Tuesday, January 1, 2013

San Francisco Day 1 (there's actually only one and a half days so this is it…) In Which Everyone is Gay.

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That’s the Bay Bridge, people… Golden Gate was too far away.

I may have mentioned before how much I love San Francisco, but in case you haven't read that blog, I'll just say it again here, I really LOVE San Francisco. I've been a few times, but I've never had the chance to take Jacob and Zoe before so I was super psyched to have 24 hrs there on our way to Kauai.

We arrived late afternoon and took a while to get sorted at our hotel (we made a pit stop at the manager’s hosted happy hour for free drinks and, to Zoe’s absolute amazement and delight, bottomless goldfish crackers, pretzels and Bits n’ Bites) before heading downtown check it all out.

One of the first things I always observe in SF is how freakin’ skinny everyone is. Let's face it, it’s a bit weird. I mean, the US isn't known for having the slimmest population in the world. I'm not trying to be an asshole here, it's just the truth. Americans are better known for other things than being skinny, things like William Faulkner and string cheese and Grits. Don’t get mad, US friends – you’re all lovely and I love the US, but it’s true. Unless, apparently, you are from San Francisco. Somehow, the entire city is full of super-buff, extremely fit people sipping coffees, or swilling triple-distilled 'Smart' water from their glass water bottles, or out jogging the entire length of the San Fran waterfront or whatever they are doing in their perfect little workout shorts. Seriously who are these people? It makes me think maybe San Francisco should be its own country. I'd live there. I’d have some work to do before fitting in with all the skinny gays but it would be fun.

And also, everyone is gay in San Francisco. Not just the gay men, but EVERYONE. More on that later.

Our first stop was some shopping at the The Ferry Building. Love that place. I could go on about it but I won't other than to say that it is cool and also there was this shirt:

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which doesn’t really work with the whole skinny thing except that  the LARGEST man I have ever seen was buying one.

Why.

I think he was maybe on his way back to Hog Hollar, Tennessee.

He was not from San Francisco, of that I am sure.

One of the best hotels in San Francisco around Christmas is the Hyatt downtown as they have this ridiculously amazing 10 floor high Atrium that they decorate with hundreds of strings of Christmas lights, and an extensive Christmas Village. I am a sucker for this sort of thing so I dragged the kids there, and they loved it.

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After a spot of shopping, we jumped on a street car (bonus: all transit free in San Fran that day due to the 100th anniversary of something or other…being gay probably) and took the kids to the Castro district.

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If you have been to the Castro, then you are probably thinking that this is why I think that everyone is San Fran is gay. Because everyone in the Castro is gay. Bus drivers, waiters, transit police, street cleaners. Even the cats and dogs are impeccably dressed, super polite, funny, sipping their cosmopolitans. But the best thing about hanging out in the Castro, or pretty much anywhere in San Francisco, is that absolutely NOONE is interested in harassing you, if you are female. I could probably run naked down the street singing the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack and no one would even bat an eye. No word of a lie. I guess it is obvious that I’m not a lesbian, so they aren’t interested, and EVERYONE else is gay. Even I was a gay  guy while I was there. Seriously. I was totally checking out the guys. No I’m kidding. But really I could send Zoe two blocks up the road, in the dark at 2am, tell her to cross the street, buy herself a herd of Rainbow My Little Ponies from the Brony shop (google it) and she would be as safe as houses because everyone is gay. I love it!!

Gays should run the world. Really. Could you please get on with it. It would be a much better place I’m sure of it.

Anyway I digress. We wandered about for a while, encountered a homeless guy (homeless gay, I mean) who had been going through a garbage can that he declared to be ‘golden’ and found himself a perfectly good Blackberry discarded in a new iPhone box.

We were all getting a bit tired by this point so we found ourselves a café for tea and red velvet cake and called it a night.

Our hotel offered a free full breakfast buffet so we braved that and stocked up on everything you could possibly imagine for breakfast, including, again to Zoe’s sheer delight, as many Fruit Loops as you can eat. I am not making this up, people. Only in San Francisco would there be endless Fruit Loops.

I swear that is all she will remember from this trip. That and the no-limit fishy crackers.

Out first stop of the day was Macy’s for some shopping. There is an entire department store here JUST FOR MEN. It’s full of books like How to Find Your Wallet and The Butter: Where Could it Be? and special toilet paper that has the news printed on it.

Zoe and I left Jacob and Kent there and headed over to the Women’s store where I found this beauty:

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Dude. Your nose…

Anyway, we shopped and then headed over to Treasure Island which is a retired US naval base half way across the Bay Bridge. We had heard about a funky flea market that was happening on the island and who can resist that? The architecture there is original Art Deco and they were using this cool font long before anyone else thought of it.

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The flea market didn’t disappoint, except for this old electric chair or whatever it is that was for sale:

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Yeah I’ll take that. Whatever. It will fit on the plane.

Speaking of planes, it was time to get ourselves to the airport. We’ll have 6 hours in San Fran on our way back and with the awesome BART trains we will have time to do a bit more hanging around before flying home.

Our flight to Kauai was pretty good, if a bit event-filled, but I will tell you more about that later.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Jane

3 comments:

  1. Mandatory same-sex orientation for public office -presumably there would be few republicans stepping up.

    ReplyDelete