San Francisco
Having finished university, and feeling very much in limbo, I decided to fulfil a long-held aspiration and cross the Atlantic. In several discussions people often enquired, "Why the United States?" Although they were probably just making conversation, and not necessarily looking for an in-depth explanation, I don't think I've ever been satisfied with the bland responses I've offered them, so I'll try to put that right here. My inspirations are multi-fold. To name a few, they lie somewhere within Coen brothers films; blues music; New Orleans; Phillips O'Brien and Simon Newman History lectures; the 'great open road'; Martin Luther King's 'I've Been to the Mountaintop' speech; that scene in the Godfather II when a nine year-old Vito Corleone arrives in Manhattan off the Staten Island ferry; and pretty much every Bob Dylan song.
I realise that these are scattered and cherry-picked representations of the nation and that they might read as an America of "then" rather than "now". Indeed, I suppose I am curious as to how much of the "America" captured in the examples above a traveler would uncover in modern-day US. For it's true that the past never dies out completely, but endures in many forms. And for all the nation's well-documented flaws and superficialities, it is difficult to envisage not finding a more meaningful and culturally rich America than the one often caricatured, such is the inexaustible variety of its society. So, I decided to begin in San Francisco and gradually work my way east. From California, to the New York island / From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters...
In the City by the Bay, I stayed with a woman named Suzanne, a friend of my grandparents from the early sixties. It was dark when we drove from the airport, so my first proper look at the city was the next morning from her house at 23rd Street and Castro. The panoramic view from her balcony over looks a sea of multi-coloured Victorian-style houses, built from redwood trees, each one different in design from the last.
To the west is the mighty Twin Peaks; to the east, the gleaming blue water of the Bay. Unmistakably San Francisco. My original intention had been to stay a couple of days before checking into a hostel somewhere, primarily to meet other people around my age. But located in such a perfect spot, and gratefully receiving lots of delicious free food and benefitting from the wisdom of a lifelong San Franciscan, I opted to stay put and find other ways to meet people.
I was often told before I left Scotland that when you travel on your own meeting people is easy, and I was a little doubtful as to whether this would be the case. But the times in solitude when you feel homesick or overwhelmed are exactly what drive you to seek out company. And when you do explore a city with a new friend, traveling solo is totally vindicated.
I figured that city tours might be a decent place to meet other travelers, so as it was nearby, I turned up for a tour of the Castro. Today the Castro is the largest gay neighbourhood in the United States, and was the site of Harvey Milk's camera shop in the 1970s. We congregated under the 70-foot flagpole that flies the huge rainbow flag at Castro and Market, beside a small collection of drunks, buskers, and street-dogs. At the opposite corner of the street there was a bizarre gathering of men seemingly sunbathing, many of them in wheelchairs, some with no clothes on their top halves...or their bottom halves. It didn't appear like they even knew each other; they were just sitting there, watching the day go by. Those waiting for the tour also seemed to be mostly middle-aged gay men on their own, and I was starting to think that the tour-ees were conforming to a stereotype. But just before we set off an attractive girl with dark hair and olive skin came striding enthusiastically towards the party. I made sure I milled around for a while when it finished, and she and I ended up going for lunch, before hiking up a couple of San Francisco's forty-seven hills towards the surreally beautiful Buena Vista Park. One of San Francisco's numerous green spots, the woodland rests precariously on a narrow peak, with teasing glimpses of the city beyond coiling branches.
The girl's name was Francesca, from Bologna. She's doing a PHD in Berlin on Aristotle's concept of the soul, and was visiting a friend in Berkley for a month.
From Buena Vista Park we ambled down the other side of the hill, which rolls into Haight-Ashbury, where 100,000 bohemians, hippies and college and high school kids converged for the Summer of Love in 1967. Several food scraps of that era remain in the neighbourhood. Smoking shops that sell "medicinal" weed abound, next door to anarchist book shops and indie movie theatres. Street art dons the walls of buildings, while a 6-piece band that included a double bass were squeezed tightly onto the stoop of an apartment. I'm sure I heard the Grateful Dead playing somewhere as we stopped for some pomegranate cider in the sun. Then a 6"6 dreadlocked Asian-American hipster vacantly mumbled "pot, acid, coke?" at us as we strolled past two policemen on bicycles on our way into Golden Gate Park...It felt like San Francisco, only more so.
