At last, a quick reprise of my trip to the US. –

week one - San Francisco

I was last out in California in the fall of 2002, so this trip was something I had wanted to do for a couple of years. The plan was to spend more time in those places that appealed to me after the previous trips where I had only really touched on spots up and down Hwy 1. The main problem is that whilst there is a lot to see in coastal California, it’s all a long way apart. And in central and northern Ca with the exception of San Francisco it’s all kind of low key.

However, it allows me to do what I do best…….. wandering aimlessly around and finding things, or more usually not finding anything. Some sort of loose itinery was needed, mainly because my preferred lodging – hostels, could easily be full if I arrived there on spec, leaving me with nowhere to stay apart from my at-that-time untested camping hammock [more on that later]

So the first week was booked up where needed and off I went, taking a direct flight from Heathrow to SF. Unfortunately this involved a long train journey overnight down to Watford and then a bus around the houses through rush hour Monday morning, early.

However we made it to the airport in plenty of time and that was that.

Daniele had said ages ago that I could stay at her place but she backtracked on that citing artistic integrity and lack of time to get the place ready; ie it was a tip, and she’d been too busy to clean the place for months or throw out stuff that belonged in the trash. In other words the place was a manky slum and she was living in a health hazard [with fruit flies]. So I booked into a new hostel down town and pretty good it was too. Certainly will use it again if D still has’nt cleared up.

I had a private room for the first night, a must when you’re jetlagged……. Your brain has turned to puree’ and you keep getting double vision, from a combination of being out of sync with where you are [9hours behind UK time in this case], and a total lack of significant sleep from when you stepped out of your front door. In my case that was 2am Monday. I had’nt slept properly for nigh on 48 hours. A secure space for you and your stuff is a minimum requirement at least for the first night, and the next if at all possible. So that evening and most the next day I did’nt bother trying to contact Daniele, knowing she was busy, and all I wanted to do was chill and regain some sort of equilibrium. We eventually made contact and made a date to go eat the following evening.

It was nice to see her. She looked well and had put a little weight on. She looked good. We had dinner in a Korean restaurant, one of Daniele’s latest favourites. She always manages to find strange cuisines [to me anyway], orders a mountain of food, proceeds to eat twice as much as me and still has stuff to take home with her.

The itinery more or less went out the window immediately. I had intended going up country for a couple of days, but Daniele suggested we went to the opening of the new de Young Museum, for which she’d been grafting for months, being part of the installation team, responsible for putting up all the Jackson Pollock’s or what have you. So I hastily re-arranged things, knowing that I would loose a bit of money on the way, but probably saving myself the same amount in fuel costs. I spent the next few days wandering around Marin County and the western Bay Area, revisiting quite a few spots. Pleasant rather than invigorating. Like I said I do well at wandering.

So we went to the new deYoung museum, where I ended up having a cracking time. The place is ….wow!






and yes, that tower is twisted around and skewed, and the exterior is clad in copper, several hundred tons of it apparently.

Now, I’m not normally a fan of modern architecture, since it usually takes no account of it’s surroundings; the existing buildings around the site and the quality of the landscape are so often overwhelmed and brutalised by the new edifice. Additionally the materials used often give the impression of impermanence, suggesting that the new building will be demolished in 60 years or so.

I don’t get that impression here. The building is monolithic in stature, and viewed from a distance gives the impression of a Central American temple complex, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in, rising as does above the many mature trees around it. When wisps of San Francisco’s famous fog drifts over and around the tower this feeling is certainly reinforced.









Which is quite good and fitting really considering that the inside contains some wonderful Mayan Stone carvings along with 60’s paintings, New Guinean and Oceanic war masks and Dogon ritual garb. I was well impressed.

The partaaay followed the well trodden route of such affairs. It was a thank you from the museum to all those who had worked on it: ie the staff, so as such was decidedly not a black tie affair. Which was just as well since a black tie and DJ was something I did not possess. D looked good in her skirt and top, she does’nt normally ‘do’ dressing up. In fact I’d never seen her out of about 5 layers of t shirt and woolly jumpers, until then……. So that was nice too ;) Pity we live a whole continent and an ocean apart.

Introductions to her workmates over I got talking to a couple of guys, one of whom was well into a band I was keen on in the ‘70’s - a welsh band called Man, which were obscure, even in Wales. It’s a small world. The global village certainly seems to have come to pass. D was humming, networking, bouncing off people and generally behaving like the Manhatanite she is.

The night ended with my dropping D off and driving a friend/workmate of hers back home, since she was a little mellow. Conversation flowed, mainly from Cynthia and in my direction. An invite for coffee ‘or something’ was made and as I mulled this significant offer over we arrived in her street, she said ‘pull in over here’ and then she was gone. I sat there somewhat bemused for a few seconds wondering if I’d had a lucky escape, or whether I’d missed something a little more wonderful…….

So that was that. I had a day to kill then off out to do some whale watching around the Farallon Islands. Saturday was ‘interesting’ The US Navy Fleet was in, something I had studiously ignored thinking it was of no consequence. How wrong I was. I turned up in the bay front area with the intention of heading up to Fort Mason Hostel, only to be confronted with bumper to bumper traffic, and an air show. It took me an hour to do the mile from the Marina Green to the Hostel entrance where the Ranger was having a heated argument with someone in a flash 4x4 [or SUV as they are wont to call them over there]. The SUV was turned away as was the car behind it. I wondered if I could get in at all. Diving down and retrieving my booking slip from the foot-well I smiled at the lady and presented the slip in the hope of being able to park up top cos I was staying there.

To my relief and some surprise there was no problem and soon I had parked the car [legally], checked in and was ensconced on the decking with a mocha in my hand watching the show unfold. Well all I can say is that the biplane aerobatics was worth seeing, the Blue angels [?] navy jet formation flying a little less so, even though they were throwing the big f18 eagles around like toys. Our Red Arrows could quite honestly beat this lot into a cocked hat.

I had the luxury that night of being in a dorm with only one other person, who was totally fazed with jetlag and therefore out for the count for a while.

Thus endeth part the first. Part the second will follow shortly, chronicling my journey to Santa Cruz, Monterey and the Deep South - Big Sur..............

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