PIctures Pictures Pictures...

I left out a lot of images during my first post on san fran due to my lack of an internet connection.  So here they are.   This first grouping was from Cinco De Mayo.  Luke and his roomates hosted a party at their house and then we went out to the bar.  If you had a mustache, you got a discount on your drinks, so we did what we had to do.


My next post will have bay to breakers in it- which is a HUGE event that takes place this coming weekend where everyone get dressed up and drinks there way across the city.  It should be a really fun time, Luke convinced me to stay for it so that is what im doing.  My plan is to leave monday to head to Portland and then wrap up the trip on tuesday or wednesday in Seattle... it's almost time to be in one place for a while.

Lukes View

Me helping out by cutting up the meat for our fajitas!

Luke burning a cork to draw on our mustaches

Sharon, pictured above with me, is a friend of mine from college, who happened to grow up with charlies friends from college (lukes roomates)

Charlies mustache looked real... amazing 

Tracey, the blond girl second in from the left, was a good friend of charlies in college and one of lukes roomates

Kasey, pictured above, is also friends with charlie from college.  Her boyfriend owns a few of the local bars and was Lukes roomate for a while before he moved in with her and tracey.  

My first, of many, shots of Fernet.

This is the last image from cinco de mayo.

This vw caught my attention, so i stopped and shot a pic while I was exploring the mission area.

Linda, with the black glasses, is a friend of charlies and mine from high school.  We met up with her and her girlfriend for some drinks one night last week and had a really fun time.

This next group of pics is all from Alcatraz.

On the tour you get a headset and a little ipod type machine.  There are 8 narrators, 4 old inmates (pictured above) and 4 old guards.  It was very interesting to hear the stories from each of their perspectives.

A view from inside the main cell block.

The recreation area- with views of the golden gate bridge.  They said that the inmates were tortured with the sounds of the city being only 1.5 miles away.  During festivals they could hear the laughs of the people.

Above and below are pics of the solitary confinement cells... spooky places where people were put if they misbehaved.

one of a handful of small windows at eye level that gave the prisoners a little view of the city in the distance...

above and below are pictures of the wardens house which is now only a shell.  It had AMAZING views.  The stories of the families that lived on the island were interesting.  Little children loved growing up here.  They never saw the inmates but enjoyed eachothers company, and thought it was great to be able to ride a boat to school each day.  They never really thought about the fact that hundreds of dangerous inmates were just up at the top of the hill...

The flowers on the island are incredible.  I tried to get the golden gate in the background...

This is the actual cell, and the actual hole that were cut for the big escape where the inmates climbed up the pipes between the cell block.

The counter in the kitchen was all carved up.

The kitchen

an image from the closing day of "the rock"

Leavin the rock- my own personal "escape from alcatraz"

Above and below- lombard street.

The sea lions at Pier 39.

Washington Sqaure park in North Beach is located less than a block from charlies... this is the park where i met office Fred (story about him a few posts ago)

Charlie had a couple friends in town from Boston.  

These two pictures are from driving down lombard on that crazy curvy section... thats me taking a picture on my phone to post on facebook... multi tasking.  Dont worry, we were going 5mph

A night shot taken up one of the hills looking into the bay towards alcatraz

The famous Fernet... Luke's favorite.

Luke loved these shades- he insisted i take a picture of him wearing them... so here it is bud.

This is Polk Street in Russian Hill.  Lukes hood (where Im staying tonight)

Wine and Beer Sandwiches?  Id like to try a beer sandwich.

The trolly

an asian tour group that was poised to take a picture of the trolly rolling by... so i took a picture of them.

And then started the go kart tour... 

"every where you look..."  oh full house, how you played such an important roll in my younger years... if only Stephanie wasn't a big drug addict these days.

Check this out!  This is Robin Williams house!  Tour busses and vans are not allowed in the neighborhood, BUT these little three wheel things are, so we got right up next to it.

These last few pictures were taken in China Town- Jack Kerouac alley was fun to see-  Nothing special really but just thinking about his life here was cool considering Im just about finished with "on the road"

And assuming all of these loaded for you, that is it.  I hope you enjoyed them. 

