Wellll, so, San Francisco was, in a word, AWESOME.
We flew out of Connecticut on Saturday afternoon. Toby and I had a flight going through Dallas, and my parents had a flight going through Chicago, so they got to leave on time while ours was delayed for three hours due to two inches of snow in Dallas. (what?!) Our connecting flight to San Jose also got CANCELLED--not delayed, but CANCELLED--and they put us on a flight for Sunday morning from Dallas.
When we arrived in Dallas--only three hours late, remember--there was not a SINGLE flake of snow on the ground. Texas must be the most pussified state in the country. Sure, you can overcompensate for your wimpiness by waving around guns, ten-gallon hats, and moustaches, but when the going gets tough, you cringe and whimper and cancel flights. Because the airport is so far from the city, we didn't even get to see Dallas...just ate dinner in the hotel bar (salmon-topped, teardrop-tomato and lettuce salad), people-watched a bit (stranded travellers, businessmen with aging hookers on their arms, participants in some kind of Indian wedding or bar-mitzvahish thing being held in the function room), and went to bed. Toby did see some "dead rats hanging in giant spider webs" in the trees near the airport, though, which was cool:
As we flew over CA, I watched out the window and remembered something Toby had said after his first trip to CA: that everything is BROWN. He was totally right. Even the green hills and leafy bushes had this brown undertone, nothing like the violent green of New England. Arriving in San Jose, we were picked up by our parents and sister in a rental minivan. We took the long way home, driving up the coast along Route 1. I remember my CA college roommate once told me that doing the whole California coast drive was one of the most spiritual experiences he'd ever had, and although we only saw a fragment, I understand what he meant. Unbelievable. Hills, rocks, cliffs, the Pacific Ocean...we stopped the car and scrambled down a steep hill/cliff into the sea:
The water was freezing! It was the first time I'd ever touched the Pacific or, indeed, any ocean other than the Atlantic. There were weird, slightly-different shells and creatures around on the beach, kind of like time-travel novels where the main character returns to his own time and everything's the same except for little differences, like a different politician in office here and there, and a candy bar or make of car you've never heard of being suddenly ubiquitous...I found some kind of giant sand-fleaish arthropod (which I believe exists in a smaller form on the East Coast) and it seemed to give birth in Toby's hand!
We reached San Francisco in the evening and, in a pattern that would be repeated throughout the week, found that it was raining, but extraordinarily warm compared with Boston. All week long, in fact, San Franciscans would apologize for the "terrible winter" they were having. Okay.
Headed out to Sausalito to look around. Cute, some good gourmet food stuff that was incredibly pricey (pear vinegar, mmm), tourist stuff (my dad bought a $19 jacket which he wore every day of the vacation and loved greatly).
We didn't find a good place for dinner in the immediate tourist area, so we went back to SF and walked around the area near my parents' hotel (Union Square) until we found a nice little French place that turned out to be rather excellent. Le Cafe Poop Freet or something. I had a big, meaty piece of lamb and couscous with sausage and Basque sauce. The waiter was very kind and did not repeat the assholery stereotyical of French restaurants that we got to experience firsthand in London.
(my sister waswas there; not to marginalize her by not showing her)
Toby and I went to my sister's house and met all her fellow Jesuit Volunteers, and crashed there for the night after making a trip to the neighbourhood bar. She lives in the Lower Haight area, and it seems very safe and quite nice. much nicer than the West Philly ghetto where I lived. Their house is a little tore up, but not too bad. Her roommates were friendly and nice--typical JVC types!
The next day, we went down to the Fisherman's Wharf, and saw a bunch of fat, fishy-smelling, larping sea lions (no, not goths. Real sea lions).
Walked around in the drizzle, got some crab and sourdough for lunch, and killed time until our boat left for ALCATRAZ! (you can see it in the background in the following pic)
Alcatraz was pretty cool, actually. I wasn't sure how interested I'd be in it--I haven't seen most of the classic Alcatraz movies or anything--but it was interesting! The audio tour was very good--it guided you from place to place, directing your gaze to one corner or another where a certain pair of bars were bent open during an escape attempt, or where a guard was shot, and the like. The architecture of the place was really weird and haphazard, too; the outside buildings sprawled all up and down the mini hill of the island, with tiny stairs and footbridges and gardens and low walls and buildings all crammed in together. It would be a good place to play paintball. Or LARP.
