San Francisco, 30/04/09
Bakery accross from "The Vesuvio", North Beach
Day 7
Bakery accross from "The Vesuvio", North Beach
Day 7
I really like San Francisco! And I am actually enjoying myself on my own. too bed for that pessimistic beggining.
Tuesday things were not goign so weel: stuck in the most uninteresting part of the city. But then I met my host, Veronica. And she was nice and talkative and so helpful. Her neighbourhood (Mission dolores) is beautiful and she lives in a Victorian apartment. (...) We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and she showed me around the Castro, near her place. Nice neighbourhood. (...). But really "gay-male-porn" culture... jusging by the composition and beahviour of the crowds and the windows of local shops and businesses. (...)
Yesterday didn't start very well either. I got all excited and, after breakfast, went straight to Haight-Ashbury (note of editor: the center of all 60's counter culture in the city and my favourite intersection for 8 years). AT 9 AM. Not much activity, empty streets and a couple of people asking for change and looking unpleasant. I saw Janis Joplin's place but it didn't have any sign or mark. So i sadly headed to golden Gate park. The "hippie hill" which I recognised from old black-and-white pictures was inhabited by a handful of homeless people. Later i got to know, it only gets properly "hippish" on weekends. At the time i was just disappointed. I dealt with it: the sixties were 40 years ago, the 80's did a lot of damage and I had to just face it. I was looking for something that was gone.OK.
But Golden Gate Park didn't help. it was exhasperating. It was long and there was no one around exept for the boring touristy spots. so I walked and I cried and I got lost and I got so desperate and regreted doing thsi on my own. A couple of hours of mental ranting followed.
Anyhow I decided to go to the beach. I grossly underestimated the lenght of the park and ended up walking for 2 hours or so. (...) i finally saw the Ocean but I was tired and a bit scared. I didn't know what to do in that empty residential street. so I took a bus. ok, it was the wrong direction, but I got off and got on the right one some seconds later. I think that bus was a statement. Yes I can.
(...) I got to fillmore. Iw as hungry and so I grabbed my first burrito. Apparently they were invented over here. I then walked down Fillmore, passed a sign that said " Harlem of the West Jazz District". A couple of meters later I got it: this was a "black"neighbourhood - everyone was African-American. it was poorer and sketchier than the other areas of town I had seen. and it confirmed in my mind that "racial integration" ( it sounds 50's like, but I can't think of another way), in the USA,is far from comlete. Africans and Europeans are the oldest non-native emigrant groups in thsi country. Yet they fail to compare in terms of living standards. And here in America i think there is a lot of that idea that if people didn't mange it was thier fault. (...) that is a flase meritocracy based on a fake liberal framework. Inequality has a reason.
(...) I saw Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies. it started goign very well then. i kept on goign and hit lower Haight. (...) then I explored haight-Ashbury properly, by day. i went into this indian shop and bought a beautiful blouse. there were so many interesting people there and I loved it. Then the people asking for money were nice and called it "change" and i smilled and they smilled back. They seem to be the friedly homeless of San Francisco. I went into a cofee shop with people having tea with a pained acordeon on the table.
(...)
I headed for Chinatown today. It was quite an experience. it was very chinese. And I liked it. A lot of things that I never seen on the shops - like dried /seemingly salted squids. And I went on a bus crowed with exclusively Chinese people - the realistic "China experience"? (...) Saw lombard Street - which seems a joke! - And went to City Lights - the beatnik bookstore. It was magic. it was also next to the Vesuvio (Jack Kerouac's favourite café and symbol of the beat generation). Which i couldn't get into because I was not 21. FML, Filipa , that's me.
oh people arounf this park I am sitting now in look great. Like 60's San Franciscans.
(...) i went on the acble cars a lot today. Love them! it seems there are little rules for them. You can just hang there.
Filipa
Tuesday things were not goign so weel: stuck in the most uninteresting part of the city. But then I met my host, Veronica. And she was nice and talkative and so helpful. Her neighbourhood (Mission dolores) is beautiful and she lives in a Victorian apartment. (...) We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and she showed me around the Castro, near her place. Nice neighbourhood. (...). But really "gay-male-porn" culture... jusging by the composition and beahviour of the crowds and the windows of local shops and businesses. (...)
Yesterday didn't start very well either. I got all excited and, after breakfast, went straight to Haight-Ashbury (note of editor: the center of all 60's counter culture in the city and my favourite intersection for 8 years). AT 9 AM. Not much activity, empty streets and a couple of people asking for change and looking unpleasant. I saw Janis Joplin's place but it didn't have any sign or mark. So i sadly headed to golden Gate park. The "hippie hill" which I recognised from old black-and-white pictures was inhabited by a handful of homeless people. Later i got to know, it only gets properly "hippish" on weekends. At the time i was just disappointed. I dealt with it: the sixties were 40 years ago, the 80's did a lot of damage and I had to just face it. I was looking for something that was gone.OK.
But Golden Gate Park didn't help. it was exhasperating. It was long and there was no one around exept for the boring touristy spots. so I walked and I cried and I got lost and I got so desperate and regreted doing thsi on my own. A couple of hours of mental ranting followed.
Anyhow I decided to go to the beach. I grossly underestimated the lenght of the park and ended up walking for 2 hours or so. (...) i finally saw the Ocean but I was tired and a bit scared. I didn't know what to do in that empty residential street. so I took a bus. ok, it was the wrong direction, but I got off and got on the right one some seconds later. I think that bus was a statement. Yes I can.
(...) I got to fillmore. Iw as hungry and so I grabbed my first burrito. Apparently they were invented over here. I then walked down Fillmore, passed a sign that said " Harlem of the West Jazz District". A couple of meters later I got it: this was a "black"neighbourhood - everyone was African-American. it was poorer and sketchier than the other areas of town I had seen. and it confirmed in my mind that "racial integration" ( it sounds 50's like, but I can't think of another way), in the USA,is far from comlete. Africans and Europeans are the oldest non-native emigrant groups in thsi country. Yet they fail to compare in terms of living standards. And here in America i think there is a lot of that idea that if people didn't mange it was thier fault. (...) that is a flase meritocracy based on a fake liberal framework. Inequality has a reason.
(...) I saw Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies. it started goign very well then. i kept on goign and hit lower Haight. (...) then I explored haight-Ashbury properly, by day. i went into this indian shop and bought a beautiful blouse. there were so many interesting people there and I loved it. Then the people asking for money were nice and called it "change" and i smilled and they smilled back. They seem to be the friedly homeless of San Francisco. I went into a cofee shop with people having tea with a pained acordeon on the table.
(...)
I headed for Chinatown today. It was quite an experience. it was very chinese. And I liked it. A lot of things that I never seen on the shops - like dried /seemingly salted squids. And I went on a bus crowed with exclusively Chinese people - the realistic "China experience"? (...) Saw lombard Street - which seems a joke! - And went to City Lights - the beatnik bookstore. It was magic. it was also next to the Vesuvio (Jack Kerouac's favourite café and symbol of the beat generation). Which i couldn't get into because I was not 21. FML, Filipa , that's me.
oh people arounf this park I am sitting now in look great. Like 60's San Franciscans.
(...) i went on the acble cars a lot today. Love them! it seems there are little rules for them. You can just hang there.
Filipa
2 comentários:
Wait. T
THIS IS OLD.
I don't understand.
explanation :
1- too lazy to write new things
2- never had the opportunity to write online during the last month
3- wrote it all on a huge journal
4 - perfect solution: type in a sort "best of" of each entry
voilá
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