Frisco

My first full day in San Fransico/the US in general and it has certainly lived up to my expectations! We arrived yesterday after a bit of a long trip via Chicago airport. It was great fun picking up our little red Chevrolet (that just rolls right off the tongue) and off we set, driving across to the opposite side of the bay to Brian and Chris' lovely 20s style, listed house. We made it just in time for dinner and pretty much started to fade straight away, since it was about 5 o clock in the morning for us. But that worked to our advantage because it meant i actually got up at the reasonable(well unreasonable hour in my world) hour of 6:30ish giving us a good full day. We headed to Berkley with Brian and had a walk around the giant (everything is oversized over here, including some of the people) campus. Berkley is like this weird american and extended version of Temple bar and is very much dominated by all manner of youth subcultures. The main street is populated by pseudo crusties who are only about 18 and who have created this sort of 'Homeless Chic' which is a little disturbing and somewhat artificial. It kinda takes the piss out of the real and overwhelming amount of genuine homeless bagpeople and mentalists in general that seem tp just roam around the streets. From Berkley we drove into the city and caught an amazing view of the bay and Golden Gate Bridge from the western end of San Fran. We had a delightful 'sub' for lunch in this kooky little cafe and then parted ways with Marge who headed down in advance to her family in San Juan. While Brian got his teeth cleaned in the city, i popped my American-shopping cherry, which was all i hoped it would be and more. One word.... Macy's.... One moto to live by.... "Who says money can't buy happiness?" Its hard to disagree when you're actually standing in Macy's. So off i wandered.. and hark, i stumbled across the Benefit counter. It would be rude not to! No sooner had i stepped within the Benefit woman's radius that she shimmied over and asked in her honey-sweet American voice : "Would you like to get brightened up??" I stared at her blankly wondering what the fupp that meant but im not one to refuse any Macy's employee. So she proceeded to ask me my life story while painting in my eyebrows, bronzing my cheeks, erasing my bags and glossing my lips. Its really weird, in all the shops and cafes people are ridiculously nice to you and ask your name and stuff. I spent the morning totally falling for their flattery and soon realised perhaps theyre not super-friendly out of the goodness of their heart. The 'inter-personal' relationship you build with sales people lasts about 30 seconds and its very strange. Maybe ive been hardened by most people in the service industry in Europe who have faces like a bag full of spiders and go out of their way to be unhelpful. Anyway, other bizarre things ive seen on my first day: An overweight transvestite with long flowing locks and stubble, but silky-smoothe and oddly curvacious legs, off set by his figure-hugging mini skirt; a homeless man sporting the latest hook from the spring-summer Abu Hamsa collection; a latino gang member with a 'rest in peace Raul' t-shirt with a picture of what i assumed to be his friend/fallen gang-member; a variety of 'places of worship'/places of indoctrination in unusually average looking buildings, which sort of create the impression that some random bible-thumping punter just invented a religion and proceeded to open a 'church' in his sitting room. (...possible not too far removed from the truth?) I also spotted the Jews for Jesus HQ. I have yet to investigate that concept.. So there it is! Im back at the ranch and chilling out before Chris comes back from work and then we'll head out for some dinner while Brian is at his wine-tasting class. (Well actually im going down to a real-live ranch in a few days to join Marge in southern california, but that's by the by.) So i will sign off for now and keep you posted on the strange incounters i will no doubt experience in the next few days!
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