The high winds on the isle nearly BLEW US AWAY!
We went to dinner at a taqueria in the Mission after meeting up with motW/Kayo Dot's Terran Olson; I had a pork burrito, which was somehow better than a similar item at Anna's or Boca here in Boston; the guacamole, shockingly, was not as good! (too pure-smooth and uniform green). And shortly (though my parents fretted about meeting a "person from the Internet, who might strangle you"), Avi arrived.
We hit Aquarius Records, where I bought another copy of Neutral Milk Hotel's Live at Jittery Joe's (continuing a pattern of buying albums I already own on downloaded mp3, and also paying extraordinary 8.5% California sales tax on something I could get in MA), and then went out to Berkeley, where we hit Amoeba Records and walked around the campus a little. It was gorgeous, and there was a noticeable lack of frat boys roaming the streets breaking shit. I was kind of glad I hadn't seen this place before choosing my university, because I might have been enchanted and chosen to go to school there! (purchases: the Cure's Faith; Gang of Four's anthology; Mogwai's Rock Action; Joe Strummer's Streetcore)
(my little fingerpuppet Cthulhu that Toby got for me from the SF aquarium)
We picked up Willow, Avi's lovely wife, at her sewing class (she stared and tried to figure out which one of us was the metrosexual) and then went out to a nearby English-style pub in Albany. It was essentially someone's house, with a porch and a little bar, and we sat around and had beers and conversed about the democracy of art and music and all sorts of interesting shit.
Toby demonstrating a flashy handshake to Avi. I don't remember which famous musician he was imitating:
On the walk home, Cthulhu tried to attack Terran:
and then frightened a passing duck:
Finally, we arrived safely at home at Avi's, where I was savagely mauled by Samosa:
You have seen the "sleeping" pictures. We awoke at 5:45 to catch the BART into San Francisco and, as expected, Avi stood around in his coat looking increasingly nervous as Toby slowly woke up, used the bathroom, got dressed. "Okay, guys, about time to leave now!" he said, glancing up at the clock, which read 6:08 (we had to leave by 6). Toby nodded, and slowly began to put on his socks and shoes. By driving and hurrying up the escalator, though, we were JUST able to make the BART train. Thanks so much Avi, and tell Willow thanks too!
The next morning, we drove down to City Hall and saw the line of couples waiting to get married. It was shorter than yesterday (when we'd driven by briefly), and it was rainy, so there were rainbow umbrellas all down the line. I got out and took some pictures. It was a really positive, happy atmosphere, and every time a couple would come out of City Hall, they'd hold up their marriage license and everyone would cheer. Cars driving by were honking support like mad, too. I saw one big huge truck rumble by with a big, huge, hairy driver who pulled on the cord and let out a few huge air horn blasts (the crowd cheered back at him).
We went down to Haight-Ashbury, where my ex-hippie parents beamed and flashed peace signs. They had never gotten to go in the hippie heyday! We ate breakfast (I had chicken-fried steak. first avocado-less meal, I think) and went shopping. I poked round in thrift stores and bought an Exploding Dog button for $1, and found this amazing art-toy store, where i bought a little cubic rubber guy for my roommate. Also, Misfits and Grateful Dead stickers at the corner curio store (to keep and for a gift, respectively). I wish I could've stayed at the Haight longer to shop; it's really neat. Toby and I rounded off the afternoon with a trip to the Haight Amoeba records, where I bought Apolocalypse Now Redux and The Dunwich Horror DVDs.
Our next stop was the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They had an exhibit on the art of Romare Bearden, which was pretty good, but the high point, to me, was the Logan Collection on the top floor: 90s modern art by artists at the center of burgeoning scenes, notably Japan, Germany, and the U.S. The art was AMAZING and really cool. My favourite artist there was Takashi Murakami, who did a ton of amazing cartoony Japanese creepy shit (lots of eye themes, which are a big thing for me). I got a t-shirt by Yoshitomo Nara, who I also found really awesome.
something by Nara:
something by Murakami:
me and Toby outside. a little tired.
