THE UPS AND DOWNS OF SAN FRANCISCO (2)

San Francisco is a fascinating city; a few days ago I started a short series of postings with things, thoughts and experiences that in my opinion were typical for San Francisco, the USA and also of me. This is the second in that series:


Alcatraz is one of the main sights in SF; very touristic but still fun; take at least half a day and in season you have to book tickets in advance; as a single traveller I could be squeezed in at the last moment;















They have done a lot of effort to make Alcatraz an interesting and exciting place; in fact you are in a rundown and partially burned down jail - but the stories on the head phone make the prison come alive (even tour in Dutch !);

Chinatown is one of the other highlights of SF, especially for people, like me, who have never been to China; huge area and in February not overrun by tourists and, what seems to me, authentic; no signs in English and a lot of people do not even speak English;











In North Beach I walked past an Italian café, Mama's, with a line of 20 people waiting outside to be seated; and it was 10.30 on a Friday morning; I have never seen such a thing and I do not know whether I would be willing to wait that long for a seat in a café; it seems to be normal in the USA to wait for a table;


Walked past Levi's Plaza (head office of Levi Strauss); reminded me that I always want to bring something typical of the city or country back home with me; Levi's are a lot cheaper overhere, but I do not need them and I am on a budget ...


I had late lunch in the Ferry Building, which has been transformed into a food plaza with restaurants and shops; Everything is fresh and specialized in seafood (oysters, muscles, clams); I am a big fan of seafood, so I enjoyed eating there and looking at the people; Had fun with the staff and would be back later on in the week;

As a theatre lover I wanted to visit a theatre performance; the ticket booth at Union Square did not have anything suitable for half price, so I went to the theatre around the corner of the hotel; Zeum Theatre was linked to the Art academy and was a fun little theatre; they were not used to foreigners and I was treated as someone special;

I watched on saturday night The Philistines of Maxim Gorki; strange to see a play in American English (I always had to remind myself that it played in Russia and not in the Wild West), but it was played with flair and with humor; audience was a different side of SF - more the boheme and intellectuals;

One of my most popular pastimes in a foreign city is to roam around bookshops and musicstores; usually I have to come to the conclusion that Dutch bookshops are top of the bill, but SF also did very well; bought some CDs of Billy Holiday and Nina Simone in the final sale of Virgin and some books on writing English (desperately needed !) and the Russian Revolution (typical to buy in SF);

Bizarre people on the streets; in the neighbourhood was a convention on videogames, which thousands and thousands of videogames-nerds attended; some of them were dressed as their heroes, but as a videogames-nitwit for me not recognizable who they personify; fun to watch though;

One of the advantages of the crisis is that the shops are empty and the prices are low; you can shop around and sales people have time for a chat or a laugh; usually in men's clothing stores the male staff is very attractive and fun to flirt with; for me, being 6 foot 6, it is easy to start a conversation ("do you have trousers in my size ?");