More about Life

Because it was one of those classy hotels with foreign staff, we got a free newspaper. I don't remember which one, but as I remember being in a good mood, it was certainly not the Daily Malice.

I must have been in a good mood as we went shopping. And to prove that even the Gods were smiling down on us that day, as we shopped, we encountered a small camp where some young, attractive things thrust Wii controllers in our hands and commanded that we play a few games of Wii Sports. Not only that, but, if our fumbling yielded the high score of the day, we would win a Wii of our own. And because Odin was very pleased with the shelves he'd made that day, we did get high scores. However, this was quite early morning, long before lunching kids came by and no doubt trampled all over our high scores. Tsk, kids today. Trashing their elders and betters' computer game scores. When I was a young'un... oh, yeah, I used to do the same.

We had lunch at "Eat," one of those mid-market sandwich chains. The mildly pretentious order of a name made me yearn for a bar called "Drink!" an escort service called "Girls!" and an Irish Brothel called, "Feck!"

Eat's wares were very good and reminded me how great the competition is for sandwiches in London. People don't think of the sandwich as a typical London food, but sandwich places probably outnumber all other types of eatery. I have no statistics to back up this claim, but this is a blog not an encyclopaedia. If you do demand information to back up what I say, I'll have you know all relevant data is available in the only source I know and trust, More's Uncyclopaedia.

The area of our hotel is one where Japanese restaurants are locked in some kind of monumental battle. Each restaurant tries to out-psych the other by having a name that sounds most like a martial art. Nobu, Roka, Umu, Zuma. Actually, that makes no sense as, given my ignorance, most Japanese words sound like a martial art. Sushi. Teriyaki. Sake. Any one of these would beat me in a fight. I can see the proponents standing before me taking poses and naming them. "Raw Fish Roll." "Soy Sauce Cow." "Liquid Alcohol Rice."

The reason we were in London this weekend was for a wedding. Friends and former flatmates of mine were tying the knot after years of living in and around sin (and before that, East Acton).

Many, many moons ago, myself and a young trekkie called Norm joined forces with a couple of lasses who we'd met through improv and moved in together. It is the stuff that makes sitcoms. It also makes dramas. And occasionally horror stories. This was something of all three made into a musical and directed by Richard Curtis and David Lynch. Well, amidst the clutter and fallings in and out, romance bloomed for two of the household. And I don't mean myself and Crash Bandicoot, although me and that guy... we shared some times.

The wedding, like all good weddings, was a chance to meet up with people you hadn't seen for millennia. In fact many of people at the wedding I knew, it was almost like wedding in my own family.

Mitsubishi. Sanyo. Honda. "Off-Road Bike." "Wide-Screen, Surround-Sound Display." "Four-Door Family Hatchback."

I'd met Norm through a guy called Dave who ran something not unlike facebook, but way before that. This was before the web. Possibly even before the internet. As I recall it, messages were carried by young street urchins for a shilling a packet. Well, Dave started one of the longest-running internet communities on a thing called Mono. It was one of the first places I let stuff I'd written leak out. The fact that the crazy people there liked it helped me form the belief I'm not bad at it and kept me from being the greatest IT consultant the world has ever seen.

Back at the wedding, there was great food, cake, antipodean balloon artists, many, many old friends and a band that played covers. (Although they played them a lot more faithfully than I like my covers. To me covers, should be ironic or played in a completely different style to the original. But then, I'm wrong on quite a few things.) Cath and I hung out with those who refused to leave until the band had to pack up and the inflatable dingos started deflating.

Sayonara. "One Hand Wave."

Labels: Anthropology, Computers, Drink, Food, Games, History, Improv, Movies, Music, Travel, UK

Today there were actually people at breakfast. It rather spoiled the feeling that we had the hotel to ourselves. But we didn't take it out on them. We just said "Bonjour" politely. There was an older French couple and a younger one with a baby that expressed a general dissatisfaction with everything. It seemed a bit too early in life to be disillusioned. Give it a chance, baby. It even disapproved of the Brahms.