I broke off from Toby + my parents to hang out with my friends Yvette and Katie from my JVC years...we took my sister out to a Burmese restaurant called "Burma Super Star" for dinner. I'd never had Burmese food, and it had been described as a mixture of Thai and Indian. That turned out to be very accurate. We had Rainbow Salad (like 25 ingredients, all arrayed; the waiter shows it to you, then quickly mixes it all up at your table; ours was vegetarian, no dried shrimp, but still great); pumpkin/pork stew; potato curry called poodi; nan bread (smaller, tougher, wheatier than Indian naan); pea shoots; and pepper chicken stir-fry of some sort. For dessert I had a Burmese sundae with rose syrup, vanilla ice cream, and coconut and grass jelly. Yum!
Yvette and I went out to a little bar afterward, where everyone was smoking despite prominent NO SMOKING signs; I guess a lot of CA places don't enforce the no-smoking law and call in the health Gestapo. I stayed at her place that night, and met up with my family the next morning; Toby had gotten on a 6am flight back to New England, so it was just four of us.
We went out to wine country for the day. We intended to go to Napa, but the roads were completely flooded out, so we ended up hitting five vineyards in Sonoma. It was really beautiful, a great day, great scenery, and not crowded at all--often we were the only people doing wine tastings. I'm not a wine person, but I ended up bringing home five bottles! (two Merlots, called Erich Rudolph or something, that were pricey-ish; I gave one to Irene; a red dolcetto; a Valdeguie (sp?) which is red but tastes white; and a really good Chardonnay).
In the evening, we went to an Italian restaurant Mary Tess had picked out in North beach for dinner with all seven of her roommates--the ol' "parents take the volunteers out" thing. The food was very good, although the portions were tiny--I had scallops--but I think MT could've picked out a better restaurant--one a little less pricey/fancy, and better equipped to handle eleven people (the grumpy owner/waitress told us that the kitchen was too small for us and we were lucky she even took us, and we had to find somebody else to order what we wanted so she could make two or more dishes at a time, instead of having to make eleven different things! meh, f u)
After dinner, we got coffees at an Italian bakery place, and then all eleven of us smushed into the minivan and went home.
The next day, we went to MUIR WOODS. (I had already sent a postcard to The Dope with Muir Woods on it and cracked a joke about not having been there...see other thread!). En route, we stopped at a Walgreen's for more film for my parents, and I walked over to a little coffee cart in the parking lot and got one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had for maybe three bucks (large soy latte).
Muir Woods was really, really cool. Of course I'd always read about redwoods being huge, but it's hard to capture that with photos or words--being there, I was struck by the scale. We did a 3-mile walk and clicked away like tourists (my mother took multiple pictures of a hot-dog-sized banana slug. I refrained).
On the way back, we stopped at Muir Beach, but only briefly. We got back to SF and spent the afternoon walking around in the streets and checking out the Coit Tower. The city really is amazing--the hilliness is something else that's hard to capture on television. I thought it was really weird (but cool) how the whole city just crawled up and down the slopes of super-steep hills.
And the Transamerica pyramid thing is really weird/cool.
We went back to North Beach and checked out some cathedrals and churches as we walked. At the City Lights beat bookstore, I bought a copy of TMBG's "Bed, Bed, Bed" and a copy of the Wire with the Kayo Dot review in it (unfindable in Boston). I chuckled to see that the section marked "Israel/Palestine" was full of rabidly anti-Israeli authors and didn't have any representation of anyone even mildly pro-Israeli. Took a photo outside Kerouac's hangout:
and walked around some more. A cop yelled at me for jaywalking (I wasn't, he was retarded). That night, we went back to Chinatown with a couple of MT's roommates (the ones she likes best). The Chinese food was pretty good; no eggrolls on the menu, which was annoying. But the Peking ravioli were the absolute best I've ever had. We had a funny waiter who insisted on taking a million photographs of us (which I won't post here) and asked us if there were Chinatowns in Canada-cut (CT) and Boston.
