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Six in the City
Horrible puns shall abound as I attempt to summarise some of the more exciting moments from the last 2 months, getting to know San Francisco and its slightly off-the-wall night life. I’m starting to find my way around the city now (not a difficult feat given it’s 7 miles by 7 miles – a village compared to London), and I have to say I’m falling in love with the place, even if I’ve woken up one too many times on a sofa somewhere mumbling “where am I?”
In a stark, minimalist style, I shall describe the highlights of my travels using bullet-points. You can all read between the lines – I’m sure it’ll seem more exciting that way.
The World is Your Oyster (April 2nd)
- O’Reilly’s pub holds a yearly Beer and Oyster festival in Washington Square
- Being a fan of both Irish beer, and of oysters, I was eager to attend.
- As were various friends and people I’d never met.
- As was enough of San Francisco to fill the park entirely.
- Much beer was drunk.
- I actually ate enough oysters to grow tired of them.
- You can get big oysters here – more than a mouthful is… a chewy experience.
- Afterwards, we adjourned to O’Reilly’s itself.
- Somehow the girls I was with managed to get into an argument with some Irish girls…
- It all ended at about 1am when we realised that we really, really needed to sleep.
Beer and Clothing in San Francisco (April 8th-9th)
- I was informed (by my friend Emily) that it was required that I go “out on the town” for my birthday
- After meeting for dinner with a friend who was over from the UK, I embarked upon a pub crawl with a second set of friends in the Mission
- Emily, her “room-mate” and 2 friends from New Orleans turned up shortly afterwards
- I don’t remember what time we actually crashed…
- …but we started Saturday with Bloody Marys…
- …followed by my first ever baseball game – San Francisco Giants vs. Colorado…
- …and a Giants grand-slam.
- We had “lunch” at around 4 o’clock after the game.
- At this point, I realised I’d been wearing the same shirt for 36 hours…
- …necessitating a stop at GAP (the first clothing store I found) for a change…
- …before another bar.
- Back at Emily’s again, we somehow managed to spend 3 hours sleeping, followed by 2 hours playing drinking games…
- …before venturing out to a club where there was much dancing.
- Sunday was spent very, very quietly.
Columbus Voyages (April 20th)
- More visitors from the UK. It was Mike’s birthday so, naturally, we had to go drinking.
- …even though it was a Wednesday.
- The plan was to visit a few places around Columbus, the main street which runs through North Beach.
- We started at Vesuvio, a very agreeable little place on Columbus made famous by Jack Kerouac and other beat poets.
- We then moved on to two other bars. I don’t remember the names, although the beer was good.
- We ended the night at a horrible little cheap pizza place on Columbus
- Sadly, the pizza came back to haunt me later
- Driving whilst still hungover is a very unpleasant experience.
Somewhere Under the Rainbow (April 25th)
- The following weekend, and back to the city again.
- We started with more drinks in Vesuvio with Mike and his wife Claire
- Then it was just a “hard core” of us – Michael, me and Ben (another visitor from the UK)
- Somehow we ended up in the Castro (SF’s gay community) in an aggreably run-down little bar called “Amber”
- The bar became less agreeable after a rather strange man approached us trying to “introduce us to some girls”
- He was not, it turned out, a pimp.
- He was, however, interested in whether any of us “did three-ways”…
- …and also, he told us, more interested “in actually watching people doing it” than watching porn.
- We made our excuses and left…
- For a Karaoke bar up the street, where fellow patrons murdered classic pop songs…
- And I ended up in conversation with a woman whose extremely British accent could polish silver at 100 paces.
- Crashed at Michael’s, on a futon which insisted on falling over during the night.
Love/Haight (May 14th-15th)
- My replacement from the UK, Tamsin, was over for a couple of weeks
- After visiting friends of hers in Emeryville on Friday, we spent Saturday afternoon in the Haight…
- …where I was introduced to the joy of clothes-shopping in thrift stores.
- We were accosted in the street by an agreeably hyper woman called Alex, who insisted we have a drink with her…
- …and told us all about Bay to Breakers
- …which we duly attended, much to my eternal amusement.
- Following the race, we grabbed food at my favourite caff, the Raintree on Irving
- …before returning to the Haight and Amoeba Records where…
- I was accosted by a charming young lady who wanted my advice on which “Pet Shop Boys” album she should buy…
- …I like to think it was my British accent and enthusiasm for music which caused her to stop me, rather than my appearance…
As a side-note, the Haight is disturbingly like Camden, only slightly cleaner. If, however, I’m going to get accosted by random women every time I go there, I should perhaps consider a swift move to the area as soon as possible.
Bowled over (May 27th-28th)
- Given an apartment to stay in for the weekend, I headed for the city.
- Hanging out with students (well, postgrad internists, but it’s the same thing) means you end up drinking at someone’s house before going out because it’s cheaper…
- …most of a bottle of red wine “cheaper”
- We then ended up at, erm, a bar, where we proceeded to dance for several hours
- I walked home at 3am through beautifully quiet streets
- Saturday, I planned to go to MOMA
- It was such a beautiful day, however, that I spent most of it just relaxing in Yerba Buena gardens and Union Square
- At 5pm, I met my friend Cathryn to go bowling at Yerba Buena, to celebrate her new Green Card status
- Beer and dinner at 21st Amendment followed.
- Then there was just a hardcore (again) of three of us, in a weird (but great) little place called Eddie Rickenbacker’s on 2nd Street.
- One drink later and then there were 2 – me and new drinking buddy Laura.
- We tooled off to meet up with Emily around the corner in Fluid
- Fluid is not my sort of place at all – anywhere where no-one seems to be smiling or having fun because they’re too busy posing is, well, wrong (thank God we somehow skipped the cover charge).
- Skipped out after one drink and walked Laura back to the Castro.
- Ached all over when I woke up in the morning.
- I’m evidently getting old.
