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San Francisco Chronicles, Part Two
I wouldn't say I love San Francisco, not in that way. It's more like....you know when a close friend/family member is dating someone, and they seem nice enough, but maybe nothing special or particular, you don't have a handle on them, and then finally, one the awkward pretenses are down and you have a real moment and you totally understand why your friend fell in love with them. Um, its like that. In a long-winded metaphorical way.
On Monday we drove over the hill towards the Golden Gate Bridge but as we passed through Pacific Heights, we screamed going down the sharp inclines. DYA said, "it's a good thing it doesn't snow here" and I said, "yes, because EVERYONE WOULD DIE." Then we started saying that when we passed over any steep hill in the car.
That day was perfectly clear and amazing, going over the bridge and up into "wine country" specifically Napa area. On the way we passed through a small area near Petaluma and got a drink at Ernie's Tin Bar. It was about the size of Matchbox but all decorated in animal heads and trophies and a woodstove and plaques and local newspaper clippings and two random Van Gogh prints in the corner. I had a beer, which I rarely do, and it was local and organic and cold and delicious, especially with the peanuts and pretzels that Gloria, one of the owners gave us. All the locals at the end of the bar were dressed in jeans and flannel and baseball caps and played a dice game and talked about Nascar and ate Kettle Chips and talked about a petition to save the eucalpytus trees from development. And there was a strict policy "Use a cell phone, buy a round." They said a guy spent $93 the night before because of a phone call. It must have been hella crowded, because my pint of beer and DYA's bottle of ginger beer combined for a total of $4.75.
Later on in the week, I visited the northside to see the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance except it wasn't there. The fog was particularly heavy that day, for the first time all week, actually, so I didn't mind, it was a novelty, to stare out into the ocean and know there was a gigantic red bridge in front of me but I couldn't even make out the shadows. We walked inland a bit and came upon this instead:
And no photo I found while googling really does the Palace justice, when it comes to the experience of coming up to it on a sunny day with blue skies and how moments before when only blocks away, it was hidden from sight. Then you come around the corner and it's like some mystical ancient temple that sprung up out of the lagoon, the trees are growing around and integrating it, a sign of the passing of time and the distance of human's belief in building such architectural homages to imagined deities. Around the circle were men in various scenes of what appeared to be battle, but what intrigued me were in the pillars that stretched out away from the center circle, and on the four corners of everyone were four women, facing inward, head down, clutching at the wall as if they were not sculptures holding it up, but beings clinging to the keep from falling.
If were rich and could live anywhere in that city, I would contemplate a house across the street from the park its in, where I could sit every day in my living room drinking coffee and staring, especially in the dawn hours before inevitable school groups and lunch-hour picnickers and tourists like myself wandered by to obstruct the view.
On Monday we drove over the hill towards the Golden Gate Bridge but as we passed through Pacific Heights, we screamed going down the sharp inclines. DYA said, "it's a good thing it doesn't snow here" and I said, "yes, because EVERYONE WOULD DIE." Then we started saying that when we passed over any steep hill in the car.
That day was perfectly clear and amazing, going over the bridge and up into "wine country" specifically Napa area. On the way we passed through a small area near Petaluma and got a drink at Ernie's Tin Bar. It was about the size of Matchbox but all decorated in animal heads and trophies and a woodstove and plaques and local newspaper clippings and two random Van Gogh prints in the corner. I had a beer, which I rarely do, and it was local and organic and cold and delicious, especially with the peanuts and pretzels that Gloria, one of the owners gave us. All the locals at the end of the bar were dressed in jeans and flannel and baseball caps and played a dice game and talked about Nascar and ate Kettle Chips and talked about a petition to save the eucalpytus trees from development. And there was a strict policy "Use a cell phone, buy a round." They said a guy spent $93 the night before because of a phone call. It must have been hella crowded, because my pint of beer and DYA's bottle of ginger beer combined for a total of $4.75.
Later on in the week, I visited the northside to see the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance except it wasn't there. The fog was particularly heavy that day, for the first time all week, actually, so I didn't mind, it was a novelty, to stare out into the ocean and know there was a gigantic red bridge in front of me but I couldn't even make out the shadows. We walked inland a bit and came upon this instead:
And no photo I found while googling really does the Palace justice, when it comes to the experience of coming up to it on a sunny day with blue skies and how moments before when only blocks away, it was hidden from sight. Then you come around the corner and it's like some mystical ancient temple that sprung up out of the lagoon, the trees are growing around and integrating it, a sign of the passing of time and the distance of human's belief in building such architectural homages to imagined deities. Around the circle were men in various scenes of what appeared to be battle, but what intrigued me were in the pillars that stretched out away from the center circle, and on the four corners of everyone were four women, facing inward, head down, clutching at the wall as if they were not sculptures holding it up, but beings clinging to the keep from falling.
If were rich and could live anywhere in that city, I would contemplate a house across the street from the park its in, where I could sit every day in my living room drinking coffee and staring, especially in the dawn hours before inevitable school groups and lunch-hour picnickers and tourists like myself wandered by to obstruct the view.
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