After breakfast, we drove to Campagne, a cute, little village with a church and castle and very little else. Then we went to have a look at the castle and village perched on the hill at Castelnaud, but the streets were filled with the staggering, undead hoardes of Vaykatiun, so we drove on. We passed by the PREHISTO Parc, which is something like an outdoor Cro Magnon Madame Tussauds (or Madam Ugg). We didn't stop, figuring it would be full of the modern world's Neanderthals, children. Instead we paid a wee visit to Sarlat, a medieval tourist town to buy shoes and bad chocolatines (or pains aux chocolates).

A very common thing on the menu in this area is Foie Gras. The word "Foie Gras" is derived from people trying to say "Fat Goose" with a mouth stuffed full of food. Foie Gras as you may know is the somewhat controversial liver of an overfed goose.

Après la, went we to Lascaux. This was somewhere well known to Cath, who has studied some art. It's the site of some of the best-known cave paintings (or peintures des caverns (I should really stop guessing at French translations)). The name didn't ring much of a bell to me, but the pictures were familiar. Cath was genuinely excited as she never thought she'd get to see them. Not that she actually ever did, because the originals started to decay some time ago and so the whole cave was recreated as accurately as possible in another cave next door. It's incredibly realistic, recreated using the old methods and materials. They had to keep reminding us this wasn't the real thing.



Since the discovery of the original cave in 1940, and the opening to the public in 1963, a little community of Lascaux cave-related exhibitions have sprung up. As well as the original cave (now closed to non-scientific humans), there is the recreation (Lascaux II), an interesting exhibit about how it was all done with possible interpretations of meanings and purposes of the pictures (Lascaux Révélé (a word which is clearly suffering from "acute overload")) and Le Thot. The latter we didn't make it to, but is the now-obligatory Madam Ugg-style museum with animatronic early humans doing all those things that people in that area would have done 17,000 years ago. Hunting, cooking, making animal-skin clothes, painting, and discussing the essential pointlessness of existence in between bouts of lovemaking. (They were still French after all.)

We drove back below La Maison Forte de Reignac. Basically it's a huge house hewn out of the side of a cliff. We didn't have time to go in, so drove under. But we suspected the most impressive thing about this was the view of it from the outside. Although apparently it is also impressive inside.

On our way home, we passed des châteaux, several fat goose farms, and drove through the pretty, pre-history-filled village Eyzies which seems to be hiding beneath an outcrop of rock.

We ate at the Restaurant next to the hotel. It was more expensive but not as good as the meal night before. My hard-to-read notes seem to say we had asparagus, foie gras and toad. I know what you’re thinking. "Asparagus, yuck."

Labels: Anthropology, Europe, Food, History, Language, Travel

The Dutch don't tend to overdo many things, so one wonders why they have two Christmases.

Last weekend, a bearded bishop came to Amsterdam attended by a huge parade of grinning Dutchmen in black face-paint. This was the arrival of Sinterklaas, a manifestation of Saint Nicolas, the patron saint of pretty much anyone and anywhere.

Every year, Sinterklaas arrives on a steam boat from Spain with his Moorish servant (called Piet). Because Piet is never actually portrayed by anyone with any Moorish blood, he always looks like a Dutchman who has been playing in the coal cellar where he found a very cheap wig. In fact he alarmingly resembles a character from a very cheap and offensive sketch show from 1972.

Right now, "Sint" and "Piet" (he's singular in the stories but appears manifold at parades, etc) are in the country, and getting ready for the big day. December 5th, also known as Sinterklaas, is when kids wake up to find gifts in their shoes left by the dynamic duo. There's also a ritual of wrapped presents accompanied by a small poem somewhat dissing the recipient. The presents, the foot-related receptacle, the old man with long, white beard is all very reminiscent of "our own" Christmas. Which is no accident. This is one seed of what we know as Christmas. Sinterklaas went to the US and got fat on Coca Cola; the shoe became a stocking; and the blacked-up Dutchmen became reindeers and elves. And these got added to the fir tree, holly and mistletoe from the original pagan Winter Solstice festival, bundled in with a wild stab at the birth-date of one famous errant rabbi to create the glorious celebration of consumerism that we today call "Christmas." And over the last few years, the Dutch have been increasingly celebrating Christmas (in the presents-and-overeating fashion of the movies) as well as their own earlier, modest festival.

This is, of course, yet another example of the world's culture being thrown into the American melting pot and reserved back to the rest of the world and ultimately its original culture. Pizza is another great example. It's a highly interesting phenomenon that is almost certainly propagated by the medium of film.