San Francisco

(side note- scroll to the bottom of the page to check out my favorite photo taken yet)

San Francisco has been a blast. I feel like I could write about it for hours but I know that will be too much for my followers so Im going to try to attempt some bullet points too keep it short. I've done a lot of things here so there are going to be a lot of pictures but sadly, my internet connection is very weak from my new apartment, so until I get a stronger signal, ill have to post only a few.

this is lombard street- the windy part at the top is famous

1. San Francisco feels like a miniature european city. There are shops, boutiques, butchers, bakers, bars, and general small businesses all over this city. There is a noticeable lack of chains and franchises, which I like. Good coffee is on every corner and good food on every block, and everyone is outside all the time.
2. San Francisco is a little big town. You see the same people often- At the park, on the sidewalk, in the bar. And chances are they know at least 2-3 of your friends. My experience of coincidental connections has blown my mind- Ill explain that more below.
3. The painted ladies, which are the houses from the opening scene of Full House, are worth over 5 millions dollars a piece (real estate here is super expensive- a nice one bedroom apartment goes for 600-700k)
4. San Francisco is made up of several smaller cities within the bigger city. The ones I have explored at great length have everything you would ever need within them so as to prevent you from having to bounce around too much, thereby eliminating the need for a car unless you commute very far to and from work.  This set up also makes it hard to describe san francisco as a whole other than to say it is a unique mixture of several interesting places making up one bigger city.
   
   
   In this picture (above) we are looking at the north beach part of San Fran- Charlie's neighborhood and the place Ive spent most of my time for the past week.  Charlie's apartment is located to the right of Coit tower (big tower at the top of the photos) and just a block up the hill from the church on the same street I am taking the picture from.  Going down this hill on my bike was intense... it is so steep they have steps going up instead of sidewalks!
5. San Francisco does not seem to have bad traffic, when compared to DC, NY, Philly, Chicago, Boston... tons of people walk, ride a bike, or use mass transit.
6.  in San Francisco, if you do not compost, you get fined. Seriously.
7.  in San Francisco, Sundays are not for relaxing. Sunday=funday. People are back at the bar by 10 to enjoy every last minute of party time before the work week starts back up and people take shots of this crazy drink claiming it is a San Fran tradition... ever heard of it?
8. in San Francisco there are festivals just about every weekend that get attended by many- on cinco de mayo a local bar discounted their drinks for anyone with a mustache- we made it work.
9. Having not been to China, it is hard for me to say this with certainty, but I have been told that China town here is similar to being in China.  I went to check it out- and wow- it is like another world.  Yeah, there are quite a lot of Chinese residents here in San Fran- and most of them are extremely poor so you get used to seeing them all picking through the trash and walking around with big baskets of cans to turn them in for the 5cent deposits.  They will sometimes follow you if they see your bottle or can is near empty to grab it from you when you are done.
10. while living in San Francisco, you can snowboard, bike, and surf all in the same day and they actually do this- start the day in Tahoe (approx 2.5 hours away) for some spring skiing (many of the younger people here buy into winter shares of houses up there so it is not uncommon for a 25 year old to have a winter ski house with 10 friends) then on the way back you can mountain bike in some of the most beautiful forest imaginable, and once you get back to the coast throw your board in the water and go surfing... not bad.
11. And the Golden Gate Bridge is just as amazing as you think it is- never thought I would think a bridge was beautiful, but this one is.

Alcatraz 

 -Coincidental connections, Continued:  Charlie, my roomate from DC, moved to san fran at the beginning of the year. He went to University of New Hampshire and a few of his friends from school live here, one of their names is Kasey. He went to go meet them at a party his first weekend in town and randomly found out that Kasey's boyfriend was the roomate of Luke Webber- a good friend of mine from highschool, who also went to highschool with charlie. While at the same party, Charlie met Sharon, who went to Philadelphia University with me and is the best friend of Kasey from back east. Then, while out to dinner with two other UNH friends of Charlie, and while discussing my new apartment for the week which is the apartment of Jess Celentano and her boyfriend who are currently out of town, we established that one of them had Professor Curran-Celentano as a professor at UNH, Jess's mom, and she was her favorite professor! This city generates the oddest connections.

Anyway, there is more to say- I have to talk about alcatraz, cinco de mayo celebrations, Bay to Breakers, which is an event so great that Luke convinced me to stay here another week so I dont miss it (it is next sunday) wine country (which I am visiting tomorrow) the mission neighborhood that Im staying in now, driving a little yellow three wheeled car around the city... so many things.  But for now ill leave it at this and post more in the next few days.

Favorite Photo.  "one man band"

stay tuned for more in the upcoming days.

Leaving LA, San Fran thus far, and Tahoe

Ive been exploring different ways to share images on my blog... not sure if this is the best way but i figured id give it a shot.  Im still in San Fran and will be here for a bit longer but figured id post what ive been up to for the past 5 days or so in order to break things up.  Let me know what you think of the slide show format as opposed to posting each image. I think I like posting each image better, but the slide show is a lot easier. I still cant figure out the best way to do this...

