San Francisco

I got into San Francisco Thursday morning after an overnight Greyhound 20-hour trip, which was... fun. I arrived only to discover that my bag hadn't made it from LA. I had to fill in a little form and ring them back later to see if it had arrived, which was an unnecessary hassle, that I should have sorted myself changing buses at LA, but it was one in the morning so I wasn't exactly with it.

I wandered round a bit, then went to the hostel, which is very nice. It's called the Pacific Tradewinds hostel, there are a lot of cool people and it's a very laid back relaxed place. I went up Coit Tower, which is a small tower, but is on a hill, so it gives a pretty good view of the city. I also did a bit more wandering. Walking in San Francisco can be very hard work, as some of the streets are very very steep, even 45 degree steep. I went to the Cartoon art museum too, which had some good stuff, and an excellent bookshop, which I could easily have spent a couple of hundred dollars at. The evening I spent drinking in the hostel with a group of people from the hostel, including some Italians, a couple of girls from Manchester, and an american guy who works at the hostel. We ended up in a shisha (that flavored tobacco thing in the big pipe) bar, which was fun.

The next day I went to see Alcatraz, which was very cool. The prison cells were just like the Clint Eastwood film Escape from Alcatraz, so they must have either filmed on location or done a very good job of recreating them. The view from the island was also good, although it was a bit foggy. There were a couple of exhibits on the Indian demonstration in the late sixties on Alcatraz which were fascinating. I haven't really seen a whole lot of reference to the Indian population on my trip apart from the brief trip into Navajo territory so it was good to see the films of the people who occupied the island and their newfound sense of identity after the US government was trying to chuck them off the reservations.

I had a quick look at the area of Lombard Street where the road curves round and round, which I've seen in some film somewhere, either The Rock or Bullitt or something... It's a really beautiful city with some great views from all over the place. I walked back through North Beach, the italian area, past an excellent bookshop which again I could have spent a heck of a lot of money at. Today there's a free concert in Washington Square, part of the Jazz festival, so I'm going to head there after checking out the record and second hand bookshops in the ex hippie area of Haight-Ashbury.