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Published: December 15th 2007
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well, i officially left my heart in san francisco at 4.30 this morning. I had a wonderful wonderful week and I love that city to death.
I arrived late Sunday evening, and as the shuttle bus drove around in circles, I spotted a few places, such as the Saks 5th Avenue, which I vaguely remembered from our visit there in grade 6... As I showed up at the hotel, I heard sirens wailing, and avoided quite a few homeless people, trying to find the front door (I later found out that I had walked straight past one entrance, just to circle the block and go in on the other side)... Our hotel was a lot better than I had expected, as long as you don't mind a few homeless people outside. Which is more or less a given, in San Francisco...
After managing to keep Lucie and Dave up for longer than they probably wanted to stay up, we all snuggled down for the night, and got up the next morning to start a week of bagels for breakfast, percolated (pergolated even?) coffee, and sunny blue skies.
San Francsico is a city of neighbourhoods, and we found that
was more or less the best way to explore it, was through each of the distinct neighbourhoods.... we hung about the tenderloin, and tenderly you told me of the saddest book you ever read .... okay enough Belle and Sebastian, back to writing blogs.
Monday was probably the best day of my life. Ever. For $24 we bought week long passes for the Muni (buses, trams and cable cars), and we had a full on day, visiting Postcard Row, Haight and Ashbury, the house of the Grateful Dead, Beuna Vista park.... and on and on. We walked through the Golden Gate Bridge Park, and caught a bus down to the Bridge itself... After wandering around for a while, and getting told off over loudspeaker for walking down the wrong side of the bridge, we meandered our way down the right side of the bridge, and the three of us stood together, watching the sun set over the Pacific... the second time in more or less as many days that I had been able to do that...
After going to the hotel and putting on a ridiculous amount of jumpers, Dave wanted to show us the hostel where he
market st
the view from our hotel room had been staying for the first few nights, in a little area unbeknown to me - North Beach.
Wow. I was blown away. North Beach is also the area known as Little Italy, and that first night we ate dinner at one of the many Italian restuarants. The one that we were coerced into was called Mona Lisa, and the three of us sat there with our jaws dropped to the table at the service we received there. For a $15 meal (not including tax or tips, mind you), you get home made pasta, free salad, a bowl of fresh crusty bread, which would amazingly reappear every time somebody took the last piece, waiters who topped up our water glasses everytime they dropped, oh, i don't know... 4 millimetres?
After dinner, Dave wanted to show us this cool little museum he had been in the other day, called the Beat Museum. Now forgive my ignorance in this matter, but I didn't really have any idea of the Beat movement, the Beatniks, how the hippies came about... really anything past having read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by some guy named Ken Kesey, and maybe the first two
chapters of the Electric KoolAid Acid Test, when I was travelling with Jay last year and he lent it to me.
The man who runs the museum, Jerry, is the friendliest most informative man. All the people we met who were associated with the museum and the Beat movement in general were friendly, passionate, and eager to share their knowledge with you, without ever pestering or making you feel stupid and ignorant. No one was in it for the money, including the guy who took us on a free tour around all the important places of the Beat movement, including the pub where Janis Joplin first started playing for $2 and a hamburger. They're in it because this is their life, and this is what they love. Lucie and I went back to the museum last night and we were talking to a younger guys who works there, and he participates in a group which do spoken poetry every Thursday night in the Mission. After expressing our disappointment at having found out a day too late, he gave us a copy of their book, which they had released just the night before. Just gave it to us, for free.
These people just love what they're doing so much and want to share it with everyone else.
Anyway, I have renounced my hatred of poetry, and found a love affair with Jack Keruoac, Neal Cassady, Bob Kaufman, Allan Ginsberg and all of the other Beat poets and writers. I bought a poster of Cassady and Keuorac, and took Dave's HOWL poster which he left at the hotel, just to forget the tube with both in the shuttle bus. We saw Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the owner of City Lights bookstore on the street, and the poet Ruth Weiss as well.
San Francisco is a city full of beautiful Christmas trees. They really get into the Christmas thing - shopping was open till 11 every night (I possibly bought out H&M) and the streets were lined with lights. Speaking of buying out H&M, I have found another new passion - taking boys shopping. Wow. I had so much fun helping Dave buy new clothes. And now he too has a wardrobe, entirely made up out of H&M.
We spent a day at Fisherman's Wharf, watching the sea lions, going on the Carousel, and eating Clam Chowder...
we bought it from one of the streetside Vendors, rather than from a restaurant, and it was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, in a sourdough bowl. We went to Ghiradelli Square and ate sundaes and milkshakes, and continued to run around for the next several hours on a sugar high. Chinatown was awesome, its blocks and blocks square, as opposed to Brisbane's "Chinatown", which is one street. The energy (and $2 tourist Tshirts) is amazing, we walked down one alley way, where you can just hear the sound of mah-jong tiles clanking from the children playing upstairs.
One of my favourite places we went to was in the Mission, Clarion Alley. It is an alley full of murals, with counterculture resistance messages and brilliant artworks. I also went op-shopping, and bought some awesome clothes off the 99 c rack.
Two words. Caffe Grecco. If you want a real coffee, goooo there.
There was a lot of other things we did which I can't even begin to think of at the moment. I am currently sitting in the LA airport, ridiculously rugged up in preperation of the "-2, feels like -17" weather that they
hello mr strauss
that guy engineered the bridge have in Oklahoma at the moment.
I'll probably be able to update from Jay's a bit more, we went without Internet this whole week and it was awesome. But its nice to be back!
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:-)
Reading your post really made my (busy, at work) night! Took a break, checked for the latest San Francisco entry and I was lucky to bump into yours. I'm flying to California in a couple of days and from all the places I'll visit there, San Francisco is the one I am mostly looking forward to see. Your entry only magnified my anxiety :-). Cheers!