we left our ......'s in San Francisco

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For the past couple of days we have been partaking in the delights on San Francisco. And I have to say it has delighted very well! Ollie has dubbed it ‘The city that has everything’ and I think he is pretty much right. Although it is quite a large city it doesn’t feel like it and the apparent laid back nature made us feel right at home. Like most places, San Francisco is split up into different areas and each has its own unique feel.

We began our first day by taking a walk to Laguna street and the world’s most crooked road. Well I say we took a walk...more like a hike! The uneven nature of SF’s roads aren’t always apparent and one minute we would be walking along a perfectly flat road and the next it would shoot up at almost a ninety degree angle in front of us. These steep inclines were torture to walk up and then just as hard to walk down! I had to try and stop myself from breaking into a run which made me walk looking like I needed the toilet...not so cool! Anyway Crooked Street was pretty crazy and with all the flower decorations and perfectly pruned hedges decorating the sharp twists and turns, I assumed it was just a tourist stunt. However I was proved wrong when I learned it had been built like that in the 1920’s to help cars get down the super steep road. Today though it does just look giant a giant flower pot maze!

From there we moved on, up and down more shockers of streets, towards the north end of the city and Fisherman’s Warf. We both loved this part of the city. There were loads of piers with fishing boats, pleasure boats, day cruisers and some historic refurbished ships from the big trading years (most originally built in England yay!) mored up, as well as big factory warehouses for unloading and selling catches. On the other side of the street were the usual souvenir shops, family restaurants and amusements. It kind of felt a bit like a big Cornish fishing town. As it was Veterans Day there were lots of people about which gave the place a friendly feel. The most popular attraction here though is Pier 39. Built of wood and looking pretty fine, this is where the main hub of activity seems to take place. Here you can buy some more pricey keepsakes, eat out on the decking, buy amazing hot chocolate and get a great view of Alcatraz. Pier 39 is also the home of the local Sea Lions. We were fascinated for ages by the big fat lolloping lumps with their tiny back flippers (?) and wagging teeny tail nubs. Every so often they would all decide they’d had enough of one particular seal and start barking and pushing to try and get rid of him or her. Another two were quite happy taking in the sunset from the back of someone’s boat! They were all hilarious and they always had a crowd admiring them. 

On our second evening we visited the pier again and this time there was a juggler there doing a show. It was kind of for kids but lots of us adults were thoroughly entertained too! He was really funny and great at getting the audience involved. Well apart from the moment he got a woman volunteer on stage. She looked like she’d just come out of a truck in Alabama and spoke like it too. When the juggler asked if her belly button was an inny or a outty (not so funny now but at the time it was integral to the act I promise!) the woman just shook her head. ‘Do you have a belly button?’ was the obvious next question to which she again shook her head. ‘Are you an alien’ got a confused eyebrow. Anyway they completed the trick and when the juggler thanked the lady and said she could leave the stage, she took a huge bow and curtsey, in a most sincere way! So very odd...

I have not told you the greatest gift that Fisherman’s wharf had to offer us yet. From the moment we smelled it we knew it was going to be good. But tasting the delectable delicacy   was when the true wonder was revealed. The Calm Chowder the small market type servers were selling was THE BEST I have ever tasted (Yes better than Maine!). Served in the middle of a carved out freshly baked sour dough bun, the chowder was the perfect mix of, creamy, potato, clam and seasoning. The bread added even more splendor to the meal. Yum! It was so good we shared one the first day and then each had our own the second! Well Ollie had crab the second time but I think the Clam was best!

In the afternoon Ollie and I walked back towards Union Square in the centre of the city. Along the way we came across ‘City Lights Bookshop’, still independently owned (Woop) and dating back to 1953 where it provided one of the main meeting places for writers of the Beat Generation. Of course I had to go in and look around, it was a crime if I didn’t! The shelves were lined with some of my favourite books, ones I wanted to read and others that just simply fascinated. I was lost in books while Ollie sat patiently on a stool waiting. To think this was where some of my heroes had once met and talked was an awesome thought. Ollie relented and said I could chose one book to take away. Secretly I had been hoping he would agree to this and now I just needed to get my list of about fifty down to just one. It was hard! In the end I chose a book I had wanted to read at university but had never got round to. It was a collection of letters sent between Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Clutching my book I stepped back out into the drizzle with a smile. Across the street was another shop specializing in Beat literature and it had a number of signed first editions and rare covers. Unfortunately these were a little out of my travelling price range but I did enjoy looking, as did Ollie, but he was admiring the crumpled early editions of Playboy at the back of the shop!