So the question I guess we all want to ask is this: who would win in a fight, Sinterklaas or Santa Claus?
• Well, Santa Claus is old, but Sinterklaas appears much older and frailer.
• However, Sinterklaas is quite lean and Santa Claus has been pouring in the Coca Cola for quite some years and is, well, a bit tubby.
• Santa Claus has a well-trained team of reindeer with the kinds of hooves that could kick a man all the way into the New Year; Whereas Sinterklaas has a huge army of Piets, who have large bags of stone-like sweets to throw at children.

There is no obvious winner on paper, but in my head the battle would be fierce and Manga-like. It will probably end with both parties being mortally wounded, leaving the way for a sequel. The real battle between Christmas and Winter Solstice: Jesus vs Sol. A heavyweight bout between the Son of God and the God of Sun. The so-called Rumble in the Wrapping Paper. I for one am looking forward to this.

Your Sinterklaas Correspondent, Piet Moor.

PS Here is what a Manga Christmas would look like (from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito). Happy Sinterklaas.

Labels: Americas, Christmas, Drink, Food, History, Netherlands, Religion, Sport, US

I spent much of the day digitally scanning old slides from the 60s and 70s and ripping music from the 50s and 60s. It was clearly what you call a retro day. I remember thinking that as I sat there in my spats and zoot suit.



What wasn't retro was the edible bouquet that arrived in the morning. In these "Hard Financial Times" (as I believe the newspaper is now called), people consider flowers somewhat extravagant, not having a practical value. So the new thing is fruit in the shape of a bouquet of flowers. The fruits are peeled and shaped and stuck on plastic sticks. This being the US, some fruits are covered in chocolate. I'm not knocking it. In fact, the banana covered in black and white chocolate won several Saliva™ awards or the Droolies™ as they're known.

The county where Cath's parents live is dry. This doesn't mean arid, although Texas is somewhat desert-like; it means alcohol is not for sale. Anyone who wants alcohol and time, day or night, has to get in their car and drive as far as the next county. Although, in fact, the local law was recently relaxed and it is now possible to get some alcohol at certain places and times, although I'm not sure of the specifics. This was fine by me as I was using this week to have a rest from the old short-sighted devil called alcohol. It was a scheme that lasted nearly a week after I got back to Amsterdam.

The reason for all the earlier retro activity was that we were celebrating Cath's parents' 50th anniversary. There was a party, held at a nearby hotel. There was a bar, but it was not a bar-partaking group. Many of the kin being god- and beer-fearing folk. I can't say as I have ever been to a gathering like this where someone didn't get drunk, so that was a novelty.

There was a toast and everyone was given Champagne glasses. What was in the glasses was not actually Champagne, but cider. And it was not actually cider, but what Americans call cider, which is really fizzy apple juice. Even so, people had to be told this, as there was some concern that it was alcoholic. The uproar had they been told it was Champagne and they must drink it would be nothing compared to the uproar at a British wedding were they served alcohol-free fizzy apple juice.

The party had a lot of speeches and reminiscences about the happy couple, most often about how helpful and supportive they were. In Cath's family there are a lot of people who have seen and done a lot and paid witness to great social changes. To me it's a history lesson every time they get to speak.

The downside of many people being older is that they don't stay up late and party like they used to. Although for jetlagged people always looking for their next bed fix, that's not necessarily a downside.

We chipped in a bit to make sure the bar staff got some tips for the night. It's quite normal in America for bar staff not to be paid by the venue, but by them receiving the tips. To European eyes, it seems morally suspect, but Americans are generally happy with it as part of their culture as they tip almost everybody. I've put a jar by the bed just to see how strong this compulsion is in Catherine. Not very, it seems.

Labels: Anthropology, Drink, Europe, Fashion, History, Music, Travel, UK, US

Saturday late morning, we arrived in Paris having had a very pleasant journey. We were fed and able to read, write and perform complex arithmetic. The reason we had decided last minute to wobble off to Paris was that Cath had relatives holidaying there. I'd met them the first time I went to Texas. They live in a huge house and their two kids have the whole basement as their play area. I'm seldom jealous of kids these days, but in this case I made an exception. We checked into our hotel and then soon arranged to meet them.

