"Too bad, I arrived 20 years late ». That mantra was already repeated at Utah's Way. Had spent six days in San Francisco, I had traveled it with my car, cycling, walking and the city had seemed like a majestic cognizage.
All my life wanting to come here, listening that this was the great European city of the United States, The modern, The irreverent of lefts who gave check to moralities and invented urban revolutions. No trace of all that, Maybe I was very clumsy in looking for him although I promise that there should be few corners to investigate. What I stumbled was a huge troop of vagrants to which no one paid attention, A hippie neighborhood converted into a disheveled geriatric and a gay neighborhood that conceives that irreverence is to teach the ass when it goes down the street.
We arrived in San Francisco on a sunny day, So we didn't know that this would be a luxury that usually hides the thick fog and cold (In August!) And we cross the Oakland bridge with our car with the feeling of paying off pending accounts. I rarely came to a place with the high expectations of what was on the other side, I guess that was the error.
We had an apartment rented in the Golden Gate Avenue almost corner Hyde Street. We were near the Civic Center Plaza, The Opera House and a small walk of the central Union Square and Chinatown. We leave the car in the parking lot and suitcases in our very small but pleasant apartment and go out to enjoy the big city.
The door show surprised us. There were dozens of vagrants lying on the ground. As we went down to Market Street the scene became striking. The sale of marijuana was evident, We saw it day and night, and the state of all those people, Many completely drunk, caused a certain sadness.
The sale of marijuana was evident, We saw it day and night, and the state of all those people, Many completely drunk, caused a certain sadness
He never left us with that scene almost anywhere in the city. You see people screaming in the middle of a street with hundreds of people raffling them without even turning their heads. The patients rest thrown in the asphalt with the same position with which they fell to the ground. Everything there, So close to good stores, In San Francisco, In the United States, The Empire… It is hard to understand it, It almost causes penalty and disgusting permissiveness before this opulent misery.
In Union Square we arrive at the store area. We left there one night or ate some noon. What about? Alright, as so many places, But he didn't tell me anything new or special. Chinatown, Chinatown, It has a certain charm for its dimensions. I liked the New York, although perhaps the little chinatown of Los Angeles would hook me more. We saw there a morning in the opening ceremony of a building where giant dragon danced and threw thousands of firecrackers. The walk through its streets is in any case essential.
From there the jetty is relatively close, The famous Pier 39 and the Marina District. Following in a straight line, attached to the coast you reach the Golden Gate. We the penultimate morning rented some bikes and made again all that route as hundreds of people do it, pedaling.
This whole environment is a spice of Enrome Shopping Center, Next to the water, Full of restaurants and stores whose apotheosis is the Fisherman´s Warf. At Pier 39 The Marine lions dock is also seen, where hundreds of these animals rest on port platforms. We ate on one occasion in the famous Crab House where the tails are long and it is better to reserve. Well, It is best not to endure the long lines or the long count and go to eat elsewhere where the selfie is less cool but the crab is better.
We hope almost 30 minutes to ask for something that did not seem like a piece of cold black sugar that was not bad
At the bottom, Golden Gate Road, is another of the city's emblems, The Ghirardelli ice cream shop, a kind of emporium created by an Italian immigrant who arrived in the city in 1982 And whereby San Francisco's neighbors kill themselves for trying their ice cream. We hope almost 30 Minutes to be able to ask for something that did not seem a piece of black and cold sugar that was not bad and we sat down in a park to see the island of Alcatraz prison (almost all ferrys that lead to the prison come out with losing 3. It is convenient to reserve in advance place if you leave in tourist season).
Beyond, like two kilometers, is the famous Golden Gate. If you go by car, You pass the red iron mole on the way to the famous town of Sausalito and you have to the right a viewpoint that is at the waters from which there are good views of the bridge and the city. Something later a racket diversion comes out, As if you returned to San Francisco, that takes you to the high viewpoint stuck to the bridge (It is from where the famous photos are made from). We were three times: Two the fog does not let us see anything and to the third we managed to photograph the famous bridge before the fog arrived and did not let us see anything.