Further up the street we found Chinatown. Much smaller than others we have visited but still just as colourful and wonderfully smelling. By now though I have got used to what tubs to look in and which ones not to if I don’t want to throw up over some chicken feet or pigs eyes! Through the gated entrance we passed onto Union Square and all the stores that make up SF’s fantastic shopping district. There we found all the major U.S departments stores, shopping malls and chains. As it gets closer to the end of our trip it becomes increasingly difficult to not give into my deep love of shopping! I held out though...well until we got to the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop! Seeing as this famous brand was founded in San Francisco it seemed rude not to take a look. On entering we were given a free piece of their special christmas edition which was wonderful and just made me want to buy the whole shop! Once more Ollie avoided disaster and said we could pick one bar to buy. As with the bookshop my choosing process took some time. It hadn’t been a good day for Ollie really, stumbling across my two strongest vices! 

The following day we decided to do some walking and see the rest of the city. We took a bus down to our starting point which was Haight and Ashbury. These streets had once been formed from a generation of hippies who had made this part of SF their home, including some of the surrounding parks. Summers of free love must have been spent on a many a grass knoll around here and the smell of pot brownies is still in the air! But today it is a slightly different kind of place. Still an eclectic mix of people, smells, thoughts and beliefs, to me it was beginning to look a little tired. Graffiti murals had begun to peel on walls and all the shops had dusty windows selling many unusual items of clothing. It felt as if the soul the mini village might of once had, had left long ago, only to leave ghosts for memories. Haight is still a living place for many a tie dyed pair of trousers though and hair that looks like a barber stopped half way through. Interesting as the place was it didn’t make us want to linger. Not that it felt dangerous, not at all, but like I said I just couldn’t grasp a sense of the place. 

Haight leads onto Golden Gate Park. A bit like Central Park but with far more of a lush green country way about it. You really could forget you were on the outskirts of a big city here. On entering we passed a group of kids (well older teenagers!) who were falling all about the place. They yelled at us that the best thing we could do today was ‘Get spun out on acid and smashed out of our faces drunk’. Apparently it’s awesome. I wanted to turn around and let rip at them but I held back. You see, on this trip I have had just about all I can take of ‘system rejectors’ that think they are so bloody cool walking around stinking and covered in mud with dogs on leads that look like they need a good home. Do they have a point?! Apparently they think they are giving the finger to the so called ‘system’ when really they are just being plain pathetic. Asking me ‘Do you want some of my lice I have lots’ and commenting that I’m ‘just another drone feeding the fascist state’ is not big or clever. All these kind of young people succeed in doing is giving a bad name to those people who genuinely have something to protest about. By all means don’t shower to make a point about getting clean water to Africa but don’t just not wash because you think it’s rebelling. It isn’t you just STINK! And then don’t be surprised when you aren’t allowed into a shop. No it’s not because people are apposed to your view point it’s because again YOU STINK!

I’ve always followed the view point that to make make a difference you have to have lived in and understand the situation you want to change. For example the Occupy protests. Most of the people protesting have been genuinely crippled by their governments and banks and are therefore rightly angered. But a young person who has never worked or tried to pay their own way wouldn’t have a clue. What do they know of hardship? Now I’m not talking about homeless people here. I’m talking about the type of young people I’ve seen hanging around, getting drunk and just being plain ridiculous. I’m sure many of them have very decent homes to go back to whenever they choose and parents who will give them any money they want. So for them ‘rebelling’ is just an infantile hobby that they can indulge in whenever they wish and then come twenty five or thirty decide to pack it in, put on a tie and go to work for Dad at the local law firm. In turn becoming what they once pretended to appose. This is how I see it. There are genuine people trying to make a difference and then there are a whole load of dirty stupid kids getting the meaning of ‘cool’ extremely wrong. But this is only my opinion...

