Hmph - no sooner do I arrive in San Fransisco than it decides to pour with rain! Grey, misty, chilly rain… Perhaps the powers that be are trying to prepare me for my return to London, city of similar climes (although, from what I hear, it’s been surprisingly sunny back home of late – hope it stays that way).
It’s a bit of a shame about the weather here as I hired a bike to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito today, along with an Aussie guy called Murray, who I met in my hostel. We felt so soaked and cold once we reached the pretty little Marin County waterfront settlement, though, that, after stopping for some lunch, we cut the day short by hopping on a ferry back to San Fransisco. As soon as I got back to my hostel I ran myself a hot bath, and sat and soaked in it until my fingers and toes went all wrinkled and prune-like! Now I’m warm again, though, sitting in a nearby café with a frothy coffee, my lap-top, a couple of newspapers and a good book - and I think I’ll just spend the rest of the day sipping, writing and reading. I can live with that, as this just the kind of thing I could happily do for hours. I used to feel a bit guilty about it in Latin America, where I always felt there were more important things I should be seeing and doing, and where I also always felt a bit uncomfortable getting my little computer out in public. However, here in the States, what I’m doing right now feels like a totally authentic pastime, in fact, almost like a way of life… Everyone sits around local coffee shops and eateries plugged in, tapping away on their electronic notebooks, cardboard cup of steaming java in hand. Therefore I’m not exactly feeling conspicuous. Plus, I’ve been to San Fransisco before (albeit about 10 years ago) so I don’t feel I have to chase around here doing all the ‘sights’. I’ve re-done the bridge today, and might go for a run around the Golden Gate Park tomorrow, maybe catching a movie or something in the evening (hey, I’m sounding like an American now – although everyone can pick up on my accent a mile off, and I’ve already been asked several times how my old mate the Queen is!). I think I’ll just occupy myself with normal stuff, to kind of ‘re-normalise’ myself before I head home… I might go and do some shopping – or should I say swapping - as there are some great vintage clothing stores and ‘clothes exchanges’ round the corner from where I’m staying on Polk Street. You can go and trade in your old gear for new at these places, which sounds perfect for me, seeing as I’m quite sick of a lot of the clothes that I’ve been carting round with me for the last 7 months. It’s funny to look at my battered wheely backpack now, and to think that, rather like a snail with its home on its back, it has been pretty much the sum of my possessions since I left London in October. I think this will be its final journey, though, as, having been dragged from Bogota to Brazil and back again, the poor piece of luggage now has a large hole in it that I’ve patched together with a plastic bag and superglue, and its pulley handle is about to fall off. I’ll be kind of sorry to say goodbye to it on account of all it’s been through with me. However, I think it’s beyond repair…
So what else can I say of San Fransisco aside from these coffee shop ramblings? I’ve got to say that, in spite of the rain, I’m really enjoying the city’s energy and undeniable crazy California-ness. Same sex couples jogging along the marina with matching i-pods and babies in special ‘jogging buggies’, low-carb-sugar-free-reduced-fat-vitamin-enhanced menu options (or double-choc-fudge-drenched-supersize-fried everything if you go to the other extreme), and toothless winos with ‘have a nice day’ smiles winos begging with broken polystyrene coffee cups and scribbled cardboard signs reading ‘I won’t lie, I need a beer’. Yeah, with these kinds of sights all around me there’s only one place I could be!
My hostel is great – really modern and smart, with hot power showers (and a bath – bliss!) and delicious toasted bagels and coffee for breakfast. However, it’s in a part of town (on Ellis Street in the Tenderloin) that can best and most euphemistically described as ‘colourful’. Walking there yesterday after I travelled downtown from the airport, I thought it must have been signing on day or something on account of all the ‘characterful’ chancers queuing up down the street. I now realise that they hang around there all day every day, though (and throughout the night as well), and that, as well as housing my hostel, Ellis Street is home to most of San Fransisco’s soup kitchens and rehab centres. It’s a place to watch your step, for sure. However, I think most of the locals are harmless. Several of them have offered me some kind of cheeky compliment or greeting as I walked along the road, and this has made me smile, reminding me of some of my old housing association ‘service-users’ from work back in London. No doubt they are still living in their squalid flats, spending all their dole money on booze and fags and drugs. I guess they are continuing to merrily go about their chaotic but curiously contained lives though...
Nice things yesterday included walking around Chinatown (I loved all the old folk playing cards and mah-jong in Portsmouth Square!), and having a Ghiradelli ice-cream at Fisherman’s Wharf in the afternoon (although this kind of left me feeling a bit queasy, served, as it was, in a puddle of hot chocolate and peanut butter sauce like an obscenely overdone fantasy melted Snickers – only in America!). In the evening I also enjoyed taking a visit to the elegant SF MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), which was filled with some great Warhols, Lichensteins and Pollacks, and which was handily half-price on a Thursday evening (everything has suddenly got very expensive here after Peru, where I could find a full three course meal for what wouldn’t even get me a coffee in these parts). Anyway, the rain is clearing now, and night is falling, so I’m going to be on my way – perhaps switching from coffee shop to bar for a drink and to get stuck into my latest book (the book-swap in my current hostel has been a bit more promising of others of late, so, amidst the ubiquitous dog-eared Daniele Steels, I have managed to pluck out a few decent looking reads to hopefully see me through until I get home). Next entry will I guess get written up on Sunday’s long plane journey home.
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