With only a couple of daylight hours left, we set ourselves the goal of making it to the Golden Gate Bridge before dark. On our search for a bus stop, we weaved, backtracked, and got lost amidst the one thousand-acre park's art museum, botanic gardens, Japanese tea-garden, giant kids playpark, sports pitches, and even byson field. A pretty decent place to spend a Sunday afternoon! When we eventually found our way to the bus,and approached the famous red bridge, there was a hazy dusk sunlight cast over the Bay, with Alcatraz and the city skyline equally striking to the south-east. The mammoth structure is radiant and majestic and I agreed with Francesca that the light made it not look real. I got added kicks from viewing it at Fort Point, right at the foot of the Bridge - just like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo"! Yet in my excited haste to feel like I was in a Hitchcock classic, we missed our window to walk on the Bridge. If you ever go, you'll have to walk across it before 6.30pm. It seemed easy to sneak on as people were leaving, and it looked like we were in the clear, only for an unfeeling voice from a megaphone to declare "unauthorised pedestrian entry, remove yourselves from thebridge", or something.
So, we headed back into the city, towards the Mission District, in search of live music. Here our limited knowledge of San Francisco was exposed, finding mostly Mexican restaurants and corner shops (I can't bring myself to use "grocery stores"), so we settled for a couple of beers in a darkly-lit sports bar and an impromptu blues-harmonica performance from a cheerful homeless man who followed us down the block. He was really good though and earned his two dollars. Thinking of my harmonica at home, I told him I'd love to learn to play like that. Unfortunately he replied that it had taken him 30 years. All in all, though, an awesome day.
I spent the next couple of days wandering San Francisco by myself, taking in Chinatown, museums, some rag time piano, and the City Lights Bookstore, publisher of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's iconic Howl in 1955 and all-round hub of left-wing publications and counter-culture literature. I was also treated to a Downtown symohony and a trip to the sequoia redwoods by Suzanne. As enjoyable as all that was, I was itching to meet new people again.
Handily, there was a thread on Couch Surfing of various travelers looking to meet up in the city. I nearly met with a Costa Rican guy but our timings didn't work, and after a day of missed phonecalls I did eventually rendezvous with a twenty year-old Canadian girl called Marley, who had hitchhiked herself all the way from British Columbia! She explained that the people who picked her up did so because they were terrified that some maniac would, so I suppose there's some reverse logic in doing it solo. She was quiet and loved to read, and we seemed to get on well enough. Marley and Me meandered around the city for a few hours, stopped at a couple of roadside cafes, visited the Mission Dolores - the city's oldest surviving building. We then lived out what felt a bit like a 1950s American high school date - one or two prolonged silences over a dinner of burger, fries, and coke, before catching a double-feature at the local movie theatre. It wasn't just any old cinema, though, but the 1922 Spanish Colonial-style Castro Theatre, with its neon sign emblematic of the district and visible from much of the city. Even more cool was the ornate and lavish interior. A massive chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and a pipe organ descends from the stage before films begin.
First was "Manhattan", followed by "Welcome to LA". I hadn't seen the latter, and thought it was appropriate as I would soon be in Los Angeles and might get a wee preview of the city. My experience of LA is a story for another day, but I thought the film was disorientating, seedy, and self-indulgent…
I realise that these are scattered and cherry-picked representations of the nation and that they might read as an America of "then" rather than "now". Indeed, I suppose I am curious as to how much of the "America" captured in the examples above a traveler would uncover in modern-day US. For it's true that the past never dies out completely, but endures in many forms. And for all the nation's well-documented flaws and superficialities, it is difficult to envisage not finding a more meaningful and culturally rich America than the one often caricatured, such is the inexaustible variety of its society. So, I decided to begin in San Francisco and gradually work my way east. From California, to the New York island / From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters...
In the City by the Bay, I stayed with a woman named Suzanne, a friend of my grandparents from the early sixties. It was dark when we drove from the airport, so my first proper look at the city was the next morning from her house at 23rd Street and Castro. The panoramic view from her balcony over looks a sea of multi-coloured Victorian-style houses, built from redwood trees, each one different in design from the last.
To the west is the mighty Twin Peaks; to the east, the gleaming blue water of the Bay. Unmistakably San Francisco. My original intention had been to stay a couple of days before checking into a hostel somewhere, primarily to meet other people around my age. But located in such a perfect spot, and gratefully receiving lots of delicious free food and benefitting from the wisdom of a lifelong San Franciscan, I opted to stay put and find other ways to meet people.
I was often told before I left Scotland that when you travel on your own meeting people is easy, and I was a little doubtful as to whether this would be the case. But the times in solitude when you feel homesick or overwhelmed are exactly what drive you to seek out company. And when you do explore a city with a new friend, traveling solo is totally vindicated.
