San Francisco, California

I was invited to go to San Francisco along with Kristina by our friend Natalie. We drove her car 10 hours on Wednesday from Portland. It was a very nice start to our trip, we stopped at in-n-out and ate some delicious grilled cheese and animal fries!

We finally arrived at the house of this couple and their friend who were putting us up to sleep on their floor around 10:30 or 11pm. We played a board game called apples to apples which was so fun and I definitely want a copy of it.

Our hosts were friends of Natalie. The couple were really nice, Natasha and Bryan. The guy is really into Pokemon and had all kinds of video games and comics laying around. He was awkward but probably the kindest person we met the whole time. Their roommate was this guy named Tylan...I think...neither Kristina nor I were ever exactly sure what his name was.

We went to bed sort of late and conversely woke up pretty late, which turned out to be a common theme on this trip. We got up and walked to the Castro, which is the gay district of San Francisco where they filmed Milk and also where the nearest post office was at. We had to find one in order so that Natalie could overnight a copy of her door key back to her roommates, because she locked a cat in her room.

We walked all the way up a huge hill and then down it, to get to the Castro, then Natalie realized she forgot the key so we walked all the way back up and down the hill to get back to the house we were staying at. (Later someone showed us a way to get there without crossing over the huge hill.) We decided to drive to our next destination, Boogaloo. This is a delicious diner that I had been to twice before and remembered loving the food, so I insisted that we go. I only remembered that it was near a coffee shop that had a communist looking flag for a sign, which was enough information to get us directions.

We walked to Dolores Park and got ice cream and then walked all over the Mission district trying to refind the car which we lost. We then drove back to their house and relaxed after a tiring day. Unfortunatley we were stationed in the living room and we all ended up staying up late watching the Tyra show on Oxygyn. It felt like a big waste of time to me, because we were doing it in San Francisco but the whole trip was very relaxing and not intended to be doing so much stuff.

The next morning was Friday the 13th, which ended up being a pretty crazy and eventful one. We left the house with Natalie and Natasha and walked to a cute little Tea place, where old ladies serve tea and tiny sandwiches or crumpets and everything else that is eaten at tea cozies. But it was really expensive and felt like a waste of money to me, so we left and went downtown to eat a falafel sandwich, which was so good. I kept spitting pieces of french fries to this hungry pigeon and then we left to check out Haight and Ashbury.

Haight and Ashbury was cool because of all the cute shops and weird people walking around, but we weren't really trying to spend too much money, so we just wandered around until Amoeba, where I spent more than I should have on some of Montreal and Serge Gainsborg records and a cd. Then we met up with the other roommates and walked to the incredibly beautiful Golden Gate Park where we were offered various drugs several times. We setup a sleeping bag near a huge statue of Grover Cleveland and some religious looking statue, where we proceeded to take magical mushrooms. We just laid there and looked up in the clouds and wandered around while a huge drum circle played our background music.

We walked from Haight to their house, which was the most epic journey and included some of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen. We saw views of the entire city from high upon the hills, overlooking the whole bay. We also walked through a very long stretch where we passed crazy spectacle after spectacle, all while tripping on the magic fungus. The scariest part was when some man was peeing in broad daylight for everyone to see. The funniest part was when some bike rider stopped in front of us and asked us if we knew the way to marshmallow fields and then left us before waiting for a response.

Once we finally got back to their house we played with their kitten for awhile and then Bryan started playing the video game Katamari Damacy, which started to really really freak me out. I began to believe that the game was telling me to get a hotel and I was very conscious of the people in that house wanting me to leave their house. I told Kristina we should go on a walk and then after taking a little too long I told her we had to leave now and we sort of abruptly left. We just started walking and eventually came to the Castro. We walked back and forth over this 3 block area and sat on a bench for a long time. Finally we went into this really packed pizza place called Escape from New York. The only open spot was a table next to another huge table and the wall, so we had to sit apart from one another, next to this table full of bald gay men who kept chanting "Dick, Dick, Dick". I was really starting to freak out in there and told Kristina we had to leave. We walked back to the roommates house and decided that we for sure had to get a hotel that night. I finally felt better and we walked inside and booked a hotel at the Palace.

The Palace is the oldest hotel in San Francisco, it was rebuilt once after the great Earthquake of 1906 and was so beautiful and fancy. It was the first hotel listed on-line when we booked a hotel and Kristina offered to pay for the luxurious 5-star hotel in San Francisco (of Montreal lyric). We pretended to be snobby rich people and I even flirted with the idea of calling the concierge and demanding a softer bathrobe, but was not brave enough to do. I did however walk down the hallway to the ice machine wearing only the bathrobe, acting like a rich old snob. We took a bath and drank whiskey and then around 2am tried to find a 24-hour diner. We found an intersection with 3 of them and chose the cutest one, which had the most disgusting food, sadly.

We went back to the hotel and fell asleep watching TV. In the morning we left our stuff with the front desk so that we could travel freely to the Museum of Modern Art, which had some lame exhibit from this German guy. The best part was seeing Marcel Duchamp's urinal statue. We also ate at this amazingly delicious Indian buffet which was pretty expensive but totally worth it.

Then we walked through Chinatown and bought the cutest orange shiny lantern and a hello kitty Rubicks cube. Those were the only real souvenirs we bought, also a shot glass and some postcards. We also walked through Russian hill and little Italy. We went to San Francisco Art Institute and saw a view from high above the city and got some nice pictures of Alcatraz.

We parted ways with Natalie and met my friend Raina Blair who I met in my previous trips to San Francisco. She let Kristina use her ID to get into the bar we went to and we ended up having lots of drinks and meeting some nice people and dancing to old R&B and soul music. It was so much fun dancing slow with Kristina, cause we usually are dancing to rap music or grinding, but I made her just slow dance with me and spin around.

We forgot our bag of souvenirs but ran back and were able to get them. We ate at this crappy little pizza place and then took a cab back to the house we stayed at. We woke up the next day around 1pm. Everyone there had played King's Cup and got really drunk so they slept in as well. This one guy who was visiting them was snoring so loud that he sounded like a bulldog terrorizing a pillow or something, it made me crack up while I was trying to sleep.

We all went to this vegan restaurant called Weird Fish. I had some really good biscuits and gravy and Kristina had seitan fish and chips which left something to be expected. Afterwards we drove straight home, stopping only for gas, burger kind, and del taco. The ride home was incredibly scary at moments when I drove through thick fog, rain, darkness, and other scariness, also when Kristina turned off the headlights while driving 90 mph! It felt really good to get home and sleep in my own bed.

Altogether it was one of the best trips I have been on and San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been in, maybe the most beautiful. The people all over the city that I met, whether they were working in shops, working in the restaurants, trying to sell me drugs in the park, or just walking their dogs, were all so friendly and nice. I hope that someday I can live there, I just don't see how it could happen anytime soon. Portland reminds me of SF in many ways, but is incredibly cheaper. Anyone who reads through all of this, congratulations, I am impressed with your fortitude!