The Surreal World of San Francisco

I was in San Francisco last week for work. My only exposure to this area previously was from watching Full House with my daughters, and that show, as it turns out, paints a terribly distorted picture. San Francisco is amazing, in its own, bizarre, way. I would have stayed longer if it were practical.

We rented hybrids from one of the stands that caters to tourists. Not my first choice of bicycles but the riding was good. We rode across the Golden Gate Bridge, windy and foggy, down into Sausalito which was warm and sunny.

We rode through the Golden Gate Park where a Tour de Fat bicycle festival was going on.

I have never seen so many bicycles. And every bike was unique.

Very unique.

I was amazed with the food in L.A. the last time I was in California. San Francisco somehow raises the bar. I ordered tea in a Chinese restaurant. They put a dead, dried up flower bud in boiling water. The bud opened up into a bright red flower as it slowly sunk to the bottom of the cup. Apparently the flower was the tea. Maybe I am easily amazed. Regardless, it was excellent.

The tables in San Francisco restaurants tend to be close together so you inadvertently hear other’s conversations. Sitting next to us on our last night was a surfer dude, his beautiful Norwegian wife, and her parents who were apparently visiting from Norway. Half the conversation was in Norwegian but from what I could make out, the parents were asking them to move to Norway. Surfer dude explained why, for numerous reason, San Francisco was the greatest city in the world. While he was explaining how clean the city was, the person I was having dinner with described a homeless transvestite she saw defecating in a flower pot in front of a shop. I suppose San Francisco is difficult to see objectively.