They were staying reasonably close by, but when you have kids, you don't just pop places, every trip is an exercise in logistics. Cath and I being unencumbered with offspring had just jumped on a train to have a mere 24 hours in Paris. Had we had kids, we would have had to tied them down so that they couldn't fall off things; and make sure there was enough food in their bowls.

We met them at the Bastille and immediately went to eat. Kids need a constant supply of food because as soon as they stop eating they start running around and burning it all up. We found a nicely placed but somewhat touristy café on the side of the square (which is actually more of a roundabout). A constant supply of ham sandwiches came in and various kids and adults had bits of them.

On the island at the centre of the traffic, a stage was being erected. This is because Monday was Bastille Day, when France celebrates the storming of the prison once held in the roundabout in front of us and the freeing of prisoners because they weren't rich. It's a great day to be in France, except we were leaving on Sunday.

Upon leaving the café, the traffic was stopped. Not for us, but because a large precession of people was coming down the street. Not anything to do with the Bastille, but as a protest against nuclear weapons and nuclear things in general, pretty much as all those years ago, gangs of people had marched by the very spot holding up placards stating "Ban The Guillotine," and "No Weapons of Mass Decapitation."



We had been given one recommendation by Claire the super-helpful, French girl from work, and that was the Promenade Planté. It's a raised walkway lined with flowers, bushes and the occasional pond. It's amazingly peaceful for aomewhere in such a big city. It was also a place the kids could run around and be relatively safe, apart from the risk of annoying a few Parisians.

After the walk to and along the Promenade Planté, it was time to refuel the kids. Nearby was a chain of Child-friendly cafes called Hippopotamus. In the end we only had a few Oranginas as time was pressing on. We had a date that evening with Alicia Keyes. Yes, Alicia Keyes. It hadn't been a plan to come all the way to Paris to see this wholesome, young arranbeer, but that's what happened. Or rather, what happened was that our kind hosts were already going to see her and bought us tickets.

The venue is a huge arena-style venue, and was packed to the rafters with enthusiastic French youth. The crowd was got into the mood by one of the Marleys. Old Bob stirred it up with quite a few little darlings and there are Marleys for every day of a fortnight. This one was Stephen and he certainly had his daddy's moves and voice. He had quite a lot of his songs, as well. And why shouldn't he? They'd otherwise only go to waste. Also running around the stage was a little kid waving the Jamaican flag for all he was worth. He seemed a natural on stage and was quite possibly a mini-Marley. It's comforting to know the world will never run out of Marleys.

Before the main act, there was a short film somewhere between the Blues Brothers and wholesome Disney comedy. It's purpose was to show that Alicia wasn't just another off-the-shelf R'n'B singer; She was on a mission, possibly from God. The video also plugged her charity, which does put her above most singers.

After the film came the girl herself with a show that had a lot of pizzaz in the modern R'n'B style. In fact the show often resembled a music video it was so slick and well-choreographed. From time-to-time one of Alicia's pianos popped up or in and she played along. Half way through, she declared that all she wanted to do was play her piano. This she did for three songs then it was back to the pizzaz.

We slipped out early to avoid the rush; waited for a taxi; and then went to a nearby hotel to have them call for one. As we were 6 people they had to call a people carrier, and for that they said they needed to collect 5 euros. It was clearly some rip-off she had just made up, but we were in no position to know that for sure and so handed over the cash. It must be quite sad to spend your day finding petty ways to con people out of piddling bits of money. We headed back to the area of the hotels. It was time for a late-night steak with onion soup. And to introduce the kids to snails.

Labels: Anthropology, Europe, Food, History, Music, Politics, Transport, Travel, US

Following yesterday's Japanese Tea Garden disappointment, we decided to take no chances. Once we had dispensed with breakfast, we headed that way on the number 71 bus. The Japanese Tea Garden is an island of peace and serenity and expensive tea in the middle of a moderately relaxed city by US standards. It's only spoilt by occasional throngs of tourists of all nationalities. And the tea isn't really that expensive given the peaceful surroundings and the great snacks you get with it. There is even some tamelife (it can't be called wildlife when it's so placid) including fat koi, some happy crayfish (or crawfish, or crawdaddies if you're Texan), a myriad of pond skaters and even an oddly marked bumble bee that could only walk. What was great to learn was that in the Eastern European language of the two very Boratian gentlemen with 4 English-speaking kids "crawfish" is the word for crawfish. Maybe it was originally an Uzbek, Kazik or Tjerkminik word in the first place, but I doubt it.