Inside the city, We approach Golden Gate Park on Sunday. It's a pretty park, With some interesting museum such as the Young Art Museum, a sympathetic lake and a cordial atmosphere. Go, Nice was recently, We lacked something, We lacked march. Then we took the car and began a frantic search for that irreverent city that we expected.
Fuimos a Haight-Ashbury, The mythical hippie neighborhood of the 60. Today we found more a collection of stores in which the utopia was poorly packed and aged. «Bueno,Hippie maybe ", think, "But we have Castro". And there we go aware that nothing could fail, that we would find in the city's gay neighborhood a breath of modernity.
The thing to cross with black leather dresses that teach the ass. The truth is that it no longer seems provocative to me
It must be that I lived in Madrid, where in Chueca you have bars, Magnificent stores and restaurants, In a homosexual and heterosexual environment of total freedom and integrative, That do not need dozens of flags hanging from the street lamps to make gang. Castro, The mythical Castro where part of the most transcendent movements of struggle for civil rights of the gay community began, It was in my eyes a quiet street in Cuesta where the most beautiful and surprising thing I found was the box office of Castro Theater.
The thing to cross with black leather dresses that teach my ass. The truth is that I no longer seem provocative or I think that the homosexuals that at least I know either. The gay revolution, feminists or heterosexuals complexed I suppose it should be somewhat more interesting than teaching a piece of meat without precautions.
Then we think, and somewhat azorated, that what was sure that we failed was The Mission neighborhood. There we would find the SF read and heard. And the truth is that the neighborhood is curious, Many of its walls have spectacular graffiti, But his magic is that in part it is the Latin Quarter and they sell you burritos and tacos everywhere. Clear, We live in Mexico and the Latin thing is part of our day to day and enjoy the most interesting original.
So you had to look for, Something failed. Where was the modern San Francisco that we expected? And with the car we went to Soma, Italian neighborhood, Japan Town, Marina District, Berkeley University (Fabulosa), Oakland, Lower Haight and even Google offices in Silicon Valley (where you do not pass without invitation from the lobby in which they try to sell a shirt). We were in Zig Zag, Looking for fun bars areas, Breaking art galleries, Modern restaurants, Small brands of brands without brand,… And nothing. We saw something, We had dinner in a pleasant place or we came to ask in a loose store for a photo or a jacket.
In between we spend one day to make the highly recommended wine route between Sonoma and Napa, where there are very interesting vineyards and wineries, And we stop in Sausalito to meet the basic requirement of always stumbling with a place that seemed as pleasant as boring.
We surrendered when almost at the door of our building we saw a light of something open: It was a store that sold Donuts
The final lunge may be to go to a fabulous concert at the San Francisco Jazz Center of a New Orleans band. The space is great, They carry volunteers and fantastic acoustics. Part of the public listens to the music in front of the stage dancing and you can ask for a drink on your high sidewalk. We were euphoric, The concert ended and we wanted to enjoy more, We went down the stairs happy and when we opened the door we saw that the bars of the enclosure were closing at eight in the afternoon and we did not find on the road to our apartment nothing open or people. We surrendered when almost at the door of our building we saw a light of something open: It was a store that sold Donuts.
What we do? (The question had some sicotic contained anxiety) And we went down again the famous Lombard Street, The Callecita of the curves that cinema and television do not explain that it is made after a long cars of cars, In the first march and to the rhythm that marks the selfies of the dozen vehicles in front. ¿Qué más hacemos? Y se nos ocurrió una idea magnífica que hace siete años que no realizamos (viví cinco años en el sur de África y llevo dos años en México donde eso no existe): nos fuimos al Ikea de Oakland!!! It was brutal, funny, lleno de emociones. With that feeling of euphoria we take a night plane on the way to Salt Lake City. Fuck, costó pero al final encontramos el SF irreverente que habíamos imaginado.
