Welcome to San Francisco...

"For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair"

San Francisco must have changed a fair bit since Scott McKenzie wrote these lyrics. Re-adjusting to the US after Australia has been a bit of a shock to the system.

On the flight over I had the seat next to me free so lots of room to spread and sleep, which was great. Also got talking to a really nice girl from the US who was engaged to an Ozzie and got the lowdown before I arrived. When I got to the airport there was no sign of any buses into the city and the train (BART) was gonna be a stupid idea as I'd never have found where I was staying on its actual street when i got off at the other end, so I decided to say bugger the hassle and get a taxi. But I didn't just get a taxi, I got a limo! Not a stretched one, just a normal limo, but all for just $40 which was pretty good. I arrived into SF in style!

However it was actually an even more sensible decision than I had originally realised as my hostel (which once you are inside is ok) is in the "Tenderloin district" which is basically where all the bums, the gangs selling crack and the prostitutes hang out. It is not a nice place. If fact it is the worst place in San Francisco that one could possibly stay. I didn't choose too wisely, however I am determined not to let it shade my view and experience of SF. The strangest thing about the US is you can literally walk a couple of blocks over and be in a really nice, clean, expensive district. Thats why walking through the city is such a random experience. On a long walk you can go from abject poverty to high-wealth and back again three times. Back home a dodgy area and a nice area are fairly well separated. The reason for this in SF is because of the extreme population. After Manhattan its the most densely populated city space in the whole of the USA. I had chinese for dinner the other night, at the end I had a fortune cookie placed in front of me. I opened it and it read "Look in the right places and you will find good fortune." If the cookie is correct, I am clearly not looking in the right place just yet.


On the tourist trail
On my first day I explored the Union Square down to Fishermans Wharf area (including the tourist trap Pier 39 very briefly and Jefferson Street) on foot. I thought I'd remember alot more of SF than I did at first (I was last here 8 years ago on a family holiday), but it is slowly coming back. Apparently they re-designed Union Square 5 years ago so that would explain that one. I followed the hilly SF streets and saw all the typical things like the cable cars, the bay, Alcatraz island, the bridge (from a distance), the sea lions at Pier 39 and Lombard Street (otherwise known as "the Crookedest street"). I ended up spending the evening at a place I had been told about many a time by my Dad, Lou's blues bar. They also do $1 pints of Miller every night, so with a bit of good ole' Blues and a few bucks I had myself a pleasant first evening, until I decided to walk the entire distance I'd covered previously at about 12am.

The next couple of days were spent riding a cable car, checking out the rest of the bay including Gardelli Square. After a hostel organised bar-crawl on Friday night I slowly made it over to the "in-famous" Haight Street (pronounced "hate st") at the weekend. This was where the summer of love apparently started, which is ironic. The area of Haight-Ashbury is the "bohemian" part of SF, and my favorite district by far. There were a bunch of well known musicians who lived in some of the houses in this area including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead house. Now it is more about bars and cool shops. Forget your Macy's (if I went in there I couldn't afford a pair of socks anyway); at the end of upper Haight is probably the biggest record store you could hope to find - Amoeda Music. Its like a warehouse of new and used music, you could spend hours in there and all your savings. I nearly did! As I did in the Virgin Megastore in the city too. From here I walked up Fillmore Street (also well known for its live music) upto Alamo Square. From here you get the perfect picture of the Victorian architecture that makes SF so unique, transposed with a backdrop of modern SF (the city centre).

Later in the week I visited Alcatraz prison ("the rock") for the second time after 8 years. The place hasn't changed much, if at all, but it still provides certainly the best experience one could realistically hope to have inside a former maximum security prison. I always loved "Escape from Alcatraz" with Clint Eastwood (based apparently very realistically on the true story of 3 inmates escaping "by spoon" in 1962). The cell blocks are still pretty much in its original state from 1960 and it would not have been a nice place to spend 18 years of your life. Even on a sunny day the bay winds blow like hell, the many different currents made any chance of escape "technically impossible". Apparently one guy did once manage to escape and made the 1.5 mile swim but by the time he made it over to the bay he was suffering from extreme hypothermia and a heart attack on the way. No chance of a run after that then! The views of the city and of the Golden Gate Bridge from the island are great. Pure torture if you were a prisoner no doubt. Alcatraz represents another important addition to what makes SF such a unique place. Its a juxtaposition of harsh and dark punishment with the natural, free and bright environment of SF bay area.

