CA Days 4 – 7

I was supposed to meet Melisa around 7.30pm in SF downtown. Since Sonya met up with her gang at about 6.30pm I thought that waiting one hour wasn’t all that bad. But Melisa’s plans changed, so the time to be was 8.30pm. That again made me decide to go have dinner at some indish place way off somewhere down 8th street. Melisa’s plans changed again, she wanted to watch a movie with a friend of hers, so I decided to have dinner with Sonya’s gang and meet Melisa later. The indish stuff was kinda weird. I ordered prawns cooked with spinach, and despite it was really ok it just felt somewhat wrong. Due to cooking it all together the tastes kind of overlapped, I dunno … not my kind of food.

After dinner the gang headed out for a comedy show, while I was going to meet Melisa. The rain had started again, but due to Sonya’s umbrella I was prepared better this time. Just my shoes got all wet again, but I really don’t care about that anymore since it’s not really cold, so wet feet aren’t much of a problem. Then on to Treasure Island. This place is controversial. It’s in the middle of the bay area, so what you have is great (GREAT) views of San Francisco, Alcatraz, the Bridges, Berkeley, Oakland, pretty much everything. But what you also have is a 20min ride to downtown. While on the other hand the bus is 24/7, every 15 minutes. Also it’s still considered a Navy Base, despite being a residental area, so the government pays for power, water and stuff like that. Not too bad, obviously.

Melisa lives with three more people, all nice and good to hang out with. When we arrived there I only met Larry, the others were gone. We didn’t do much since everyone was tired and had to get up for work the next morning, so everybody hit the sack early. Which was a good thing, I guess.

The next day Larry gave us a ride downtown. Melisa went to work and I started my walking tour. I started approximately at the BART station Powell at Market/Powell, walked all the way up Market Street until I ended up in the SF harbour, which made for some hilarious views. From there I walked the coastline, up the piers, stopping by pier 7 for some more pictures and pier 39, which basically is a really touristy area with a hell lot of small shops and restaurants, but it’s definitely great to see. After taking a few more pictures I walked on all the way to Fisherman’s Wharf. I was looking for a sushi restaurant because I really was craving for good sushi and I thought at the very coastline there MUST be sushi.

I was wrong. Crabs, fish, “seafood”, burgers, hot dogs – everything, but no sushi. So I kept on walking (if I want sushi I’m only going to eat sushi, I’m a little stubborn very consequent bout that kind of thing) and walked back on Stockton Avenue, passing by and heading up to Coit tower, then on through an asian district kind of thing, where EVERYTHING was labelled ONLY asian, chinese I guess. It’s a weird part of the town, since it’s unbelievable crowded. I could barely make my way on the sidewalk, people were crazy.

Back on Market Street I was still looking for a sushi place when Melisa called me. She got off work early, so we met up and then she took me to a sushi place right on the way from where I started my walking-tour. Dammit! Finally having something in my stomach we went for some grocery shopping since a few of Melisa’s friends were coming over later at night. There were some vegetarians so we decided to go for a vegetable lasagne. Tip: Shopping at Whole Foods Market is expensive. Melisa payed, but 50 bucks for one bag of vegetables was … uhm … much.

Back on the island we did the cooking-thing and were hanging out with Melisa’s housemates. I got to check out the Nokia N95 and damn, that’s a great phone. I’m definitely going to get it, either here or back home. It rules. F**k the iPhone. Later Melisa’s friends came over. It was Niki’s birthday so the party kind of was dedicated to her and there was a “Salvia”-action planned. Salvia basically is a legal hallucinogen that only lasts for like 10 or 20 minutes. Some people tried it, without much of success.

I stuck to wine and so did Berto & Dimitri, two guys who gave me some really valuable tips:

• If you go to LA you have to check out Rosco’s Chicken & Waffles, preferably for a hangover breakfast.
• If you are in the states you have to try pancakes with maple syrup. LOTS of maple syrup.
• If you want the best burgers go to IN & OUT Burger, there’s people all over the world pretending these are simply the best kickass burgers ever (T.G.I Friday’s, which back home is considered one of the best burger places, is “not very popular” around here)
• If you go to Las Vegas check out Bellagio’s Buffet

I am going to do all of that.

