Advice about California DESPERATELY Needed

I'm waiting to start my first assignement as a travel nurse. I'm from a medium sized Ontario city and currently work in two different Level 1 trauma centres -an adult and a pediatric ER.

My recruiter has offered me a position at Oakland Children's Hospital. Not being familiar with California, I'm not sure it's the place for me, as it seems awfully busy and I have no idea if the area it's in is safe or not. Any suggestions from other people?

My friend is going to be working at Stanford in Palo Alto (no jobs for me in ER there) and I"d like to be near her. We were supposed to work in the same vacinity and share an apartment, but I'm not sure this is going to happen if I take the job in Oakland. Is it as dangerous as I've heard? My company has told me they'll find an apartment outside the city and that I can take the BART to get around, but I'm still pretty uncertain. Plus, where would we live that is close to the BART and still not too far from Stanford? This is beginning to become such a headache!

Personally, I'd rather work in a combo ER (adult and peds) in an area closer to Palo Alto, but she says right now there isn't a lot of demand for travellers in Emerg in that area. Should I hold out or see how the position goes?

Any suggestions greatly appreciated as my LOA from work starts in 2 weeks and I'd really like to have a job lined up by that time.