On Friday, we went out for breakfast at a place in the Haight (soy chorizo, black beans, avocado, and cheese in an omelette), shopped a bit, and then went to the Mission for lunch. We ended up at an El Salvadorean place that had amazing guacamole and really good pollo con mole, and stopped in a few markets on the way home where I bought three avocados for a dollar (and they were all perfect inside, just the proper amount of green and yellow). We went to see Mission Dolores (the first mission in SF, ancient as hell):
Then we took Mary Tess to the supermarket to stock up for her house, and then went to visit the shelter where she works.
The shelter is about a block away from the Haight/Ashbury intersection. At lunch, you see lots of crusties and kids lining up along with the more general homeless types. It's a family shelter, so there's tons of kids there. My parents and I went and volunteered there in the evening, watching the kids while parents were in some sort of rehab (?) program. The kids were really sweet, but they all had issues (understandably), and most of them did not listen to authority. Nevertheless, it was fun, and I was surprised by how much my sister is in charge and responsible there.
Andres, on the left, is who I played with the most--that kid is adorable.
In the evening, I got my family to consent to Indian (finally!) and we picked out a place based on some online research (going against one of MT's roommate's recommendations...the place she recommended was crowded, popular, expensive, and from everything I could see about the menu and reviews, was the kind of Indian place that's really good if you don't ever eat Indian food). We went to a cheaper but still not-cheap-for-Indian place called Indian Aroma, which had really excellent food (not better than Indian Dhaba's in Boston, though!). I got lamb vindaloo and samosas; between the rest, we had chicken biriyani, mixed tandoori grill, and chana masala. Everyone loved it, which pleased me--maybe we can do more Indian as a family!
We drove to San Jose that night so we could be closer to the airport to catch our freakin' 6am flight. It was pretty much uneventful, and upon arriving back in CT, I immediately drove back to Boston and unpacked and went to bed. It was cold and rainy and it was "nice out". Ugh. And that is that.
We flew out of Connecticut on Saturday afternoon. Toby and I had a flight going through Dallas, and my parents had a flight going through Chicago, so they got to leave on time while ours was delayed for three hours due to two inches of snow in Dallas. (what?!) Our connecting flight to San Jose also got CANCELLED--not delayed, but CANCELLED--and they put us on a flight for Sunday morning from Dallas.
When we arrived in Dallas--only three hours late, remember--there was not a SINGLE flake of snow on the ground. Texas must be the most pussified state in the country. Sure, you can overcompensate for your wimpiness by waving around guns, ten-gallon hats, and moustaches, but when the going gets tough, you cringe and whimper and cancel flights. Because the airport is so far from the city, we didn't even get to see Dallas...just ate dinner in the hotel bar (salmon-topped, teardrop-tomato and lettuce salad), people-watched a bit (stranded travellers, businessmen with aging hookers on their arms, participants in some kind of Indian wedding or bar-mitzvahish thing being held in the function room), and went to bed. Toby did see some "dead rats hanging in giant spider webs" in the trees near the airport, though, which was cool:
As we flew over CA, I watched out the window and remembered something Toby had said after his first trip to CA: that everything is BROWN. He was totally right. Even the green hills and leafy bushes had this brown undertone, nothing like the violent green of New England. Arriving in San Jose, we were picked up by our parents and sister in a rental minivan. We took the long way home, driving up the coast along Route 1. I remember my CA college roommate once told me that doing the whole California coast drive was one of the most spiritual experiences he'd ever had, and although we only saw a fragment, I understand what he meant. Unbelievable. Hills, rocks, cliffs, the Pacific Ocean...we stopped the car and scrambled down a steep hill/cliff into the sea:
The water was freezing! It was the first time I'd ever touched the Pacific or, indeed, any ocean other than the Atlantic. There were weird, slightly-different shells and creatures around on the beach, kind of like time-travel novels where the main character returns to his own time and everything's the same except for little differences, like a different politician in office here and there, and a candy bar or make of car you've never heard of being suddenly ubiquitous...I found some kind of giant sand-fleaish arthropod (which I believe exists in a smaller form on the East Coast) and it seemed to give birth in Toby's hand!
