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Living just enough for The City

It's time for me to try to document what I did on my holidays into three concise, not-windbaggy-at-all blog posts. Tricky, but here goes then.

[Disclaimer: there is quite a large piece of news at the end of this post, so if you find travelogues tedious, skip to the end.]

I spent my time in San Francisco bedazzled. I kept finding myself looking at beautiful, sun-drenched vistas and muttering to myself, "bloody hell, I'm in California!". It really does do that to you. In a flash, things that Europeans have in their minds when they picture the West Coast are there in reality - enormous roads/cars, surfing, palm trees, the heat haze, tanned bodies...millions of sushi restaurants...

Lots of people talk about how foggy San Francisco is. Well, we barely saw any of this famous fog. The weather was clement the entire time, warm and sunny. So up yours, Mark Twain.

Our first full day blew away those jet lag cobwebs. In the morning we did a Segway tour of SF. I really didn't feel like walking ever again once I had been on a Segway - it's just infinitely better. Especially on hills. Our genial guide Johannes gave us a great start in The City: which is the only name that native San Franciscans use (never Frisco). We then hopped on the Caltrain down to San Carlos to see the Lough-Stevens family for a barbeque. Later in the week, we went to Greens with the family, a gourmet vegetarian restaurant with a view of the Golden Gate bridge.

The following day there was a bit of wandering about to get our bearings, and then a jaunt out to Oakland to the famous Yoshi's to see Brian Auger's Oblivion Express. We had hoped to see Cornelius and Deerhoof (who are a local band!) but the gig was cancelled - at the same time we realised that Auger was playing. He is an old fella now but he's still got it.

We did what all good tourists should do and went to the Haight (via a bus ride through the Tenderloin, which was how I'd imagine a live action version of The Wire to be. As my young friend says, it's "the most hilariously-named ghetto in the world"). I'm sad to say I found the Haight depressing. It's a bit like Camden, only crapper. There were lots of real casualties sitting about looking pitiful. That's is perhaps one of the downsides of The City: there is very little support for those with mental health issues (many of which are self-medicating with drugs). So there is an edge of unpredictability. I know you get that in London, to a certain extent - but our flawed social care system is surely better than nothing at all.

One of the weirder sights we saw was at the bottom of Powell Street, where we saw a man with a dog. On the dog's back was a cat. On the cat's back was a rat. The dog was ambling along. All three animals were behaving like this was the most normal thing in the world. I nearly fell off the pavement in surprise.

Being lovers of art, as all good citizens of the world should be, we spent some time in museums looking at art: specifically, SFMOMA and the de Young Museum. I preferred the latter, with it's brutalist architecture and gorgeous setting in the Golden Gate Park.

We also did what everyone who goes to The City should do - go on a tour to Alcatraz. We went in the evening, which is generally judged to be the best time to go. It was eerie - there's no two ways about it. The audio tour, which is something I usually resist partaking in, was really evocative and very touching at points.

We decided to get a ferry to Sausalito, primarily because JJ admires the Grover Washington Jr song of the same name. Wow, what a place. It's like the SF version of Whitstable. Really posh and gorgeous. We spent a pleasant few hours, drinking Anchor Steam Beer. That evening, we took the cable car uptown to The Tonga Room, a tiki bar of some note. We drank cocktails and listened to the covers band belt out dancefloor fillers. The band play from a raft in the middle of a lagoon. Every half an hour, a "thunderstorm" breaks out, complete with rain and lightning. It's certainly a bit naff, but ferchrissakes, what better way to round off a holiday?

So, winding back a few days, following our trip to SFMOMA, we sat in Yerba Buena Gardens and JJ asked me if I would like to get married. I'm very happy to say that I said yes.

Which is probably another reason why I'll always love The City.

Next: Las Vegas

Labels: san francisco

posted by deafdisco @ 5:46 pm