Some observations from San Francisco

I'll start this post with some observations of the obscurities of San Francisco and conclude with some recently captured images.

The cable cars here are pretty cool. I think there are only 2 or 3 lines remaining out of dozens that once cut through the streets, but the tracks that do remain are protected by the city and are here for a long time to come. They run differently to Wellington's cable car, which has two cars attatched to each other by cable running through a motor at the top. In San Francisco the cables lie beneath the roadway and are constantly in motion. To move the cable car reaches down and grips the cable and releases it to brake and stop.

The cars are invariably busy with commuters and tourists alike, some standing on the outside ledge. As they roll past, the conductors ring a bell to alert oncoming traffic. I have seen some conductors get a pretty funky rythm going with that bell. Some play real beats with the bell, ding ding ding, ding ding ding ding ding... I'm told that in July each year they actually have a big tournament in Union Square where conductors compete with each other for the citywide title of best cable car bell ringer.

Observation 2: The fire engines in San Francisco are so long they have two drivers. One sits at the front where you would expect and the other sits at the back and steers the back wheels, ensuring that the trucks can navigate the tight city streets. I should know this because their whaling sirens and airhorns keep me up all night.

Observation 3: The homeless folks in San Francisco are much more in-your-face than elsewhere. There also seems to be many more of them. Word has it in the 1990s the city shutdown a mental hospital and released the inhabitants on to the streets. Nice. But the other thing about the homeless here is that they are much cooler than in other cities. If someone is just sitting there shaking their cup around and asking for money, i won't ever give money to them. I think of it as feeding the rodents. But if they're being entertaining i'm slightly more likely to. This morning i walked past as a guy sang a song he'd made up "Just a nickle and a smile'll last a little while". I thought that was quite cool, so i gave him a smile.

Observation 4: While i was riding the train out to Ocean Beach today, i witnessed a hippy bitchin' session. A group of guitar-toting long haired hippy types boarded the train and began a heated discussion on the politics of being a hippy in San Francisco. "Some of dem kids these days, you know they think you're not a hippy because you don't have your hair in dreadlocks. Those dreadlocked types are some of the phoniest hippies out there, man. " Humans are funny. We invent a word for a movement and a group of people, then decades after that movement has died and gone to heaven in an LSD hallucination people are still striving to meet the definition of that word. But those who try too hard to meet the definition are 'phonies'... I don't know i just found it funny and couldn't help but think the world would be a nicer place if everyone found the freedom to just be themselves.

Heres a mall i went to. it was eight stories high!


















Here's me, sampling the local brew (an important part of any travel) in my hotel room.












This is Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I began a 5 mile hike to the Golden Gate Bridge from here.












along which i captured this photo, finally the golden gate bridge without the fog! The hike was cool and i collected lots of fire ant lavae on my shoes that i will introduce to New Zealand on Thursday.