We reached San Francisco in the evening and, in a pattern that would be repeated throughout the week, found that it was raining, but extraordinarily warm compared with Boston. All week long, in fact, San Franciscans would apologize for the "terrible winter" they were having. Okay.
Headed out to Sausalito to look around. Cute, some good gourmet food stuff that was incredibly pricey (pear vinegar, mmm), tourist stuff (my dad bought a $19 jacket which he wore every day of the vacation and loved greatly).
We didn't find a good place for dinner in the immediate tourist area, so we went back to SF and walked around the area near my parents' hotel (Union Square) until we found a nice little French place that turned out to be rather excellent. Le Cafe Poop Freet or something. I had a big, meaty piece of lamb and couscous with sausage and Basque sauce. The waiter was very kind and did not repeat the assholery stereotyical of French restaurants that we got to experience firsthand in London.
(my sister waswas there; not to marginalize her by not showing her)
Toby and I went to my sister's house and met all her fellow Jesuit Volunteers, and crashed there for the night after making a trip to the neighbourhood bar. She lives in the Lower Haight area, and it seems very safe and quite nice. much nicer than the West Philly ghetto where I lived. Their house is a little tore up, but not too bad. Her roommates were friendly and nice--typical JVC types!
The next day, we went down to the Fisherman's Wharf, and saw a bunch of fat, fishy-smelling, larping sea lions (no, not goths. Real sea lions).
Walked around in the drizzle, got some crab and sourdough for lunch, and killed time until our boat left for ALCATRAZ! (you can see it in the background in the following pic)
Alcatraz was pretty cool, actually. I wasn't sure how interested I'd be in it--I haven't seen most of the classic Alcatraz movies or anything--but it was interesting! The audio tour was very good--it guided you from place to place, directing your gaze to one corner or another where a certain pair of bars were bent open during an escape attempt, or where a guard was shot, and the like. The architecture of the place was really weird and haphazard, too; the outside buildings sprawled all up and down the mini hill of the island, with tiny stairs and footbridges and gardens and low walls and buildings all crammed in together. It would be a good place to play paintball. Or LARP.
The high winds on the isle nearly BLEW US AWAY!
We went to dinner at a taqueria in the Mission after meeting up with motW/Kayo Dot's Terran Olson; I had a pork burrito, which was somehow better than a similar item at Anna's or Boca here in Boston; the guacamole, shockingly, was not as good! (too pure-smooth and uniform green). And shortly (though my parents fretted about meeting a "person from the Internet, who might strangle you"), Avi arrived.
We hit Aquarius Records, where I bought another copy of Neutral Milk Hotel's Live at Jittery Joe's (continuing a pattern of buying albums I already own on downloaded mp3, and also paying extraordinary 8.5% California sales tax on something I could get in MA), and then went out to Berkeley, where we hit Amoeba Records and walked around the campus a little. It was gorgeous, and there was a noticeable lack of frat boys roaming the streets breaking shit. I was kind of glad I hadn't seen this place before choosing my university, because I might have been enchanted and chosen to go to school there! (purchases: the Cure's Faith; Gang of Four's anthology; Mogwai's Rock Action; Joe Strummer's Streetcore)
(my little fingerpuppet Cthulhu that Toby got for me from the SF aquarium)
We picked up Willow, Avi's lovely wife, at her sewing class (she stared and tried to figure out which one of us was the metrosexual) and then went out to a nearby English-style pub in Albany. It was essentially someone's house, with a porch and a little bar, and we sat around and had beers and conversed about the democracy of art and music and all sorts of interesting shit.
