A Major Victory in Minneapolis

For those who don't know, when we moved out to San Francisco a month (?!) ago, I had an internship lined up with the Rainforest Action Network. I'm now on my third week here, and I really love it.  One of the really cool things is that the team that I'm on, the Palm Oil Campaign,  just had a major victory in Minneapolis with one of our target companies, General Mills. 

Basically, the problem with palm oil is this: "Grown on massive plantations in tropical nations, mainly Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil has been associated with rainforest destruction; threatened extinctions of animals, including orangutans; huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions; and gross human rights and labor violations." 

Recently, General Mills, one of the US's largest Palm Oil importers, has publicly decided to stop Rainforest Destruction by ending contracts with any supplier that does not produce palm oil in socially and environmentally sustainable ways.  You can read their full press report here!  Really, this is super exciting to me because A.) General Mills has promised to buy completely sustainable palm oil only by 2015.  This goal is great because its impossible, there isn't enough sustainable palm oil grown right now, meaning that they will have to become advocates in order to get what they need for production, and becoming an aid to us.  B.) Charles and I found a really great frozen yogurt place in town, and this makes me feel better about putting Cap'n Crunch on mine!

This is definitely not an Official RAN blog and I don't want to preach too much, but I'm really proud to be on a team that can accomplish this and I'm pretty impressed by General Mills for taking this big step.  Mostly, I realize that no one really knows what I'm doing out here, so I just want to update everyone on what I'm working on out here!

I heart San Francisco!

(I may be running out of ways to title these posts with a name of a city or state.  We'll see how creative I can get.)

I've been taking the bus into the city every day this week to get to my internship at the Rainforest Action Network and so far, I have no complaints except that my legs are a bit sore (and even that's getting better!).  Because our house is set back into a valley, in a very beautiful, wooded neighborhood, the bus that runs from Mill Valley into the city is a mile away.  In the morning, the walk is downhill, which is nice, but of course, in the evening, its uphill. Its not very steep, though, so for now, I'm actually enjoying the walk home!

The office I'm in is in the financial district of San Fran, so its in the middle of all of the big buildings and good lunch restaurants, which is a really cool change of pace from the secluded woods-y-ness of home. I get to cross the Golden Gate Bridge every day, and I have to say, with the awesome view of the fog over the bay, its a better view than the capitol building from the metro (not that that view wasn't neat too!).One of the first things I like to do in a new city is check out the shopping (of course!) just in case I ever need something, so it was really great that the other two interns, Lindsay and Rachel, and I decided to do some shopping (all window though, I didn't find anything I needed, although now I'm thinking about a new jacket, its cold sometimes!) on Monday!  They're both from the are, so they were able to show me around quite a bit, which I really appreciated.

Like I said, I haven't found anything to complain about yet, because everyone at RAN is really nice and helpful, and I'm really excited about the outline we have of the projects we'll work on this fall. One is with some Girl Scouts, about getting palm oil out of their cookies, and being a former Girl Scout, I can't wait to start working with them! I've already started a few cool things too, and its good to be keeping busy.

Charles is still in Davis, and although he's enjoying his time there, I know that we're both ready for him to get home.  We've got a lot of work to do on the house that I know we'd both like to start.  Plus, it would be a little sad if I did a wine tasting by myself, so I need my partner back! Good thing he's done on Saturday...

Sunny Mill Valley

We've been in Mill Valley for about a week, and I've been in the house since Friday.  Charles is in Davis at his class, although he calls at least once a day and came home on Saturday to handle the movers with me. Which, by the way, has taught us a lot about moving.  This company , Infinity Moving, doubled the price of the move, was late, hard to communicate with, and broke too many of our things to be worth it.  3 of our hand-made plates  (the ones from Jim and Teresa) 2 of my wine glasses, cracked my lamp, and dented both of our pots and the crock pot. Really unprofessional, although the guy who came to the house with the movers was nice.

Anyway, we spent some time at the beaches, which are really great (and allow dogs!) and checking out the town and neighborhood.  The house needs some work, but nothing major, and its bigger than the pictures made it look.  I really love it, and I'm enjoying unpacking our boxes!

I'll have more to say once we have our own internet and I'm not at the library! Off to Whole Foods to get some lunch!