Yosemite and LA

I'm skipping over a couple of days of San Fran because I did almost nothing for them. I did some laundry, relaxed, watched some trashy American TV and caught up on some sleep. Fun, but not exciting. Didn't really deserve the sentence I just wrote about it.

Anyway, Tanzila and I booked a Bug Bus Tour to Yosemite, but unfortunately for us, they didn't have any cabins left so we got stuck camping. There's nothing more annoying than camping when you know there are beds nearby. It was a fun trip but really hazy because of all the fires over here right now. So the amazing views? Not that amazing right now.

Been in LA for a couple of days and stayed with a (mostly absent) friend. Nice to see the city though and drive around a bit. Am in a hostel now in Hollywood. Hollywood is a bit decrepit and not as glam as it probably was 60 years ago. I'll see what it's like in the morning!

What's with the weather?

The weather in San Francisco is a little crazy - global warming strikes again!

I'm too lazy for a full post but the past few days have been very busy. I've been to:
1. Wednesday - Golden Gate Bridge - where I walked across it and then down to Sausalito. Very pretty view (amazing actually but I'm too tired to find good words to describe it - pictures will help!) but I'm really not fit enough for this as my back was pretty sore for days after this. Definitely worth it though... I had my first American hamburger there, not very good but the view from the window of the cafe was exquisite.
For dinner we had a nice feast at home that Carmen made. Chicken, salad and a pasta thing, really delicious!

2. Thursday - tour of the gay area called "the Castro" - interested and informative about some history of the area, but I came away thinking how strange it is how strong the sense of community, belonging and labelling everything is here.
I also checked out the San Fran Museum of Modern Art and was lucky enough to be here for the Frida Kahlo exhibition. Very intense but fascinating.

3. Thursday night - Sunday - road trip with girls from exchange! More on this soon, I'm too tired right now.

Shopping... and a museum

After a lazy day yesterday (after my bad dream I couldn't face going out and figuring things out in the city) I got up early to walk down Haight St, which is famous for being hippy land during the 60s and also near where the Grateful Dead lived. I missed the tour they have on Tuesdays, so I didn't learn much, but I did go shopping and bought a patchwork skirt, silk pants (Asian style) and a tie up muslin cardigan. All kind of hippy-ish and perfect for traveling through Central America in! I also walked up a hill and got some great views of the city. Worth every puff and sore legs (just because of my general lack of fitness).

I also walked through Golden Gate Park to the de Young Museum. I think I was offered drugs twice and an old homeless man might be in love with me (for no reason I can understand, maybe he'd bought some happy drugs). It's also where I think San Francisco's homeless people go to hang out. Here they carry all their worldly possession in shopping trolleys, which you see full of clothes (and not really much else). It was funny because the trolleys were all parked down the hill (like a parking lot) and the homeless people were hanging out on the grass, drinking, talking, doing whatever. And now I feel like I know what homeless people do during their days.

The de Young museum had a really beautiful glass exhibit by an artist named Chihuly. I'll have to put up some pictures that I took (and normally I don't take photos of art that I see in museums) because it was incredible. Maybe just google it. The rest of the exhibitions were a bit underwhelming (should have seen them first!) but this was very cool. Then I went next door to the Japanese tea gardens for a nice walk around and some tea and cookies. If you ever go to San Francisco I don't recommend the tea garden except as a place to have a rest, but note that it costs $4 to get in, and another $5 for your tea and cookies, so you could go somewhere else for a break.

And tonight I went shopping with Carmen and we both bought a bit of stuff (I got two dresses, a pair of shoes and some shorts). It's been a spend-y day for me so I'm going to go easy on the shopping for awhile. I don't want my money to run out before I get to New York!

Now, mostly we've been eating at home because it's cheaper and more homely I guess, but last night Carmen and I went to the Mission (a kind of Latino neighbourhood in San Francisco - it's a slightly poorer area I guess, but it has a lot of bars and clubs and restaurants so it's a fun place to go) to eat at Andalu, a tapas style Mexican/Spanish/Asian style restaurant, which I recommend to everyone who comes here. The service was not great (just kind of slow and the front of house was a bit dopey - not rude or anything, just slow) but the food was incredible. So delicious! We had these "ahi tacos" (fish - tuna I think? - tacos) that were so more-ish and we got a cheese fondue which was divine and went perfectly with the toast and bread. And dessert was donut holes that you dipped in little cups of thick, dark hot chocolate with cream on top. It also has an extensive wine and cocktail list. I can only vouch for the sangria (yum) and according to Carmen they make good faux-hitos (virgin mojito). I will be posting photos of these when I get around to it, because it was so, so good.

