...be sure to wear some flowers in your hair!!!

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I woke up at 02:30am. This was only to be expected as it was 10:30am back home. It was too early even for me to get up. I managed to doze again until 05:45. I then decided to repack my suitcase. You can always tell when someone has too much time on their hands; they always have to rearrange something; furniture, the food cupboard, the display of ornaments on the mantle piece. We've all been there!! When I was satisfied with my lot, I closed the case and locked it.

After breakfast, I reached for my case to retrieve the netbook I had locked inside the case. The locking mechanism is fixed on the side of the case. 2 zips protect the case by slotting in to the device where a 3 numbered combination ensures the case is secure.

'3-7-3'. The zip tabs remained firm. I tried again. Nothing. I tried to force the button that would release to 2 zips from this secure housing. The zips may have been buried in concrete for all the impact I was having! I tried different combinations such as 3-6-3 and 3-8-3 and 2-7-3. This could go on and on. According to ‘Ask Jeeves' there is a 1000 possible combination. In fact the first sentence of the answer said: ‘Sounds like you wanna break in to a suitcase or sumthing, lol' This is probably not the first time this has happened in the history of the combination suitcase, then? As I had no intention of trying the 996 other combinations and my frustration and anger was rising to the surface, I had a David Banner moment. The blood vessels in my neck were starting to throb. I took a swing and punched the suitcase twice then stood up and kicked it. My next move even surprised me!! I knelt back down and tried the feckin' combination again as if my kung fu moves would have ‘loosened' something!!!

‘C'mon. Lets go', I said to Roisin. ‘I haven't got time for this.'

What are you going to do?' asked Roisin.

‘What do you think?' I said. ‘Find a hardware store and buy a hacksaw. I'm not going to let the bastard beat me!!'

It was going to be one of those days. I could tell!!!

After breakfast we discussed our options of upgrading to a bigger ‘alcove' room. We were advised by a very apologetic man that as we have booked with ‘booking.com' it isn't easy to change a booking as they will want to know why the booking has been cancelled. The easiest way would to be cancel via booking.com and re book with them (charges may apply). It just wasn't worth the hassle. I had a hacksaw to buy!!

I had arranged to meet a friend we originally met 2 years ago while onboard the Sapphire Princess. Zsuzsi and her husband John live in Maui, Hawaii and are over for a few days vacation while they attend a wedding. They have managed to secure tickets for the baseball tonight and I promised to ring her to arrange to meet before the game. At just after 9am I rang her mobile number. The phone kept ringing but no one answered. I know they didn't arrive until late last night so they may be having a lie in. Unfortunately I don't know when I would be able to ring again as we intend to be out all day. I hadn't seen a payphone while we have been here. I learned later that it is because there are no payphones left in the USA. The fact is there is no need for them nowadays due to the invention of the mobile phone!! Speaking of which, my phone, my new blackberry phone does not work abroad. I needed to set up the roaming facility prior to leaving the UK, which I neglected to do.

The day is going well so far!!!

We took the 10-minute walk down Powell to Market Street where we boarded the F tram to the neighbourhood of Castro. From Castro we needed to take the number 37 bus that would drop us at Twin Peaks our first destination of the day.

Castro is openly associated with San Francisco's gay village. This association started just after the 2^nd world war when most of the gay soldiers demobbed after the war settled in this part of the city.

We alighted at Harvey Milk Plaza named after the first outwardly gay member of the City Board of Supervisors. He was martyred in the City Hall assassination of 1978.

We walked down the highly colourful main street. Every lamppost was adorned with the Rainbow flag, the well-known ‘crest' of the GLBT community.

We had plenty of time. It was only shortly after 10am. There was still a lot of mist in the air so in order to give time for the fog to burn off we stopped at a café called the Squat and Gobble!! We both had a guess at what the establishment was named after.

After I gave my suggestion Roisin said, ‘No, that's too obvious!! I'm sure there is some innocent explanation here. It's probably something to do with homeless turkeys!!!' Neither of us plucked up the courage to ask the proprietor!!

The number 37 only had a handful of passengers. All looked if they were heading for the same destination. After about 20 minutes, the bus stopped and the driver pointed out the steps that would take us to the top of Twin Peaks.

The peaks are located in the city's geographical centre, and considered the best all round 360º view of the city and surrounding environs. At roughly 922 feet, they are the second highest peaks in the city (Mount Davidson is the highest). The Indians originally called the area ‘Los Pechos de la Chola' or ‘Breasts of the Indian Maiden' When San Francisco passed under American control during the 19th century, it was renamed ‘Twin Peaks'. If Nob Hill was also renamed around the same time, I am intregued to know what the Indians called that part of the city!!