Over the next few days I visited all the other areas to be experienced. Pacific Heights (very rich, up-market and traditional part of SF. All the movies shot in SF are normally filmed here). Did you know that: Motion pictures were actually invented in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film industry moved to Los Angeles after the Earthquake of 1906 and World War I put many Bay Area movie companies out of business. I also experienced Chinatown (where I stopped in at a fortune cookie factory and saw them being made), North Beach (the Italian area and the place to get a good expresso shot) upto the Coit Tower, Telegraph Hill (very nice too with views of Bay Bridge and Angel Island), and the "Levis Plaza" on the way to the the financial district. I also took in Mission (the latin area and also visited the Mission Delores, the oldest building in San Francisco) and finally Castro (the gay area, I walked down Castro Steet and laughed and laughed and laughed. What a sight to be seen... even a butcher named "The Sausage Factory" had that campness to it). Every area a different type of person, all living on top of one another in one small city.

SF is a city of such diversity (in both a good and an extremely bad way). Maybe it optimises the modern American culture, as screwed up as it is, mixing such a variety of people into such a tight space. The traditional notion of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is portrayed for all to see with redumented regularity. Its such a far cry from such a relaxed and deserted country like Australia which I now realise is still in its total infancy as a developing nation. I now know why American's would find Oz such an appealing place to be. Although I am still "hostelling" it at this point, I have realised that there is a clear lack of the "backpacker/traveller" movement which is rife in Australia. Its more of a plain tourist scene here (i.e. people come for a week or two of holiday). The hostel's here (or at least the one I'm currently in) definitely have a bit of a higher standard of quality and cleanliness than the Australian ones but the type of person staying in them is very different! In Australia everyone is from abroad, basically in the same predicament and on a similar itinerary. Here, there are is whole different type of person (which I didn't expect to this magnitude) alot of people from out-of-state US, Korean's, students and some very strange random strange older people chucked in to make life here even more twisted (why the hell would you stay in a young persons hostel if you are no longer in that definition of "youth", why they let them is even more distressing). Any other typical traveller I have met is either here for a few days and moving on or just here for a short holiday with a friend or partner. There are also very few people like myself, travelling on their own (this was confirmed by a girl I met who had done the same thing for the past 2 months). This doesn't really bode well.

Being away from home on your own, especially travelling (as opposed to living in one place away from home) is pretty lonely at times, as you don't have an established group of friends. Alot of people wouldn't do it for this reason. Would you? (in all honesty!?). Its not that I don't like to be alone, its nice for a couple of days to have total freedom to live to your own schedule but its hellish boring after a short period. Unless I'm at home, then I can function just fine alone for a certain time, but being away (especially in a big city) where you are not only trying to figure out which street goes where but all the new exciting (and some scary) things you are experiencing having no one to share them with is hard. Yes you do normally meet people in hostels and stuff. In Australia there were even times where I actually wanted to break away and have some time to myself, but here people in hostels are alot different and nobody seems to stick here for more than a few days at a time. Hopefully the situation will improve. This blog has depicted the major rollercoaster ride that one experiences on a trip like this, it is called "no evasion of reality..." after all! I said I'd post a truthful experience of what I saw and experienced here. Whilst I am in a moaning mood :) There are more more beggers, tramps and bums here than i have ever previously experienced (although I expect New York will not fail to surprise me!). To be honest half these people are actually mentally ill and need treatment, but again that glorious American culture lets those who are in need of serious help languish and get worse. What they don't (stupidly) seem to realise is its a vicious circle. These people are going to be the ones that end up mugging (or worse) their own children in the street. Oh and there are also next to no public restrooms around, probably due to the fact that this mass of beggars, tramps and bums would get up to no good in them. You can even be found queing in bars for the toilet in the evening!? You can't even do a "Mc-whiz" (the verb meaning "to use the restroom of a fast food restaurant without making a purchase") as they lock the doors. You have to get your daily toilet break in before you leave the house or if you have the fortune to come across one in a shopping centre or something.

For those who regularly subsribe to this journal you will remember the post from Melbourne, Australia - well there's another one of the places here! and no it wasn't found in the Castro District (which was a shame).