Cath and I spent many hours discussing the way of dealing with homelessness. There is a lot of it. Many places have different ways of dealing with it. Most with some success, but the problems seem to be a) not too much is done, and often it's not initiated by the city but individuals who may or may not be able to get city funds; and b) the policy in each area is quite rigid and often somewhat different. And the fact is different people are on the street for different reasons and the best method to help them out is not the same for each person. Variable measures is even more expensive than a fixed, one-size fits all solution. I think it fair to say we failed to come up with the perfect solution.

On the way out of the park, curiosity took hold and we looked in to see the Shakespeare Garden. Fortunately, a pair of elderly cyclists were being told all about it by one of the park-keepers. It's a recreation of an Elizabethan garden. What was even more interesting to learn was the fact that whole park (Japanese Tea, Shakespeare and other gardens) is "built" on sand. (If you look on the (Golden Gate) park on the map, it goes right up to the sea). It apparently requires almost constant watering for it to remain a park and not become a huge dune.

We caught the bus to Haight (pronounced, The Bus to Hate - a great title for a terrible 1950s drama; although not as good as the sign on the tram "Haight-Casto" or Hate Castro! - great title for terrible propaganda movie).

San Francisco prides itself on its coffee. It considers itself the real home of coffee in the US and that Seattle is just the pretender who just gave us a lot of chains. In a minimarket (grocery store a few blocks off Haight, there was a selection of 5 coffees in flasks. People on the go can squirt out any one of these into a beaker, pay and continue to go. Five types of coffee is more than most bars offer. We had our coffee (okay, my coffee) over the street in The Sacred Grounds Café < http://www.sacredgroundscafe.com/>, a suitably hippy sounding name for an established but still somewhat disorganised eatery. There was a Hillary Clinton poster in the window which was now just ironic since she was out of the race. (That is at least until her assassins get to Obama.) The food was great. I had a sandwich with some great Sudanese chicken thing and Cath had falafel. On another table (the only other filled one for most of the time) a woman talked with a loud penetrating voice about the peace of meditation. She might have been ironic too.

The bathroom proved to be an adventure. To do it properly, you walked through the kitchen and on your left was a door unclearly marked Toilet. However, go through the kitchen and turn right, ignoring the scruffy barely-marked door on the left, and you end up in a cavernous area that leads down many paths. Some to stairs, another to an exit and a another one to a toilet marked "For pizza patrons only." This was locked. And anyway, we were in a cafe, not a pizza restaurant. I followed the thread of my jeans back and found the entrance to the lair. I fancied I heard what could have been screams far off in the distance. Presumably from the pizza place. Back in the kitchen I asked where the bathroom was. It was immediately on the left out of the kitchen. I would have felt stupid had not a girl appeared in the kitchen for the same purpose I appeared there a few minutes earlier. I let her go first and she immediately turned right. It wasn't me. The door was invisible.

We took 2 buses to the Golden Gate Bridge. (That is we changed, rather than went on separate buses.) The Golden Gate Bridge was once the longest suspension bridge in the world, and it is certainly one of the most famous. It's mainly recognisable because 90% of suspension bridges all look the same. From the look-out point, just before you get on the bridge by foot, you can look down and see an historic army fort. It's not obviously reachable from there, although it is clearly reachable by many people.

We walked about 1/3 of the way across the bridge and back mainly to say we'd done that. We had been expecting it to sway in the reasonably strong winds, as some guide books had suggested, but it didn't. Sometime around Portland we'd been past the bridge that sometime in the 50s or 60s swayed so violently in the wind it fell down. It's one of those piece of footages you never forget. And so when we read that the Golden Gate Bridge can sway in the wind, this is the image we had. We were both relieved and disappointed. Even so, without the swaying it was still not a casual experience for someone who is scared of heights.

I wasn't scared a bit.

We then took two buses to the coast to go visit the Seal Rocks. These are rocks where seals are known to hang out. At that time they were all rock and no seal. I guess the seals don't work after 5 pm. They must go to their night home and eat their fish suppers. Mind you, they're probably sick of fish.