Melisa had the next day off of work, so we started around 11. Weather was great, bright sunshine and blue sky, so we started walking around Treasure Island and I took a few pictures (which are on flickr already, by the way). Then on to Upper Haight Street, which is the major hippie part of town. I advise everyone to go see upper haight street. And I advise everyone to have a Burrito there. With hot sauce. And hot pepperoni-kind-of-vegetable-things. I furthermore advise everyone to take a good bite of that vegetable-thing. When the mouth starts to feel like melting I advise everyone to lick their lips. It’s a good idea, I swear. It will make the Burrito-experience last for at least half an hour. Most likely longer.

After the Burrito-Stop we passed by some clothes store and I ended up having to buy a t-shirt that says “Guns don’t kill people.” Then there’s a gun. “People with mustaches kill people.” It rules. I got it. Therefore I rule. Period. There’s a lot of Smoke Shops, some Sex Shops and loads of freaky clothes- and accessory shops on upper haight. We walked all the way down until we hit the Golden Gate Park. When getting in there within a few hundred meters three people offered us all kinds of drugs. “Need some weed?”, “Mushrooms?”, “Acid?”. Even if I was a real addict I wouldn’t buy from these guys. I guess. Probably I would. Whatever, I have my mustaches-shirt. Who the hell needs drugs if he’s got a mustaches-shirt? No one I tell you.

The Golden Gate Park is a damn huge park and a great area to hang out. There’s A LOT of stuff going on, people are doing things and things are being shown and there’s things to see things and things to experience. Thingy area. Thousands of SQRLS. Thousands. And they are very used to people. I got to touch a few of them. Just stand still and hold your arm down and POP, out of the woods there is a couple of SQRLS surrounding you, until they recognize your hand is empty. I didn’t have SQRL-food, so they didn’t obey. What I did is I bought SQRL food, so from now on in one of my jacket’s bags there be SQRL-food always and forever, so the SQRLS will be obedient and follow my commands.

I was thinking about really scaring people utilizing those SQRLS, and here is my plan. Walk into the most busy SQRL-area. Stand solidly and still, rise up your arms and shout out really loud: “OBEY, SQRLS, FOR I GOT NUTS!”. Repeat it. Until someone comes up with the obvious joke: “I bet he did”. Then, suddenly, turn to this person. Look at that guy, no, STARE at him. Scream: “YOU SHALTH NOT INSULT THE SQRL-MASTER! THE SQRL-MASTER IS ME, INSULTING ME IS YOU! YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT, FOR I GOT NUTS!”. Now comes the ingenious part of the plan, so pay close attention: What you did before this performance was feeding the SQRLS. So they learned that you bring them food. What you do now is you take a hand full of nuts out of your special designated SQRL-Food-Jacket-Pocket and throw it at your victim, so all the SQRLS will jump out the woods and run for this guy. The only thing left for you to do to make him not only run away but really freak out is to scream: “KILL, SQRL-ARMY, KILL, FOR THIS GUY IS A NON-BELIEVER!”. Loads of fun.

Where was I? Oh, right, Golden Gate Park. So what you do after Golden Gate Park is: You go see the Golden Gate Bridge. Despite having the same name those two things are not what I would call very close, so better you take the bus. Talking busses. The bus fare is 1.50$. Always. And your ticket is valid about 2 hours for transferring. So what you do in SF is you pay the bus fare, grab your transfer ticket and use it all day, since the busdriver doesn’t look at it that closely and in general doesn’t seem to bother much. 1.50$ for getting around a whole day is pretty awesome. And it works great.

The Golden Gate Bridge is, well, the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a huge bridge, a high bridge and a very red bridge. It’s definitely worth going there, but not that much for the bridge itself (well, you HAVE TO go there if you’re in SF, right?), but for the view from the bridge. Walk it just a little bit, like 5 minutes, and you’ll have a great view of the city. Really great. Fun fact about the bridge: Since it’s red and everyone knows it’s red and it’s red on all the postcards and everyone supposes it to be red SF has to do one thing: Paint the bridge red. And they’re doing this almost constantly, because the whole wind-and-ocean thing doesn’t really compliment the paint. It’s A HUGE expense. Now you know something that will make you seem very clever when you come up with it on the next party. Praise the me, for I make you seem cooler than you are!

It was already 5pm and we’ve done a lot of walking (Haight Street + Golden Gate Park is quite a trip), so we headed back to Treasure Island for a cup of tea and, for me, to pick up luggage. Next stop: Sally’s place in Northern Berkeley. Until now I got familiar with the bus and the BART-system and that’s pretty much all you have to know around here, so I got there without any problems. Sally managed to get a car and picked me up at the BART-station, which was a nice surprise since I had already prepared for another walk. Back at her place we met one of her roommates and a friend. Her roommate went to bed, Sally and her friend were about to make Crepes, for which they needed more ingredients.