Officer Fred in Washington Square Park, San Francisco

This guy right here deserves his own posting on the blog.  This is officer Fred of the San Francisco Police Department.  His job is to keep an eye out at Washington Square Park here in San Fran, which happens to be just down the road from Charlie's place.  He has been on the force for over 20 years, and this is only his second year stationed in the park.

So here is my story:
I got out of the house around noon after spending the morning in the apartment buying my Goonies 25th anniversary celebration tickets (which I am very excited about).  I was hungry,  so I went down to Cafe Divine, which is about a block away from Charlies, to grab a bite to eat and a coffee .   It was nice out so after my meal I took my book over to the park to read and looked for a seat in the sun.  The only seat open was on the same bench as this officer, so I took a seat and started reading...  With my A.D.D the reading didn't last long because every minute or two a new character from the park would come over to say hi to Fred and sit down for a few minutes to chat- Fred never moved from the above pose.  It wasn't until one man came over complaining that all the dogs in the park were off-leash that Fred spoke to me-   He told me after the guy left: "You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time." he claimed that this was an abraham lincoln quote, regardless, his point was understood.  The guy who complained was homeless and a bit crazy- he didn't want the dogs to eat his food and had a valid point because having your dog off it's leash is against the law in San Fran... but in the next two hours the guy came back 3 more times with other issues... he thought people wanted to kill him, rob him, etc... and he kept asking office Fred to do something, which he did not.  He merely talked to this guy to calm him down, explained to him that the dogs meant him no harm and sent him on his way. 
He told me that there is the written law, and then there is the spirit of the law.  "The dogs are harmless and there are no leash free parks nearby, so I don't give the people a hard time"  He followed that by saying "the guy who just complained about the dogs probably wouldn't like it if I made him pull down his socks to reveal the Marijuana he sells in the park, but I don't bother him about it because Marijuana is not a problem around here" 
 For the rest of the time that we spoke he explained to me that he lived in the neighborhood, rides his bike all over the north beach area and talks to everyone.  It was obvious considering most people that walked by seemed to know him.  Some even referred to him as "Uncle Fred."  On numerous occasions, drunks from the park stopped by to say hello and tell Fred that they were dry and hadn't drank in several days.  Some of these were people he has arrested in the past year- yet they have no hard feelings towards him.  He expressed that he was proud of them and they moved on- he holds no grudges.  On a few occasions, Fred called over some "characters" to introduce them to me.  He told them I was traveling across the country and keeping a blog, he asked that they tell me their stories... Wow did I hear some interesting things.  I even got a farewell kiss on the cheek from a 70+ year old woman wearing pink pajama pants who hadn't eaten since lunch time yesterday (She gave fred a hug and a kiss on the cheek first, otherwise I would have turned the other way- she was sweet, just a bit crazy).  Fred gave her a few dollars to get some food and told her to stop back in tomorrow to say hi.  She is homeless and believes she is someone that she is not.  She was fun to talk to, but I couldn't help but feel sad for her.  She told me her favorite cousins name was Denny, and that she liked me because I reminded her of him.

Fred might look like the average police officer, heck, he might even look lazy just sitting in the sun all day on this park bench, but to me, he was a breath of fresh air.  He was engaged in his community, viewed everyone as equals whether or not they were homeless, wealthy, young, or old.  He was a genuinely nice guy who considered more than the book of law when making his decisions about when to serve and when to protect.  Fred told me, that without a doubt, alcohol is a far bigger problem than marijuana.  He even pointed out a few people smoking in the park in front of him.  He said to me "these guys think they will get a rise out of me if I catch them smoking.  They want me to come over so they can pull out their medical marijuana cards, but It doesn't bother me- alcohol is the big problem around here.  It is the drunks who cause problems and scare people, not the marijuana smokers- they merely fall asleep on the grass or play frisbee"

   

What a day it was.  I didn't get far from the apartment, but got more out of this day than expected.  Fred will be in the park again tomorrow and wednesday so I hope to pay another visit, hopefully this time with my real camera (this time I only had my camera phone).  I hope that the police in Seattle are similar to Fred- it would be nice to get to know my local police officers in a non threatening way- but I am sad to say that this is the first time I've encountered anything like this.

There is so much more to post about- Beautiful Lake Tahoe, the beginning of my time in San Fran, etc, but those will have to wait- I needed to post this while it was fresh.  Hope u enjoyed my little story and if you ever make it to San Fran, or if you already live here, stop in the park sometime and say hello to Fred.