Rant over and further into the park we took many wrong turns to finally come across Strawberry Hill. Surrounded by a moat of water the hill looks very pretty. Seeing that there were pedalos to hire, we couldn’t resist an hour floating around this lovely place. And I thought England was Health and Safety mad! Even just for an hours hire we had to fill out disclaimer forms! Oh and the part Ollie hated most? We had to wear life jackets! The water was only about two foot deep, if that (we know ‘cos we accidently got stuck half way round and dredged the moat for them a bit!) but still we had to wear the bright red jackets! Mortified, Ollie plonked onto the pedalo and we set off. The girl had told us it would take about an hour to complete the circuit but with mine and Ollie’s supreme cycling action and nautical knowledge we completed it in half the time! We had so much spare that we doubled back on ourselves! Other people were peddling so hard but not going anywhere. We had found however that by keeping to a consistent gentle pace the pedalo moved much better. What can I say. The English are clearly better on the water! 

We did have one small incident when Ollie wanted to take us on a ‘safari trail’ and we got stuck in some logs and had to reverse. A couple watching nearby even did the beep noises for us! (For Jack - the couple in question looked exactly like the male pair in modern family complete with baby!) I got us stuck on a giant log while trying to hunt down and grind a sea gull and Ollie drove us into a poo storm. We had been aiming for a small arch made by a branch and we wanted to see if we could peddle through it. However when we got there we were startled by dozens of small splashing sounds all around us. Looking up we saw hundreds of birds crowded into a couple of trees. Each bird had obviously decided that now was toilet time and so had unleashed a rain of white drops onto us. Thankfully Ollie’s quick and skillful pedalo maneuvers removed us unscathed from the drop zone!

We continued our walk towards the Golden Gate Bridge. I had caught a glimpse of it the day before through the rain but was looking forward to seeing it properly on this sunny day. An old man tried to give us directions and warned that it was ‘quite a hike’. The conversation was awkward for two reasons. One - we actually knew the way and so we knew the man was giving us incorrect instructions but had to pretend to take them in anyway and then proceed to walk in the direction he told us until he was out of sight and we could turn around. Two - What we think is quite a hike and what Americans often presume to be quite a hike are two very different things. Three or four miles to Ollie and I was not a long way but to some Americans we’ve met, to walk that far would be madness. Anyway we didn’t mind playing the foolish English couple for a bit if it gave amusement to an imminent octogenarian!

The walk turned out to be a great trek through some of a national park and a chance to get into some good conversation to enjoy along the way. The park ‘trail’ we were following was a bit odd as it would twist and turn for no reason. In the end we just looked ahead and found a straight path to take as the other was pretty pointless! Maybe they just made people feel good about themselves as if they’d walked further than they actually had! We reached the base of the bridge and it was a great surprise for me to see a beach beside it and a large open park. Of course I shouldn’t of been amazed. I should have learned by now that over here anything worth taking a look at is made into a very big deal! There was a little pier and kids and adults were fishing for crabs. Ollie was astounded that they could eat the crabs they caught because ‘when I fished off the wall back home we couldn’t eat those crabs’. Yes Ollie.

But the bridge. Ah the bridge. Just as magnificent as I had hoped and just as red! Or ‘Firey Orange’, whatever the colour they paint it! It stands out from the blue sea and sky and the green hills it connects so perfectly that you almost wonder if it isn’t a natural occurrence itself. The little white sails of boats passing beneath and the sun reflecting off the cables is a super sight. I couldn’t help but keep taking pictures! By this time Ollie’s mind had turned to food and he had spied a hot dog stand touting a ‘family farmed, organic, fresh, genetically unmodified, 100% beef’ sausage. We decided to share one (because Ollie still wanted his crab chowder back at the pier too) and joined the large queue. We chose a ‘mutt dog’ which was half pork/half beef, with onions of course. Then I added whole grain mustard, ketchup and pickle relish. Ollie said I could have the first half. Well. Ollie very nearly didn’t get his half! That hot dog was the most delicious I’ve ever tried. So meaty and so juicy that I didn’t want my bit to end. The condiments and relish only enhanced the dog further so that I had to muster all my decency to pass Ollie’s half over. Obviously after his first bite, Ollie shouted at me for only letting us share! I had to physically restrain him from spending another $5.75 and getting another one. Yes that hot dog was expensive but my life was it worth it!

San Francisco has been our favourite city to visit. It really does have everything you could possibly want all tied together with a great atmosphere and stunning scenic views. I’ve really enjoyed my time here and would definitely want to bring people back for a visit. Although maybe I’d take the tram around next time, walking fifteen miles in a day is probably only fun as a one time novelty!

12/11/11