So we headed out for some grocery shopping, picking up Kristin, Sally’s neighbour, on the way. It was when we arrived at the grocery store when I realized how exhausted I was. It was pretty bad, I couldn’t even really follow their conversations (they were talking a lot about stuff they did and friends of them too, which didn’t make it easier, but usually that’s not a problem), not thinking about participating. I tried to throw in some words every once in a while, but didn’t get much more than a “uhm, glad you said something … thanks … uhm … we go continue our conversation now if you don’t mind”-look which, looking back, was probably the most I could get.

Back home the Crepes-production started. I managed to slice a few strawberries and mushrooms, but then I was done. I took a seat on the couch and while Sally and her friend continued cooking I had a nice chat with Kristin, which surprisingly turned out to be a really nice conversation. I guess focusing only on one person that’s actually talking with me was manageable. Turns out all the three of them are studying the same thing: Energy Efficiency & Resources Management (or something very close to that, can’t remember the exact terms) and were about to finish their studies after the next semester. So don’t you fear our future, for even in the U.S. there’s people being concerned about the environment. The Crepes-session ended somewhat early though, everyone was kind of tired and no party-feeling arose. I wasn’t really sad bout that and fell asleep kind of instantly.

Today it rained again, the storm returned. I met up with Alex (Sony’s friend) and a friend of him (Sarah) in SF downtown, BART stop 24th & Mission to be precise, to explore the Mission district with those guys. It’s Alex’s favourite district and Sarah also seemed to really like it. We started our tour in a small pastry-store which had really nice stuff. Then there was more of the walking-thing and they showed me a lot of great wall-paintings plus some really freaky stores that basically were stuffed with all kinds of weird furniture and alike, waiting for somebody to buy that things. Turns out Sarah is an enthusiastic collector of historical porn, so she grabbed a few really old magazines while Alex and I were browsing through the weird furniture.

There’s also a pirate shop, pretty freaky. One of the guys working there is on couchsurfing, I even messaged him but he never replied. Looking back this probably was good, since he got a serious mustache. And as of now you should know what people with mustaches do. We then checked out the church that pretty much started San Francisco and met up with Jessie, another guy from Sonya’s Berkeley-Gang. Next stop: Comic shop. I am now the proud owner of Jhonen Vasquez’s Bad Art Collection & Jellyfist. Obey me. After the comic shop on for something really american, a “true united states experience”, as Alex named it: BBQ. I can’t describe that, just see the picture on flickr.

After that we headed for Alex’s place, he was about to come up with some drinks from his bar and the basic plan was to get drunk together. I joined of course. Alex had to get his credit card from home and then we headed to a grocery store to get a few juices to mix with, when I realized it was already around 8pm and it would take me at least an hour to get back to Sally’s place. Usually that’d be ok, but since I didn’t really make a good start yesterday I decided it’s probably not the best idea to get there really late & drunk. So back to the trusted BART and home to North Berkeley.

Arriving there I decided that what I need is a beer. So I started looking for a grocery store, ending up in something more fitting: A liquor store, where I grabbed a sixpack Heineken. Just to be sure I’ll be fine. Usually I’d have taken some american beer to experiment, but I really felt like having a nice beer so Heineken and Corona were the only predictable choices. When I finally got back here there was a little party going on. Dave, one of Sally’s roommates, has two friends over (a former girlfriend of him with her new boyfriend … uhm … she’s obviously trying to get laid by Dave again … her boyfriend’s one of those “nice guys” … he’s sitting around somewhere, silent, while his girlfriend is somewhere else with Dave. Kinda sucks. For him, that is) and her other roommate as well as a friend of him were there, having a huge pizza and really appreciated my beer-shopping.

So I finally did a little conversation with these guys and it was a nice evening, but ended early too because everyone seems to have to get up early tomorrow. I might join with Dave’s friend & her boyfriend for some San Francisco touring tomorrow, depending on if they’re up to it. Well, that’s it. I just finished uploading the newest pictures and am kind of tired from one more day walking (I’m growing serious muscles on my legs from this walking-thing), so what I’m going to do now (0.45am) is: Going to sleep, like everyone else already did.

Good night.

And don’t forget: I love you all. Still.