We took another bus back to our hotel and steeled ourselves for dealing with nwa - navigators with attitude. Airlines, once companies of apparent generosity, are becoming very miserly and grasping. We booked two seats at the same time and when we came to check in, we were allocated seats miles apart from each other at different ends of the plane. Most available seats were in the aisle, but were "premium" seats, i.e. you had to pay to sit there. So they give you unacceptable seats and then make you pay to sit with the people you booked the tickets with. It was just a cynical, penny-pinching way of grabbing more cash off you. A complaint has been made.

We had dinner in a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant not far from the hotel. The best thing about it was the aquarium display of potential dishes in the front. Of all the creatures only a couple of the shrimp showed any enthusiasm and were trying hard to get out of their tank.

On the way back, we encountered a chatty woman who was begging. That is she was sitting by the side of the sidewalk talking to passers-by in a friendly and kindly way. We spoke for a bit until she brought up the subject of kids. She explained she had 5, and that they were the greatest thing that had happened to her, but due to some mistake she could no longer see them. She burst into tears and it was clear she preferred us to leave her be. There was a story there and we were both curious to know and to help if at all possible. She was well dressed, well-groomed, and had she been walking along we wouldn't have thought beggar except that her shoes had seen better days. Sitting on a blanket on a city street is all you need to say beggar, it seems.

AAfter putting much thought into solving or alleviating the problem of homelessness, we came to few concrete conclusions, packed and went to bed. All we know is that there are people without any home and there are seals with two.

Labels: Anthropology, Drink, Europe, Food, History, Politics, Transport, Travel, US, Wildlife

Notice the UFO in the above picture. Is any more proof needed?

We grabbed our breakfast from the hall and then headed out. There was a whole saga in searching for a stamp. We gave up for then, but eventually had word that there was a post office beneath Macy's. We wandered down to Market Street via a somewhat dodgy area. There were many beggars and at one point a guy had fallen out of his wheelchair. Two motorcycle cops were already on the scene and taking charge firmly but friendlily. We caught the historic Tram Line F where old trams (not just from San Francisco but also from other cities are run for the use of locals and the joy of tourists. We caught it in a bad part of Market Street but it meant the tram was not too busy before the stop where all the tourists get on it. The line goes to the end of Market Street and then heads up along the harbour. We went to Pier 33 as the night before we'd booked tickets to go to Alcatraz.

Once the last place you might want to be sent, now huge queues of people wait to get on the boat to go there. The island is prime real estate; plumb in the middle of the bay with great views of both bridges and of the city itself. The trip over is quick, and the boats are large but full. You need a couple of hours to really do the island properly, even though there is much of the island you can't get to, either due to renovation / dilapidation or because birds are nesting. The island is prime nest site for gulls, guillemots and other sea-faring birds.


Most people start with the short film giving an overview of the history. It was originally made by or for the Discovery Channel and I had seen it before as it was somewhat familiar. So I even knew vaguely about the Indian Occupation which Catherine didn't. This, for those of you who didn't know was in 1969 when a group of Native American activists took over the island as a protest about the generally dreadful treatment they were receiving and had been receiving since the first boat load of immigrants piled into the country. In particular it was against a kind of forced integration that was in action at the time.





Wandering around the island is pleasant and no doubt good for you. But the most interesting part is the audio tour of the prison itself. Ex wardens and former prisoners tell you what was where, what it was like to be there, and about the various escape attempts. Some of the latter were studies in patience and ingenuity.




We took the ferry back. This is the only way if you discount swimming which is ill-advised because the waters have treacherous currents and sharks. The sharks however are only vegetarian, which means they kill you by boring you to death about how they don't eat meat. (Only kidding. Smiley face.)

San Francisco is one of the few major cities that still have abandoned harbour warehouses. In many other cities these have all been converted from crummy, rat-infested eye-sores to some of the most expensive places to live in the city.

We headed over to Chinatown. Actually half the city could be called Chinatown, but we were heading to the bit that has most of the restaurants. It was curious to hear the children on the bus all speaking Chinese to each other. It's not what I would have expected, but it was nice to hear. I don't hear enough Chinese these days except from random conversations on the train via the airport and from my Shanghai neighbour at work.