Toby demonstrating a flashy handshake to Avi. I don't remember which famous musician he was imitating:
On the walk home, Cthulhu tried to attack Terran:
and then frightened a passing duck:
Finally, we arrived safely at home at Avi's, where I was savagely mauled by Samosa:
You have seen the "sleeping" pictures. We awoke at 5:45 to catch the BART into San Francisco and, as expected, Avi stood around in his coat looking increasingly nervous as Toby slowly woke up, used the bathroom, got dressed. "Okay, guys, about time to leave now!" he said, glancing up at the clock, which read 6:08 (we had to leave by 6). Toby nodded, and slowly began to put on his socks and shoes. By driving and hurrying up the escalator, though, we were JUST able to make the BART train. Thanks so much Avi, and tell Willow thanks too!
The next morning, we drove down to City Hall and saw the line of couples waiting to get married. It was shorter than yesterday (when we'd driven by briefly), and it was rainy, so there were rainbow umbrellas all down the line. I got out and took some pictures. It was a really positive, happy atmosphere, and every time a couple would come out of City Hall, they'd hold up their marriage license and everyone would cheer. Cars driving by were honking support like mad, too. I saw one big huge truck rumble by with a big, huge, hairy driver who pulled on the cord and let out a few huge air horn blasts (the crowd cheered back at him).
We went down to Haight-Ashbury, where my ex-hippie parents beamed and flashed peace signs. They had never gotten to go in the hippie heyday! We ate breakfast (I had chicken-fried steak. first avocado-less meal, I think) and went shopping. I poked round in thrift stores and bought an Exploding Dog button for $1, and found this amazing art-toy store, where i bought a little cubic rubber guy for my roommate. Also, Misfits and Grateful Dead stickers at the corner curio store (to keep and for a gift, respectively). I wish I could've stayed at the Haight longer to shop; it's really neat. Toby and I rounded off the afternoon with a trip to the Haight Amoeba records, where I bought Apolocalypse Now Redux and The Dunwich Horror DVDs.
Our next stop was the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They had an exhibit on the art of Romare Bearden, which was pretty good, but the high point, to me, was the Logan Collection on the top floor: 90s modern art by artists at the center of burgeoning scenes, notably Japan, Germany, and the U.S. The art was AMAZING and really cool. My favourite artist there was Takashi Murakami, who did a ton of amazing cartoony Japanese creepy shit (lots of eye themes, which are a big thing for me). I got a t-shirt by Yoshitomo Nara, who I also found really awesome.
something by Nara:
something by Murakami:
me and Toby outside. a little tired.
I broke off from Toby + my parents to hang out with my friends Yvette and Katie from my JVC years...we took my sister out to a Burmese restaurant called "Burma Super Star" for dinner. I'd never had Burmese food, and it had been described as a mixture of Thai and Indian. That turned out to be very accurate. We had Rainbow Salad (like 25 ingredients, all arrayed; the waiter shows it to you, then quickly mixes it all up at your table; ours was vegetarian, no dried shrimp, but still great); pumpkin/pork stew; potato curry called poodi; nan bread (smaller, tougher, wheatier than Indian naan); pea shoots; and pepper chicken stir-fry of some sort. For dessert I had a Burmese sundae with rose syrup, vanilla ice cream, and coconut and grass jelly. Yum!
Yvette and I went out to a little bar afterward, where everyone was smoking despite prominent NO SMOKING signs; I guess a lot of CA places don't enforce the no-smoking law and call in the health Gestapo. I stayed at her place that night, and met up with my family the next morning; Toby had gotten on a 6am flight back to New England, so it was just four of us.
We went out to wine country for the day. We intended to go to Napa, but the roads were completely flooded out, so we ended up hitting five vineyards in Sonoma. It was really beautiful, a great day, great scenery, and not crowded at all--often we were the only people doing wine tastings. I'm not a wine person, but I ended up bringing home five bottles! (two Merlots, called Erich Rudolph or something, that were pricey-ish; I gave one to Irene; a red dolcetto; a Valdeguie (sp?) which is red but tastes white; and a really good Chardonnay).