Spooky malaria pill induced dreams

I just had the most horrible dream that I had to wrench myself out of. I'd completely missed my flight in my dream because I'd just forgotten about it. Completely forgotten. I was still working and I'd worked PAST my flight date. It doesn't sound THAT scary but because it just felt so real (you know how you're in dreams sometimes and it feels real but you know it's a dream so it's ok? Not like that... just felt real) it was such a horrible experience. And then I couldn't get out of it easily, I had to just wrench myself out of the dream and luckily my alarm went off. But I woke up 45 minutes ago and it's still really fresh in my mind, when normally dreams fade after 2 minutes of being awake.

I blame this weird chloroquin stuff. It'd better freakin' save me from malaria when I get to Central America.

Further proof that drugs are bad mmm'kay? I swear that I am now thinking in (my interpretation of) an American accent. Oh my god, how is this possible? I can't even think that without being all "gawwwd" instead of just plain "god" in a nice clipped tone. AAAaaaahhhh!!! And the thing is I'm not SPEAKING any differently, it's just all in my head. I'm going to go and eat some vegemite on toast and Australian-ise myself.

San Francisco #1

I've now been in San Francisco for a day and a half. I'm not sure if it's because I'm staying with my friend Carmen and not at a hotel or hostel, but it all feels so... normal. Just like me going to Melbourne or Brisbane or somewhere in Australia. Yes I'm hearing American accents, but Carmen's is familiar to me and I guess I hear them on TV all the time, so I'm kind of desensitized to that. There's no real culture shock (except the food, OMG the portion sizes! HUGE! It's such a WASTE of food, who eats that much? And this is in San Francisco, which is a rich city, in California, which is a relatively health state, I'm not hitting any of the mid-west states where apparently it's all just grease and massive everything - including people) because it's very similar to an Australian city. Looks-wise it's a little bit like Melbourne, with the trams and straight streets in the city and very minimalist style of architecture. It even has the slightly weird and changeable weather patterns. It's not so much the 4 seasons in one day, but it can be really chilly and then really hot within the same hour. Very odd. And confusing for my wardrobe because I didn't really plan for much cold weather!

So far Carmen has taken me around, which has been really great because I firstly haven't had to navigate my way around and could just kind of settle in nicely and it's been really nice to have some company to see things and explain a bit. From tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm on my own to see the city, which is also good because it'll give me some independence to really see a lot of stuff without boring her by my tourist-y ways! :P

I'll post more impressions and thoughts of San Francisco when I've seen more of the city, this is just a first impression, and all good Austenians (Austenites?) know that first impressions can be so wrong, just like we know that all men with a good income are looking for a wife. ;o) So far all I've seen is Carmen's place (nice!), the Bay Bridge (just a big concrete bridge, but good views, from what I could see from the car), Union Square (huge billboard of David Beckham's abs - it's HUGE and his abs look very delicious), Chinatown (rather like Chinatown in Sydney, you know, they're always kind of the same) and Berkeley (not as hippy as I thought it'd be, kind of small with a few hippies strolling around. Not more hippy than the South and Central Coast in Australia can get). Plus we went to an Italian "festival" in North Beach, which was ok, just a lot of stalls selling stuff (mostly not Italian weirdly enough) and some not particularly good bands playing on the grass. The food was all just fried stuff (not a food festival *sad*) so Carmen and I I got some very greasy garlic fries (good but a handful was ENOUGH) and deep friend calimari with lime to share. And it was nice and relaxing and not too tourist-y (with the main tourist element being ME because I took a few photos, which I'll put up on Facebook eventually, but I can't upload my photos because I forgot a cable so I need a computer with an SD slot - mine's waiting for me in China so you might not get photos until September).

Edit
I completely forgot but yesterday I also went to a kind of look out near Carmen's place and we saw all these hang gliders. It looks like so much fun, I think I might try and take a lesson. It's a bit pricey but you get to fly like a bird!