The Return

Welcome to San Francisco. The land of beautiful vistas and knee breaking hills, the land of rickety but stalwart cable cars, the land of the sneaky sunburn masked by a cool breeze, the land of roving bands of street punks and pushy homeless people who will do ANYTHING for a handful of change, even disguise themselves as bushes and dart out at unlucky tourists, whose chuckling, often drunken friends fork over some cash. The land of the Castro where you can sit on the balcony at Metro City Bar and be catty and laugh with your friends about EVERYONE who walks by; the land where the perfect gay couple ALWAYS comes equipped with the perfect gay couple's dog. The land of Haight-Ashbury where the hippie free-love spirit is long since dead, replaced by grungy gutter punks, the Gap and money-money-money, yes that’ll be $17.50 EACH for that fleeting feeling of peace-love you just felt. The land where Barbary Lane is actually called Macondary Lane and you walk right to it without even realizing you are doing so. The land of pushy Chinese tourists, elbowing their way onto the number 30 bus to get to Chinatown and packing themselves in 40-deep. The land of rocking, stinking, sweaty rides on packed-packed-packed buses whose crowds magically dissipate without you even noticing. The land where every few blocks has a Walgreens and very few McDonald's can be found. The land where two blocks to your left often means scaling Street Everest, a 45-degree street that ends somewhere in the clouds. The land where you don’t need screens or air conditioning because there are no bugs and no hot summers. The land of Alcatraz Island with its famed audio tour and swooping flocks of angry and PROTECTED BY LAW seagulls, milling about and coming up to knee height who do INDEED seem to inquire, endlessly: Mine? Mine? Mine? The land of Cliff House, Palace of Fine Arts, Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Presidio and Alamo Square, and more natural beauty than you should be able to pack into one peninsula. The land of "That was in 'Vertigo'". Ultimately, the land of confusion when you realize that San Francisco, beautiful and serene and magical San Francisco, may not be the end of the rainbow you always, sight unseen, assumed it was.

a more full report is coming. patience.