Hi, so much to say, so little time. Been working so hard
this week I’ve hardly had time to breathe let alone eat and do my blogging
duties. This entry will concentrate on my first weekend here in San Fran and at
some point towards the end of the week; I’ll write to tell y’all about my new
projects at work...
My first weekend here was great. Busy. Arrived Friday AM and headed straight to
the office - 2 large suitcases, lap-top case and bag in tow - due to my
apartment supposedly not being ready until 4pm? Such an inconvenience, and considering
that by this point that I'd been up for a good 12 hours. Yawn. So arrived at
the office, which is in Downtown SF, very modern and big enough to have its own
stationary den. This, for some reason, excited me more than the office itself,
though when you've been used to using a second-hand notepad and a Summer Academy
at Strathclyde pen (they are the best though!) for four weeks, being told that
you can help yourself to a myriad of office consumables is bound to cause your
heart to flutter a little. Needless to say my all new multifarious lap-top bag
(also known as my mobile office) is full of post-its (of varying sizes and even
some with lines), pens, pencils, correction fluid, pads of paper, paper-clips
and staples. I also noticed that there were quite a few printers and so I may,
at some point, have one of those too. Don't be mistaken though and think that I
have 'stolen' these items - just to be clear I am based in two offices, some 60
miles apart, and am also doing some work from home, so an endless supply of
items of little utility or real intrinsic value to anyone is always necessary.
Why is it that a nice yellow sticky post-it is so much more satisfying than a
simple note to self in the margin? The colour? The noise and slight resistance as
you rip the wee fella from his home like a snail from a wall? It truly is one
of life's last remaining enigmas, well aside from how we all came to be on a
blue and green ball spinning about in the middle of a perpetually dark universe,
the size of which is impossible for even the average human to comprehend. Ah it’s
true what they say – ignorance is bliss!
So I stayed in the office for a few hours just catching up on some work but decided to chance it and head to my apartment early to grab 40 winks before the nights events. As it turned out my apartment is just around the corner from my SF office and thankfully my walk there was not in vain. Apartment is great. Not amazing like the DC apartment in terms of size and view, but in term of location it beats it hands down. I’m in between 2nd and 3rd at Folsom and it is literally a hop, step and a jump to the SF MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), the Yerba Buena Center for Contemporary Arts, Union Square and all its designer stores, Market St and all its high street stores including Bloomingdales which is easily the stand-out star of any store I’ve been in to in the States so far, the MUNI underground, F car street car (old style tram), the up-hill cable cars and the embarcadero (think Blackpool promenade with class). Location, location, location indeed. After realising how close I was to everywhere I decided that rather than sleep (you can do that when you’re dead right?) I’d go out for a wander and lose myself in this new metropolis that I’m going to call home for, shall we say, the next wee while (this will be explained in my next blog about my week at work once details are finalized). First place that I stumbled across was Chinatown. Wow. Not like any other Chinatown that I’ve been to, it was messy, loud, authentic, bewildering, confusing, hilly, colourful, exciting, inspiring. If London’s Chinatown is a decidedly westernized, health and safety gone crazy inception of a Chinese marketplace, this is a real, honest and big-fingers up to the environmental health kinda place. And I loved it. Live chickens, turtles, seahorses, mini-alligators, reptiles, dead and dried seahorses, animals that I haven’t ever seen before, ginger, spices, cats and dogs, trinkets, old people playing chess and mah-jong in the square, blue buildings, green buildings, red and gold. A melee, a festival, a real treat for all the senses. Needless to say I’ll be spending some more time hanging out and eating here over the next few months.
After that I climbed/walked up Telegraph Hill towards Coit Tower to gain a better view of the city. It’s quite difficult to grasp the landscape of a place when the streets are quite narrow and the buildings so tall (well in relation to low-rise Scotland and DC), so off I went. The road layout here is pretty whacky and to get to some places you need to go up and over, up again, up some stairs, down stairs, down-hill, up up and to the top. Crazy, tiring, yet wholly rewarding. You know from the ground it seems so big, but the city itself, crammed onto a tiny peninsula is a mere 7x7 miles. Though that’s 7x7 miles of sheer joy. The views were spectacular, though due to the ever persistent mist, the Golden Gate was well out of sight. Boo. Rather than do a Hansel and Gretel and retrace my steps I opted to go right over the other side of the hill and head towards to Pacific coast of the city. I was going to head to Fisherman’s Wharf and try some of the fresh seafood, but when I finally got to the bottom of what felt like 1000 steps I stumbled across the F-line tram and decided to jump on that back to the apartment to try and sleep before Kyle arrived in the city from Santa Clara. Might I add at $1.50 for a pass that lasts 4 or so hours, the public transport in SF is ridiculously cheap.
So when I got back I realized that I had about an hour before Kyle came to the city, so rather than sleep I did what all good Scotsmen would do – I headed to the liquor store and grabbed a pack of beers. Showered, fed and watered – it was time to head to meet the man himself at the SF Giants AT&T ballpark. Jumper in tow (SF can get cold in the evenings) we sat down to enjoy a game of baseball accompanied by some beer. Thing is, we had so much to catch up on that we barely watched the match and nattered through the whole of the proceedings. All the while the mist was rolling in and yes, it rained? Well ok, only a tiny little bit, but rain in California? I mean, isn’t this supposed to be the sunshine state? Come on. After the match we popped back to mine where I opted for the added comfort of a jacket and Kyle dumped his and headed out in shirt (bloody islander!). Not really having a clue where to go we headed towards Union Square and after what felt like having walked for a good few miles we came across, yep you guessed it, an Irish bar! The night progressed as it began and after trawling around a few places we met some people from Montreal who were touring down the west coast and who were also suitably unimpressed with the $20 cover charge for a nightclub. Revelling in our miserly outlook, we all headed off to a bar and drank lots of beer, tequila and black Russians. Bad choice, I left, apparently, though have no recollection of this. That is, until I came to as I was chatting with a homeless guy under a freeway some distance from my apartment? How I got there I don’t know, when and why I left the bar – a total mystery...the homeless guy, did, however, I think? Say that I was an angel. Whether or not this was before or after I gave him $10 is really beside the point. I’m having that one. Some time later I made it to my apartment. Lesson learned by you after reading this – sleep more, eat more, drink less, avoid black Russians, take a cab.
Saturday was ruined by the previous days over consumption and so I have nothing to say re that.
Sunday I headed to Japantown, though as time has run away from me again and I’ve been at this for over an hour I must say sayonara for now and head off to bed, though will complete this final portion of my first weekend when I get a chance later today. Tune in to find out...
Peace,
Rory
Well this just sounds fantastic what a joy 'frisco sounds. Miss you but glad you're getting the chance to be an angel somewhere new! xxxx
Posted by: Lindsay Bruce | August 14, 2008 at 12:49 PM