I figured that city tours might be a decent place to meet other travelers, so as it was nearby, I turned up for a tour of the Castro. Today the Castro is the largest gay neighbourhood in the United States, and was the site of Harvey Milk's camera shop in the 1970s. We congregated under the 70-foot flagpole that flies the huge rainbow flag at Castro and Market, beside a small collection of drunks, buskers, and street-dogs. At the opposite corner of the street there was a bizarre gathering of men seemingly sunbathing, many of them in wheelchairs, some with no clothes on their top halves...or their bottom halves. It didn't appear like they even knew each other; they were just sitting there, watching the day go by. Those waiting for the tour also seemed to be mostly middle-aged gay men on their own, and I was starting to think that the tour-ees were conforming to a stereotype. But just before we set off an attractive girl with dark hair and olive skin came striding enthusiastically towards the party. I made sure I milled around for a while when it finished, and she and I ended up going for lunch, before hiking up a couple of San Francisco's forty-seven hills towards the surreally beautiful Buena Vista Park. One of San Francisco's numerous green spots, the woodland rests precariously on a narrow peak, with teasing glimpses of the city beyond coiling branches.
From Buena Vista Park we ambled down the other side of the hill, which rolls into Haight-Ashbury, where 100,000 bohemians, hippies and college and high school kids converged for the Summer of Love in 1967. Several food scraps of that era remain in the neighbourhood. Smoking shops that sell "medicinal" weed abound, next door to anarchist book shops and indie movie theatres. Street art dons the walls of buildings, while a 6-piece band that included a double bass were squeezed tightly onto the stoop of an apartment. I'm sure I heard the Grateful Dead playing somewhere as we stopped for some pomegranate cider in the sun. Then a 6"6 dreadlocked Asian-American hipster vacantly mumbled "pot, acid, coke?" at us as we strolled past two policemen on bicycles on our way into Golden Gate Park...It felt like San Francisco, only more so.
With only a couple of daylight hours left, we set ourselves the goal of making it to the Golden Gate Bridge before dark. On our search for a bus stop, we weaved, backtracked, and got lost amidst the one thousand-acre park's art museum, botanic gardens, Japanese tea-garden, giant kids playpark, sports pitches, and even byson field. A pretty decent place to spend a Sunday afternoon! When we eventually found our way to the bus,and approached the famous red bridge, there was a hazy dusk sunlight cast over the Bay, with Alcatraz and the city skyline equally striking to the south-east. The mammoth structure is radiant and majestic and I agreed with Francesca that the light made it not look real. I got added kicks from viewing it at Fort Point, right at the foot of the Bridge - just like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo"! Yet in my excited haste to feel like I was in a Hitchcock classic, we missed our window to walk on the Bridge. If you ever go, you'll have to walk across it before 6.30pm. It seemed easy to sneak on as people were leaving, and it looked like we were in the clear, only for an unfeeling voice from a megaphone to declare "unauthorised pedestrian entry, remove yourselves from thebridge", or something.
I spent the next couple of days wandering San Francisco by myself, taking in Chinatown, museums, some rag time piano, and the City Lights Bookstore, publisher of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's iconic Howl in 1955 and all-round hub of left-wing publications and counter-culture literature. I was also treated to a Downtown symohony and a trip to the sequoia redwoods by Suzanne. As enjoyable as all that was, I was itching to meet new people again.
Handily, there was a thread on Couch Surfing of various travelers looking to meet up in the city. I nearly met with a Costa Rican guy but our timings didn't work, and after a day of missed phonecalls I did eventually rendezvous with a twenty year-old Canadian girl called Marley, who had hitchhiked herself all the way from British Columbia! She explained that the people who picked her up did so because they were terrified that some maniac would, so I suppose there's some reverse logic in doing it solo. She was quiet and loved to read, and we seemed to get on well enough. Marley and Me meandered around the city for a few hours, stopped at a couple of roadside cafes, visited the Mission Dolores - the city's oldest surviving building. We then lived out what felt a bit like a 1950s American high school date - one or two prolonged silences over a dinner of burger, fries, and coke, before catching a double-feature at the local movie theatre. It wasn't just any old cinema, though, but the 1922 Spanish Colonial-style Castro Theatre, with its neon sign emblematic of the district and visible from much of the city. Even more cool was the ornate and lavish interior. A massive chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and a pipe organ descends from the stage before films begin.
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