7: Day 2/He's a lovely woman

Date: 26/6/2010
Time: 6.30pm
Town: San Francisco, California
Timezone: GMT -07.00

Note: Wrote this yesterday but didn't get email connection until today. So I'm totally not stealing some random's internet connection in my hotel in Vancouver, because I am in Canada at the moment. But this is the San Francisco post from yesterday that I never got to post. Enjoy :)
Oh, and thanks to dlink and linksys for the free internet. You guys are champs. But you should consider getting security systems for your wifi. Just a thought.

Okay, so after I found out that the biggest gay festival of all time was going on this weekend, I started seeing gay people everywhere. Not just because of some freaky illusion, but they actually talked to us and got us to sign petitions and held hands with each other and they're so cute and it's really sweet to see them being able to be themselves without worrying about what people think.
Oh, and also, some of them were men in women's clothes. But god, they were so beautiful. The effort involved was just amazing. (I thought it'd be rude to take photos of them though. So you can check out the festival at this website). It was like a Royal Show, it was so cool. Didn't get much of a chance to walk around because we'd booked a tour bus that day.
Also, whilst wandering around the city, trundled through the art exhibition in Union Square. Some pretty artistic people in San Francisco, because it is an amazingly arty town. We had about ten galleries within fifty metres of our hotel.


And there's heaps of bead stalls on the streets. I'm not joking, this city is full of beads. Makes for good photography!


So we get on this tour bus, after Dad chucked a hissy about public transport (which is terrible, by the way. Much, much worse than Perth, which is fantastic by comparison. But they try hard... sorta.) We learned some really cool history about San Francisco so prepare yourself for a second hand history lesson about the great town.


The tour bus guys were really awesome. The first guy told us not to walk around certain streets at two in the morning with our 'I just came back from Alcatraz!' hats on and holding out maps, trying to find out where we were. The second guy's name was Frank and he was hilarious. He told us two things: one was that there were singles nights at a downtown Safeway and if any woman was looking for the man of her dreams, she should be careful in case he's looking for the man of his dreams too... heh heh heh... and also that in SF, if you are visiting, you will see one of three things - a parade, a protest or a naked person. And we saw a very small part of the Pride Parade so there you have it. First of all, there are just under 809,000 people in San Francisco county - less than Perth. However, there are about 17,000 people per square mile, and there's about three per square mile in Perth. You get the picture, they are very short of space. So a lot of the graveyards were shifted out of town to make room for residential areas.


Oh, and in the early 1900's there was a massive earthquake and many people died. And then the gas pipes all broke and everything caught fire and 75% of the city burned for three days, and more people died. And they couldn't put it out because the water mains were all broken so they had no water to put out the fires. An series of unfortunate events, as Lemony Snicket would say.
But moving right along.
There is such beautiful buildings in San Francisco. Including this beautiful chapel called St. Peter and Paul Chapel. Ironically, it's on number 666 Filbert Street. Hardy hardy har.


So then the tour took us around here and there, we stopped off at the Wharf for a walk around for about ten minutes before the next bus came along. We went down to this little toilet complex and saw this Police officer banging on the door calling out, "SFPD!! Open up!" Dad and I were like "Ohmygod, real life criminals!"
...But, turned out, he just really needed to take a leak and you needed a key from the shop upstairs. So we laughed at him.
He didn't look very impressed.
We trundled down to the Golden Gate bridge, but as it is in San Francisco, it was damn cold and completely covered in fog, so we hardly saw anything. T'was pretty lame. But you know, we went there, we came back, you know the deal. We went to this place called Sausalito, which is pretty expensive and spiffy and all that. There was a guy with a cockatoo and another guy balancing rocks. Very dandy indeed. And because it's expensive the houses are amazing. Found my favourite one right here.


We went back over the Golden Gate, and mister bus man Frank took us on a small detour to get a better look at the Golden Gate from a different angle, and there was less fog around so it was easier to see it. It was amazing! Thank you so much Frank! I got some awesome pictures thanks to you!
Oh, and by the way, there is another bridge on the other side of town. Apart from being three times longer and being built six months prior, it is not nearly as popular. I don't even remember what it was called. Point proven.


So that was that, and then we went back to the hotel, dropping past this pizza and pasta house near Union Square. Can't quite remember what it was called but it was amazing, they made the second best spaghetti carbonara I've ever had. The first was Annie's. Haha thanks Annie!
And then it got sort of sad, because as we were walking home late at night there were poor people asking us for plastic bags and spare change, and one guy offered to shine my shoes. And I wanted to give them money but I didn't have anything left to give. America has one of the highest poverty levels for a country that's not a part of the third world. It's so sad.
But, there was a crazy woman who touched Dad's arm hair. That was kinda creepy.
So, thanks for reading, if you still are. I'll keep you updated, I'm going to Canada tomorrow morning and I cannot wait!
Thanks for having us, San Francisco.
Next stop, Vancouver.