Pace on Earth

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

When I used to travel playing rugby I would get frustrated at being in an exotic locale or a great city of the world and spending all of my time at a practice field or a hotel room. I would usually get to see just enough of the city to know whether I would want to come back or not. I went to San Fransisco once before in '97(the Haight - Ashbury photo is mine)and had just enough time there to realize that I should make it back. Well I've been back now and know just enough more to know that I have to make it back. The first three days of this trip were spent at meetings and dinners followed by one afternoon to see the city. Don't get me wrong, the meetings were useful and I had a lot of fun with my coworkers (our room was dubbed Club 348), I just wish I took more advantage of being there.

The weather was nice for the days we had meetings and our free day, surprise!, was rainy. We tried to get to Alcatraz for a tour but they were sold out by the time we looked into it. With no other plans we decided to take the 5 cent tour of the city, which now costs 21$. It was a two hour tour of town in an old city trolley converted to tour bus. Very touristy but an incredibly effective way to get a look around with little time. I'm very glad we did it. We made it to the Palace of the Arts, the Golden Gate, the Presidio, the Coit Tower, and OJ Simpson's high school(which is also Joe Dimaggio's). The tour wound through some incredible neighbourhoods; some which are built on land that was created by the debris from the 1906 Earthquake (Marina District) to some built clinging to hills that define the city (Pacific Heights). They say that San Fransico has some of the most expensive property in the U.S. and we were shown some houses that oozed opulence. On the flipside of things (and this wasn't mentioned on the tour), San Fran has a big homeless problem. Panhandlers were rampant and my personal favourite was an old friend:

The "Bushman" of San Francisco sits on the edge of the sidewalk hiding behind his bush, when you walk by he pops out and yells at you; if you flinch you are expected to pay up. When I was there in '97 we saw him doing his thing and stopped for a few minutes to watch the startled reactions of the unsuspecting tourists. Hilarious! Then we had to walk past him to get where we were going. Even though we knew exactly where he was and what he was doing, when he pulled his stunt on us, we all jumped. Simply put, when a large homeless man jumps out from behind a bush yelling, you jump. We paid up...I'm glad to see he's still at it.

After our tour we decided to grab a bite before heading to the airport. San Francisco is renowned as a culinary center of North America; we went to Hooter's. I can hear my chef friends groaning. The wings were good, but in all honesty I prefer breasts...

Our trip home was a similar to our trip down. Our flight was delayed leaving San Fran, which meant we missed our flight to Freddy in the morning and couldn't get on another until Saturday night. So we got to Toronto and immediately checked in to a hotel and slept all day (Sorry TO folks!). Finally made it home at midnight last night to -25 degree weather. And no snow...welcome home!

I have good memories of San Francisco; met and re-met some great people in what feels to me like one of the great cities of the world. Hopefully some pictures to follow...

Back to work and (welcome) back to Canadian Olympic coverage.

Bushman

posted by Vitamin S @ 4:32 p.m.