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This Isn't California, This Is San Francisco!
This chapter is more about my travels but I'll be talking about the con itself Real Soon Now :-)
United Airlines now use a small airport not far from Lancaster for some flights, which meant no need to return to LAX! This made for a much more relaxed start to the day and then my journey to SF in a rattly little 50-seater or thereabouts. San Francisco was the only city I had not visited before this trip but I felt like I had, having seen and read so much about it.
SF was certainly colder than LA and Lancaster. I needed to don my jacket straight away and within two days, to purchase a fleecy sleeveless jacket from Chinatown as an extra layer. The sea winds come at SF from three directions and the fog drifts down from the hills to cover the city. Summer is a remote concept from another land.
I can recommend the Ellis St International Hostel to fellow tourists. It is an old but comfortable building, with shared or single rooms, good kitchen facilities and supremely comfortable couches in an open lounge area. The people on the front desk seem to cover a large number of languages among them. They know the answer to any question and are very good at not making you feel like an idiot when you ask it. They also genuinely seem to care about your welfare and that you have a good stay. Having breakfast in the cafe - a perk included with the room - somebody would wind her way through, frying pan in hand and deposit a pancake upon your plate. There were certainly loud and annoying tourists there, either Italian, French or German - they all travelled in packs - but I guess I was lucky in that most of these were not quartered near my room.
I would readily place this hotel above the Crowne Plaza Hotel for comfort - but more on that when I get to the con. I did experience more homesickness here than when staying with K and C; natural, I guess, since here I was very much on my own. I missed the house and my futon and my pet rats and having people I knew to talk to. Being continually bailed up by street people for donations was a nuisance and an overload; there were so many that you'd go broke if you tried to be generous. It's also impossible to tell the difference between a scam and a genuine request. One unusual one was a cat in Union Square, resting comfortably on his bedding to one side of the walk, dish nearby. There had to have been an overseeing human but s/he wasn't there at the time!
San Francisco was the city of sore feet. I did more walking this week than over the rest of my stay. I hiked around the Embarcadero and the piers, visited the huge Bay Aquarium and travelled on the ferry to Alcatraz Island. Money bled away here; it was far too easy to spend and many temptations. On the day after visiting Alcatraz, I was so stiff and sore I took it relatively easy and didn't go further afield on foot than Union Square, where a huge Borders Bookstore provided a comfortable cafe and home base.
There I caught a tour bus which would show me most areas of the city I hadn't seen and also go over Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. Apart from the irritating tour guide, who said "folks" about every five words, it was worth it. The guide's one good quote was from Mark Twain, when fellow tourists complained about the cold day in the middle of July. Twain's quote was "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." When some crop-topped tourists staggered down from the open top of the bus, teeth chattering and complaining that, "But this is JULY in CALIFORNIA," the guide capped, "This isn't California. This is San Francisco!" We got the message. San Francisco has its own rules. When we went over the Bridge, the fog had closed in to conceal the top of its arc and looked very surreal and ghostly.
Chinatown was very close to Union Square and I paid two visits there for T-shirts and other mementoes. The cablecars were a must try, though I learned it's advisable to get up early or you wait longer to get on it than you do riding it. The stories don't lie. San Francisco is all hills and I noted a traffic ordinance that all parked vehicles must turn their wheels to the kerb to avoid runaways. One cablecar malfunctioned at the top of one hill close to the Cable Car Museum and while I watched the staff pull out a cable and heavy metal attachments, I wondered whether anything could be done if the cable car decided it was all too much. Our driver announced that he was too good looking to ride anything that wasn't safe.
On the following day, my stiffness had eased. I caught a bus to Golden Gate Park, just a bit too far to walk considering I was fairly walked out and intended to do some hiking within the park itself. I have to admit it was good to get away from the crowds for awhile, though the weather was again fairly crisp and very much like a Perth winter. The Conservatory of Flowers is a colour blast right to the brain, a direct contrast to the planned elegance of the Japanese garden. I had been expecting perhaps a sand garden and some bonsai but this garden was huge and included every style of Japanese garden that they could. I wish I could recreate some of it here but I think climate will prevent that. The overriding characteristic of the Golden Gate garden was dampness. There was green moss everywhere and other delicate plants which needed watering even in this mild climate to survive.
The Japanese owners of the dwarf tree collection were interned during World War II and there was no indication as to whether they ever returned. I'm not sure I would want to. They turned the trees over to someone who eventually made them part of the collection in the park.
Food was pretty much catch as I could but I had a couple of decent meals in San Francisco, one a roast beef sandwich from Boudin's Bakery on the Embarcadero and the other the best burger and fries I've ever eaten, from a 1950s recreation diner called Lori's. After that burger, eaten on my last full day in the city, I floated about in a stuffed sort of daze and wasn't even tempted by the offerings in Ghirardelli's Chocolatiers. They did give me a free sample, a peanut-butter filled chunk which was very nearly the "one little sliver" of Monty Python fame.
By the end of the six days in San Francisco, six counting arrival day but not departure at 6.35am, I was more than ready to get on the Zephyr train and be carried leisurely towards Denver, where I would stay with friends before moving on to the Worldcon.
I think the busyness of being a tourist is shown by the fact that it took me a week after arrival to finish one book, Kim Harrison's Where Demons Dare. Even at the hostel I was generally out doing stuff or writing in my journal or asleep, so it took awhile to get through Harry Turtledove's The Disunited States of America which felt peculiarly appropriate somehow. The hostel did have a stack of books, perhaps left behind by dissatisfied readers as none of them caught my interest. For the train journey I picked up Laurie King's most recent Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell novel, Locked Rooms, featuring a 1920s San Francisco. Then on the last day I got up about 5am and headed for a cold, foggy bus stop on the side of a road.
