pics. So here's a little SF expeditty Mission District Guide for you with some tips on stores to visit, and places to eat, if you are up for a bohohemian/sunny/vintage/wanna-spend-some-money-but-not-too-much afternoon. 

So...the Mission District - home to the hipsters, concept stores galore, funky bars, murals in every color and lots of Mexican influences. On my first Mission visit I travelled solo. I didn't know where to go at all. But last time with Titia, the sun was shining, back alleys didn't look scary, instead colorful and fun, and one amazing store after another kept popping up on our route...

I had to Google "Valencia St Mission plant store."  Last week we walked into this place and we didn't even bother to find out what the name of the store was, having been so distracted by all the displayed treasures...wow.   "Paxton Gate". I loved this hanging plant (the thing I'm holding in the picture above) I just have to come back when my "home decor" piggy bank is full... 

Dog Eared Books - Titia's favorite store. I copy-cat'd her and also got one of those note books ($6.95), she got hers a couple weeks ago and is already half way filled with crea notes and night time dreams. Mine will be used for stories about whatever. I need to write more in English and become a better writer. By the way..I have to go back asap and get that "Songwriters Journal" before it's sold out. Cool stuff. 

 

 NO - yes please. I think this is my all time fav vintage store. Every time I meet Titia in the Mission I tell her to meet me at this place. And usually before she walks in, I'm about $24 lighter. Their clothes and shoes are awesome and nicely priced. And just when I was getting sick and tired of seeing plant hangers on insta/pinterest, I saw these and I was hooked again. 

Mission Murals - you don't need my advice or tips on this one. You can find them everywhere. Just find your favourite colors and "photoshoot" away...between murals we popped our green-tea-matcha cherry at Samovar Tea. Yums.

You gotta eat tacos if you're in the Mission. We Googled "best tacos mission district" and we ended up going to Taqueria Vallarta. I enjoyed my bbq pork taco for $2. Going to a taqueria in SF is a must because of all the authentic flavours and atmosphere.

My fav female artist is without a doubt, Frida. We found a store totally inspired by her, called Luz de Luna - the sweet señora that worked there helped me find a milagros mundo which I wanted to give to a friend for good fortune. Also best mission-district-kodak-moment - in front of the store, with Frida. 

We split ways at the farmers market where I listened to a couple of guitar players while waiting for my UberPool. Right now you can travel anywhere in SF with UberPool for $7.  That means someone will most likely ride with you, but sometimes it has just been me in the backseat. UberPool is a really good deal if you feel like skipping public transportation and also save a few bucks on a cab. Fyi, BART services the Mission District, and it's pretty well connected to Berkeley, where Titia is staying at the moment. 

I hope you liked reading about my take on the Mission District. Here's an overview of the places we visited.  Feel free to share your favourite places or neighbourhoods!  

S H O P S 

Paxton Gate / 824 Valencia St. / Beautiful plants, gems & minerals

Dog Eared Books / 900 Valencia St. / Tita's fav bookstore

NO / 389 Valencia St. / Vintage etc.

Luz de Luna / 3182 24th St / Frida stuff

Explorist International / 3174 24th St. / New and used records (pic above)

E A T / D R I N K

Samovor Tea / 411 Valencia St / Green tea matcha in trendy, rustic, simplistic place. 

Craftman & Wolves  / 746 Valencia St. / Green curry scone was tasty & interesting. 

Taqueria Vallarta / 3033 34th St. / $2 taco's 

Live at China Beach, San Francisco { Poppin' }

Remember that song "Poppin" - which I wrote during "De Beste Singer-songwriter van NL"? Well....Starbucks has added it to their Dec & Jan playlist and it's now poppin' through the speakers in all U.S. stores, just can't belied it :) We've recorded a live version at China Beach in San Francisco and I hope you like it. 

Credits: Spyndryft, Buzzworthy events SF & Zaria Gun

"Here, There and Everywhere" { San Francisco }

The Pacific, "lost" art, backyard palm trees, evening pool jams, urban vibes in San Francisco, daily road trips into the valley...I could go on for daaaaaays - there are so many things I will never take for granted in California.

Part 1 of moving from the low lands to San Francisco has come to an end. From May until July I finally arrived to a state of mind where I didn't have to look further anymore...I could literally look around for the first time and experience "now" as an endless wave. 

I'm currently back in Amsterdam, singing summer '14 away and focusing on my "Fickle Island" promo. I have some things to take care of before I head to part 2 of my journey back to California. This life changer is not an easy one - the paperwork and other preparations are time consuming and are causing restless nights... "How in the hell am I going to ship my record collection, Eames rocking chair, 6-strings etc thousand of kilometers away"...

In the meantime, pictures and memories of the last two months have charged my zen battery and the color of the Pacific hasn't left my mind yet and I'm sure it never will. I'm happily enjoying the last bit of the summer here in Europe. But the further I'm going into this process, the more I feel like I'm not really moving at all...I'm just starting to accept the fact that I may have to endlessly wander between two places in the world for the rest of my life... - and who knows...perhaps one day include another destination to my wander path (Indonesia!) #feelingblessed

Hope you are ALL following your dreams this summer!