We ate in a Vietnamese restaurant that we think was called Pho or Golden Flower. I know, go to Chinatown to eat Vietnamese is a bit like getting French food in a Tapas bar, but Amsterdam is short of Vietnamese places. Keeping with the Asian theme, we went on to the famed Japanese Tea Garden. However it was shut.

That evening we decided to check out the real nightlife of the city. We took the old-fashioned tram to Castro, the lively gay side of town. Even for a Wednesday it was pretty happening. A few restaurants were open but we decided to look for our light supper in another part of town, supposed to be the main going-out centre, the Mission District. We walked there, avoiding dark streets, and for those of used to the scale of Amsterdam maps, it was a touch further than anticipated. The Mission District is a going-out sort of place, but it's also a bit down-at-heel. It's supposed to be good for bar hopping, but it's not like there is a line of bars, you have to know where the next one is. Most bars and restaurants were closing as we were arriving. The only clearly open eatery was a Mexican fast-food 'restaurant' (it had a counter and no chairs as far as I could see) which was packed and needed a security guard. The two guys who went in as we passed smelt like they had come from a cannabis sauna. They seemed to be in good spirits.

We also passed a guy who was dressed a pimp. The very stereotype of a pimp. If you'd have seen him in a movie or gangsta rap video you'd have said how clichéd surely pimps don't dress like that any more. I'm not saying he was a pimp, I'm only saying he dressed like one. And the girl on his arm dressed like a ho.

We realised a snack would not be forthcoming without queuing for a long time behind two guy who could be classed as a class-C narcotic. We bought some nuts and hailed a taxi. The taxi sped through the city and afforded us our first Bullitt moment. A Bullitt moment can only happen in San Francisco on those streets where the roads slope up or down but are level for an intersection. It's when you go too fast on the up or down and it causes a bit of a suspension crunch you hit the flat. I was so happy to have had this experience. Someone should start a Bullitt tour, so that any tourist can experience this (as well as a few key sites from the movie).

Labels: Anthropology, Fashion, Food, History, Language, Movies, Transport, Travel, US, Wildlife

Our hotel was one of the many quirky hotels which San Francisco is famous for. It sits amongst many other hotels (both quirky and chain) in an area not far from Union square a focus of much tourism and shopping. Breakfast is provided in the hall of each floor and so you can go out and pick up what you want without too much preparation. I hardly met anybody going to get my coffee and pastries so could have worn almost nothing had I wanted. I did. That is I did wear something. It was small scale and there were no waffle making machines and no Spanish ladies making omelettes. Which is odd because the room was costing us more than the hotel in Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills! Not round the corner from two massage parlours and within the shouting range of drunks. But the novelty of it being almost outside your door was something.

The day was Sunny but windy. One of those days where I wondered if it might get too hot and Catherine was freezing. We wondered down to the end of Powell Street where the Powell-Hyde cable car is manually turned round and sent up again. San Francisco is blessed with an abundance of public transport. Where as in LA it is invisible and unused, in San Francisco you are never far away from a bus, cable car, vintage tram or other form of mass transport. And if you like the underground form of transport, you can always do the Bart, man. A vintage trolley/tram travels up and down the divisive Market Street and then up the coast. Hundreds of buses and electro-buses cross the city in a variety of ways. And there are two cable car lines. These go north-south and seem to only ever be filled with tourists. They cost 5 dollars a pop, where as all the other forms are $1.50. $1.50 to go anywhere in a big city. It makes most other cities, London especially, look ridiculous. At the terminus for the Powell-Hyde line there was a large line of tourists waiting to buy tickets and passes. And an even longer one to get on the cable car. We queued and got 3-day passes (aka Muni Passport) which give unlimited travel for $18 and then walked up the street. At the terminus they only let enough people on to fill the seats. This is because they know from then on people will jump on at the next few stops. We did so, and followed the line to its end.

Whilst we had been in the queue for tickets, we nabbed a huge folder that was being touted about for free Starbucks coffee. The huge folder contained a tiny little business card thing that was the actual offer (you can have a free iced coffee or iced mochaholic (or something like that) on Wednesdays). The rest of the packaging was useless. The guy giving them out even said, don't throw them on the floor. Guy, tell Starbucks to just give you the card rather than a folder that is instant rubbish.