We climbed the first stage of the hill where the road intersected both peaks. We still have a few hundred steps to climb but why?? It was still very foggy. One could hardly make out the skyscrapers of the finacial district. The bay was hidden by fog. And it kept on rolling in. There seemed to be no let up. The other passengers who had shared the number 37 bus with us persevered and carried on. As I had already decided it was going to be ‘one of those days' there was no use fighting it.!! We decided to call it a day and headed down the road in the direction of Ashbury to our next stop Haight Street.

Haight-Ashbury was the centre of the summer love-in as immortalised in the lyrics ‘If you come to San Francisco (be sure to wear some flowers in your hair)' This was the summer of 67 or was it 68?? It definitely wasn't the summer of 69. That was Bryan Adams!!!

We strolled along Haight Street for about a mile admiring the pavement graffitti of rock legends. Some no longer with us. Others still with us in body but after 4 decades of a ‘certain' lifestyle', their mind hasn't caught up yet!! The area still maintains its bohemian atmosphere. Some of the stores harboured a distinct throw-back to the fifties. There is a hint of organic and spiritual New Age ambiance of the Sixties and a splattering of punk-rock and computer culture. You will, dare I say, ‘love it or haight it'!! Roisin summed it up in a nutshell: ‘It's just another kind of weird!!'

After lunch our next stop was Alamo Square. This was only 6 blocks from Haight Street up Steiner. Alamo Square is home to the famous Painted Ladies. About 48,000 houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915. The most famous of these is a row of 7 houses known as ‘the Painted Ladies' across from Alamo Park. The hill in the park gives an excellent vantage point from where you can see the ‘old' in the foreground with the ‘new' towering behind . It is one of the most photographed attractions in San Francisco having appeared in approximately 70 movies. One of these movies may have been ‘Mrs Doubtfire'. Coincidently our next stop happened to be Mrs Doubtfire's house or to be more exact, the house used in the movie. This is situated in Pacific Heights, the most exclusive area in San Francisco. It was 18 blocks straight up Steiner. The house is located at 2640 Steiner on the corner of Broadway.

While we were loitering, a man approached dressed in painters overalls and engaged us in conversation. He pointed out a house owned by Don Johnson and further up the hill the Getty's owned a property. They had a school built in the basement just so their child didn't have to mix with ‘ordinary' children!! Mrs Getty had the living room painted at a cost of $35,000. After completion, Mrs G turned around and said a la Little Britain ‘Don't like it!!!'

Danielle Steel also has a house in the area complete with indoor swimming pool and international library on the top floor. We learned that our painter friend had to sign a disclosure not to divulge what was in her house. So Ms Steele, if you're reading this (and I know you do – just for inspiration…I understand!!) your painter is in breech of his contract!!!!

Although we were only about 4 miles from our hotel, there was no direct route home. We took the bus back to Castro and the tram to the bottom of California where we could take the cable car back to the hotel. It would have to be a quick change as we were running late. It was 5:30 and the Baseball started at 7:15. I had to try to ring Zsuzsi when we get back to the hotel.

As we were having one of ‘those' days, it came to no surprise that the cable car had broken down and the operator could not give a time when all would be repaired. We waited for 10 minutes. At least the operator was in good spirits as he said to the rest of the waiting passengers that if the problem isn't fixed within the next 15 minutes, he'd send out for pizza!!! We finally took the decision to take a taxi back to the Nob Hill Inn. I managed to speak to Zsuzsi and we arranged to meet in our seats.

On the way to AT & T park, as we were checking the map, we were stopped by a homeless person who very kindly explained the metro and the best way to get to the ballpark. He then told us that he is selling ‘Street' similar to the ‘Big Issue' in the UK. We gave him $2 and thanked him. He took one look at this and looked up as if to say: 'What the f***s this??' By this time we had already started to follow the rest of the crowd wearing black and orange colours. We didn't even get one of his poxey magazines for our 2 bucks!!!

Despite being one of ‘those' days, everything turned out well in the end. We met up with Zsuzsi and John where we discussed the finer arts of baseball and reminisced over cruises now resigned to ever-lasting memories. The Giants beat Arizona Diamondbacks 6-0. Buster Posey scored his 100^th RBI of the season and we managed to get back to the hotel without any more undue delays. I even found a hardware store and bought a junior hacksaw and eventually reunited with my net book!! We had an agenda and stuck to it. Tomorrow is another day. I just hope it is not as much as one of ‘those' days as this one was!!!

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Comments

[Helen]

Loving the Blog so far Chris and Roisin! The photos are great too - it's such a photogenic city. It's a pity about the fog up at Twin Peaks, but it was the same when we went there.Looking forward to next instalments. ;)

[Maxine]

Ive been here :)

[Maxine]

And here... Lovely xx