To be continued in "Mile High Bison."
United Airlines now use a small airport not far from Lancaster for some flights, which meant no need to return to LAX! This made for a much more relaxed start to the day and then my journey to SF in a rattly little 50-seater or thereabouts. San Francisco was the only city I had not visited before this trip but I felt like I had, having seen and read so much about it.
SF was certainly colder than LA and Lancaster. I needed to don my jacket straight away and within two days, to purchase a fleecy sleeveless jacket from Chinatown as an extra layer. The sea winds come at SF from three directions and the fog drifts down from the hills to cover the city. Summer is a remote concept from another land.
I can recommend the Ellis St International Hostel to fellow tourists. It is an old but comfortable building, with shared or single rooms, good kitchen facilities and supremely comfortable couches in an open lounge area. The people on the front desk seem to cover a large number of languages among them. They know the answer to any question and are very good at not making you feel like an idiot when you ask it. They also genuinely seem to care about your welfare and that you have a good stay. Having breakfast in the cafe - a perk included with the room - somebody would wind her way through, frying pan in hand and deposit a pancake upon your plate. There were certainly loud and annoying tourists there, either Italian, French or German - they all travelled in packs - but I guess I was lucky in that most of these were not quartered near my room.
I would readily place this hotel above the Crowne Plaza Hotel for comfort - but more on that when I get to the con. I did experience more homesickness here than when staying with K and C; natural, I guess, since here I was very much on my own. I missed the house and my futon and my pet rats and having people I knew to talk to. Being continually bailed up by street people for donations was a nuisance and an overload; there were so many that you'd go broke if you tried to be generous. It's also impossible to tell the difference between a scam and a genuine request. One unusual one was a cat in Union Square, resting comfortably on his bedding to one side of the walk, dish nearby. There had to have been an overseeing human but s/he wasn't there at the time!
San Francisco was the city of sore feet. I did more walking this week than over the rest of my stay. I hiked around the Embarcadero and the piers, visited the huge Bay Aquarium and travelled on the ferry to Alcatraz Island. Money bled away here; it was far too easy to spend and many temptations. On the day after visiting Alcatraz, I was so stiff and sore I took it relatively easy and didn't go further afield on foot than Union Square, where a huge Borders Bookstore provided a comfortable cafe and home base.
There I caught a tour bus which would show me most areas of the city I hadn't seen and also go over Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County. Apart from the irritating tour guide, who said "folks" about every five words, it was worth it. The guide's one good quote was from Mark Twain, when fellow tourists complained about the cold day in the middle of July. Twain's quote was "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." When some crop-topped tourists staggered down from the open top of the bus, teeth chattering and complaining that, "But this is JULY in CALIFORNIA," the guide capped, "This isn't California. This is San Francisco!" We got the message. San Francisco has its own rules. When we went over the Bridge, the fog had closed in to conceal the top of its arc and looked very surreal and ghostly.
Chinatown was very close to Union Square and I paid two visits there for T-shirts and other mementoes. The cablecars were a must try, though I learned it's advisable to get up early or you wait longer to get on it than you do riding it. The stories don't lie. San Francisco is all hills and I noted a traffic ordinance that all parked vehicles must turn their wheels to the kerb to avoid runaways. One cablecar malfunctioned at the top of one hill close to the Cable Car Museum and while I watched the staff pull out a cable and heavy metal attachments, I wondered whether anything could be done if the cable car decided it was all too much. Our driver announced that he was too good looking to ride anything that wasn't safe.
On the following day, my stiffness had eased. I caught a bus to Golden Gate Park, just a bit too far to walk considering I was fairly walked out and intended to do some hiking within the park itself. I have to admit it was good to get away from the crowds for awhile, though the weather was again fairly crisp and very much like a Perth winter. The Conservatory of Flowers is a colour blast right to the brain, a direct contrast to the planned elegance of the Japanese garden. I had been expecting perhaps a sand garden and some bonsai but this garden was huge and included every style of Japanese garden that they could. I wish I could recreate some of it here but I think climate will prevent that. The overriding characteristic of the Golden Gate garden was dampness. There was green moss everywhere and other delicate plants which needed watering even in this mild climate to survive.
The Japanese owners of the dwarf tree collection were interned during World War II and there was no indication as to whether they ever returned. I'm not sure I would want to. They turned the trees over to someone who eventually made them part of the collection in the park.
Food was pretty much catch as I could but I had a couple of decent meals in San Francisco, one a roast beef sandwich from Boudin's Bakery on the Embarcadero and the other the best burger and fries I've ever eaten, from a 1950s recreation diner called Lori's. After that burger, eaten on my last full day in the city, I floated about in a stuffed sort of daze and wasn't even tempted by the offerings in Ghirardelli's Chocolatiers. They did give me a free sample, a peanut-butter filled chunk which was very nearly the "one little sliver" of Monty Python fame.
By the end of the six days in San Francisco, six counting arrival day but not departure at 6.35am, I was more than ready to get on the Zephyr train and be carried leisurely towards Denver, where I would stay with friends before moving on to the Worldcon.
I think the busyness of being a tourist is shown by the fact that it took me a week after arrival to finish one book, Kim Harrison's Where Demons Dare. Even at the hostel I was generally out doing stuff or writing in my journal or asleep, so it took awhile to get through Harry Turtledove's The Disunited States of America which felt peculiarly appropriate somehow. The hostel did have a stack of books, perhaps left behind by dissatisfied readers as none of them caught my interest. For the train journey I picked up Laurie King's most recent Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell novel, Locked Rooms, featuring a 1920s San Francisco. Then on the last day I got up about 5am and headed for a cold, foggy bus stop on the side of a road.
To be continued in "Mile High Bison."