How the cable cars work is quite fascinating. All along the route under the street is a cable. It moves constantly - you can hear it. The cable car, when it wants to go forward, grabs onto the cable and releases the brakes, when it wants to stop, it releases the cable and on go the brakes. The cable car goes up and down the hills and when going down the two conductors have to literally jump on the breaks. It goes down streets with elderly Japanese tourists holding on the side for dear life; streets that sometimes are just wide enough for two parked cars, and two cable cars and 4 elderly Japanese tourists.

We took the cable car to the end: the marina. Here we wandered around. In the bay was a nice old sailing clipper. After the bay there was the maritime museum. It was not that old a building but it was dilapidated. If it were a ship it would have sunk with all hands. It WAS ship-shaped although certainly not ship-shape.

Our wandering morphed into a search for food. We found a fascinating looking nouveau-Vietnamese. Nouveau but not ouvert. It turned out to be part of the Ghirardelli Square. History bit: Ghirardelli was an Italian who came to California via Venezuela hoping to strike gold, but instead formed a very successful chocolate company. What seemed to be the old factory is now being turned into an up-market plaza with a tourist and chocolate bent. Although it is not finished, many businesses are already open including a McCormick and Kuleto's (this guy teams up with anybody). We went for Lori's Diner as it had outside seating and courting pigeons. Cath had something semi-healthy and I went for a Hot Rod Burger, because you can't get any more American than a Hot Rod Burger. It's a burger smothered in chilli. The burger itself was fine but the chilli was somewhat effeminate and the onion rings were sugary.

After this we partook of coffee and one of Kara's Cupcakes < http://karascupcakes.com/ > before checking out the chocolate store. It was full of chocolate. A girl at the door gave out small free samples of something filled peanut butter that would kill me if I ate 5. I had 2.

After that we walked to catch another bus, this time to Haight-Ashbury. Haight-Ashbury (pronounced Hate-Ashbree) is an area of town named after two streets that was once an area frequented by hippies. I'd only just heard of it, but to Cath it evoked all of the romance of hippidom. That is free spirited living outside of the system as opposed to being stoned and unwashed. This all happened 40 years ago. Now Haight Ashbury is a tourist street with some hippy-themed stores. There is very little evidence of real hippies living there. The odd street hawker and particularly hairy old man was all we saw. Off the main street are some great houses. Some have been painted in striking but pleasing ways. The odd one has hints of psychodaelia. We wandered round trying to find vestiges of hippiedom and then walked further down Haight to a more grungy/rock part of town. An empty bar played Ministry in the mid afternoon. I know I'm getting old as now I believe there is a time of the day that is too early for Ministry.

We struck off and found a nice local café – Café du Soleil (formerly called Boulange de Cole Valley). There we had beer and wine and observed local life. It was a definite neighbourhood, with allegiances and conflicts. One person tried to move her chair into the sun slightly further away from the café. She was very jovially told that some do-goody curtain-twitcher complains every time a chair moves too far into the sidewalk. There was even what I thought was a drug den: a house outside of which a gang of motorcyclists made lots of noise and at one point a couple of young kids sloped into for a ridiculously short amount of time, trying to look cool and not scared or suspicious.

In American Apparel, amongst the usual array of slinky clothes for skinny teens, were tiny t-shirts for tiny dogs. This is where people buy them. (We'd seen a couple on the beach already.) There was quite a selection but I didn't see any of their skinny jeans or sheer, see-through underwear for dogs.

We took a bus back that took us along Market Street to somewhere near where we got on the cable car that morning. The length of the queue for the cable car was actually only about the volume of one cable car for once. Soon after, it was back up to former length. Cath waited outside the public autotoilet but because of some clearly dodgy deals going on. She never got in. When the time was up for the person in there, someone waiting outside, handed him something and the door closed again. I'm still clueless as to what could have been going on. I can only suppose drugs or criminal stomach trouble.

We went to Chinatown to look for a snack for supper. It was a bit late, about 10, but we were surprised to find nothing whatsoever opened. Chinatown is somewhere I expect to have some late night places. But given that about 3/4 of San Francisco seems to be Chinatown, I can't say we explored much of it. To make sure we didn't die of the munchies, we popped in to witness the sort of crazies that frequent late-night pharmacies.

Labels: Anthropology, Drink, Food, History, Transport, Travel, US