San Francisco

Ah, California.  I am tempted to recall the lyrics to the song by The Red Hot Chili Peppers...
 
"First born unicorn, hard-core soft porn
 Dream of Californication."
 
How very true I'm sure that is.  If only I could figure out what the hell it means.

It's always a wrench leaving somewhere.  Except Scunthorpe.  So it was with a heavy heart that we bid goodbye to the nice folk at the Ilima Hotel in Waikiki.  One of the people on the desk, a very nice guy named Jay who had taken a special interest in us since our arrival, took down our birthdays so they could send us cards.  Awwwwww...
 
But this is the lot of the traveller - ever onward - ever forward - ever stuck with huge f*cking bags.  I was perplexed as to why my own backpack was so clunky and awkward and heavy.  Carrying it was like carrying giving Kirstie Alley a piggyback.  But all I had in there were clothes!

Surely my trousers, t-shirts and smalls couldn’t weigh all that much.  Yet, it seemed when I stuffed them into my pack they immediately weighed a ton.  I began to suspect that the Laws of Physics didn't apply inside my bag, and that once inside, the contents start to weigh the same as they would on Jupiter or something.  
 
But despite my heavy heart and heavier bag, our flight to San Francisco managed to take off and we arrived in the early evening.  It was a beautifully clear day on our flight, and circling over San Francisco, I was stunned by just how astonishingly beautiful it is from the air, surrounded by majestic hills, the bay sparkling in the sun.  It was undoubtedly the nicest city I had seen from the air.  
 
Our taxi dropped us at our hotel which was in a relatively nice looking area, but I was unnerved by two things:
 
a)  There was NO-ONE on the streets and it was only about 8:30pm.
b)  When I say no-one, I am excluding all the freaks milling about like the "Dawn of the Dead".  

Now I am sure this is not a fair thing to say about The Homeless.  After all, it's not their fault that they have been tossed out by an uncaring society blah blah blah - but it freaked me out a little.  I mean, here I am, an obvious tourist and therefore an obvious target.  Also I should reiterate, I am not a large man.  

Really, if a particularly burly 12 year old demanded my traveller’s cheques for sweet money, I would probably hand them over.  So as I wandered off to buy milk from a local store, I was unnerved by the three different guys asking for change and by the huge guy who didn't smell too good who was leaning with his head against the store’s window.  
 
I'm probably over-reacting.  It was probably PERFECTLY safe.  I mean, most of those guys probably weren't even aware of me.  I doubt that they were even aware of traffic.  But that's not the point.  If you're sensible, careful and about the same height as a late-developing 15 year old (and I am all of these things) then you try to avoid potentially mugging situations.  
 
Consequently we decided to move hotels.  Our next place was The Chancellor in Union Square which is about as central as you can get in San Francisco, and also just a block away from "Lori's Diner" a very cool authentic "Happy Days" type diner where they make an EXCELLENT meatloaf.  
 
By day, San Francisco is an extraordinarily pretty place.  Dizzying hills behind you, streets that just drop away in front, buildings of character on all sides, neon signs right out of 1940's films, fire escapes, trolleys, cable cars, and of course cable care wire spiderwebbing every street.  It's EXACTLY as it looks in "Bullit", "Tales of the City" and "So I Married An Axe Murderer".  I should add that it's also BLOODY COLD.  In JUNE.  

Surely this is against the Law of California, where I thought everyone went around on rollerblades wearing bikinis?  Instead we had to get our fleeces and jumpers out, which hadn't seen the light of day since Melbourne.  I was very disappointed, and have to stuff my rollerblades and bikini to the bottom of my backpack.
 
So what did we do?  We watched tv of course!  There was the usual Jerry and Ricki to keep us happy.  And the tv ads, which are always entertaining ("So I've got genital herpes!" one woman announced cheerfully.  "I'm NOT going to let it get me down!!"  Well done dear.)  

You may chastise us for not going out and sampling the nightlife, but - well - we tried.  I scanned the local papers but there wasn't anything going on that particularly grabbed me except two local bands "Anal Cunt" and "The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash" and I think you'll agree that I would probably have been going to see them for the wrong reasons.  
 
We also did a lot of shopping.  Caro headed for The Gap, Old Navy, The Body Shop and found her New Favourite Shop, Urban Outfitters.  My credit card hid, whimpering in my boxers.  Incidentally, it's at this point that I would like to COMPLAIN about American Currency.  

It's extremely distressing to feel a whole wad of money in your pocket only to discover that it is entirely made up of one dollar bills and you actually only have about enough money to buy a pair of underpants for of your girlfriend who by now my god has an entire basket full of clothes.  

Thank god for credit cards.  So one dollar bills are definitely evil.  The Americans should definitely replace them with coins, although this would mean doing away with Abraham Lincoln.  It would go down well in the South.