In the evening, we went to an Italian restaurant Mary Tess had picked out in North beach for dinner with all seven of her roommates--the ol' "parents take the volunteers out" thing. The food was very good, although the portions were tiny--I had scallops--but I think MT could've picked out a better restaurant--one a little less pricey/fancy, and better equipped to handle eleven people (the grumpy owner/waitress told us that the kitchen was too small for us and we were lucky she even took us, and we had to find somebody else to order what we wanted so she could make two or more dishes at a time, instead of having to make eleven different things! meh, f u)
After dinner, we got coffees at an Italian bakery place, and then all eleven of us smushed into the minivan and went home.
The next day, we went to MUIR WOODS. (I had already sent a postcard to The Dope with Muir Woods on it and cracked a joke about not having been there...see other thread!). En route, we stopped at a Walgreen's for more film for my parents, and I walked over to a little coffee cart in the parking lot and got one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had for maybe three bucks (large soy latte).
Muir Woods was really, really cool. Of course I'd always read about redwoods being huge, but it's hard to capture that with photos or words--being there, I was struck by the scale. We did a 3-mile walk and clicked away like tourists (my mother took multiple pictures of a hot-dog-sized banana slug. I refrained).
On the way back, we stopped at Muir Beach, but only briefly. We got back to SF and spent the afternoon walking around in the streets and checking out the Coit Tower. The city really is amazing--the hilliness is something else that's hard to capture on television. I thought it was really weird (but cool) how the whole city just crawled up and down the slopes of super-steep hills.
And the Transamerica pyramid thing is really weird/cool.
We went back to North Beach and checked out some cathedrals and churches as we walked. At the City Lights beat bookstore, I bought a copy of TMBG's "Bed, Bed, Bed" and a copy of the Wire with the Kayo Dot review in it (unfindable in Boston). I chuckled to see that the section marked "Israel/Palestine" was full of rabidly anti-Israeli authors and didn't have any representation of anyone even mildly pro-Israeli. Took a photo outside Kerouac's hangout:
and walked around some more. A cop yelled at me for jaywalking (I wasn't, he was retarded). That night, we went back to Chinatown with a couple of MT's roommates (the ones she likes best). The Chinese food was pretty good; no eggrolls on the menu, which was annoying. But the Peking ravioli were the absolute best I've ever had. We had a funny waiter who insisted on taking a million photographs of us (which I won't post here) and asked us if there were Chinatowns in Canada-cut (CT) and Boston.
On Friday, we went out for breakfast at a place in the Haight (soy chorizo, black beans, avocado, and cheese in an omelette), shopped a bit, and then went to the Mission for lunch. We ended up at an El Salvadorean place that had amazing guacamole and really good pollo con mole, and stopped in a few markets on the way home where I bought three avocados for a dollar (and they were all perfect inside, just the proper amount of green and yellow). We went to see Mission Dolores (the first mission in SF, ancient as hell):
Then we took Mary Tess to the supermarket to stock up for her house, and then went to visit the shelter where she works.
The shelter is about a block away from the Haight/Ashbury intersection. At lunch, you see lots of crusties and kids lining up along with the more general homeless types. It's a family shelter, so there's tons of kids there. My parents and I went and volunteered there in the evening, watching the kids while parents were in some sort of rehab (?) program. The kids were really sweet, but they all had issues (understandably), and most of them did not listen to authority. Nevertheless, it was fun, and I was surprised by how much my sister is in charge and responsible there.
Andres, on the left, is who I played with the most--that kid is adorable.
In the evening, I got my family to consent to Indian (finally!) and we picked out a place based on some online research (going against one of MT's roommate's recommendations...the place she recommended was crowded, popular, expensive, and from everything I could see about the menu and reviews, was the kind of Indian place that's really good if you don't ever eat Indian food). We went to a cheaper but still not-cheap-for-Indian place called Indian Aroma, which had really excellent food (not better than Indian Dhaba's in Boston, though!). I got lamb vindaloo and samosas; between the rest, we had chicken biriyani, mixed tandoori grill, and chana masala. Everyone loved it, which pleased me--maybe we can do more Indian as a family!
We drove to San Jose that night so we could be closer to the airport to catch our freakin' 6am flight. It was pretty much uneventful, and upon arriving back in CT, I immediately drove back to Boston and unpacked and went to bed. It was cold and rainy and it was "nice out". Ugh. And that is that.
