Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

23/03/09

Cereal for breakfast this morning. Granpa Ken is humorously told off by Meg for eating ‘my’ cereal from New Zealand and I pipe up to say that there was still far too much for one person to eat and I left it in the kitchen so that anyone who fancied it could have some… Ed draws me a picture of the unusual house because I am puzzled by the layout – it makes more sense with a floor plan; it is a lovely nest. We hurry this morning; I have what my Grandma used to refer to as ‘a lick and a promise’ in the shower before we are all ready to go out, Meg to work and Ed and I to San Francisco – I suppose I should be wearing flowers in my hair! I’ve had that song stuck in my head a lot this week… ;) We pile in the car (I manage to avoid aiming for the driver’s side this time!) and little Thomas is left happily molesting his lovely placid nanny, Pilar and chatting in Spanish.
A flutter of wings on the feeder outside the window arrests my attention. There are a cluster of bluejays around it, flapping frantically to get at the nuts and other goodies therein. They are noisy, happy things, rather like a small, happy but electric-blue dip-dyed crow. It feels like Spring today. There is a chill in the air but the sun is warm and blossoms are coming out on the little bushes and trees everywhere. A tall, elegant, white egret stands by the side of the road and surveys it disdainfully as we sweep past. There are many wildflowers just coming into bloom, of many pastel hues, peeping delicately out from fields and verges amongst the grass. In one damp field there are even flags, blooming tall, sturdy and indigo. The goats, Meg explains, have not yet been allowed into this field, or there would be nothing at all left of any note!
We chat as we drive along, in the milky morning sun, and I learn that Silicon Valley began in Palo Alto, so I am staying at the heart of the internet revolution – how exciting! (I am aware that the non-geeks amongst you may not understand the glee with which I greet this piece of information… ;) ). We head up California Avenue, which is near to
Meg’s university work, in the black Merc. Meg kindly drops me and Ed off at Palo Alto station where we hop out of the Merc, I feeling rather like a small child who ought to have a brown paper bag lunch clutched firmly in her sticky paw…
I follow Ed in to the station, which is basically just two sets of platforms.
That’s it.
The tickets are purchased on the platforms (I LIKE that idea, it’s so much simpler than faffing around, metres below ground and half a world away from the train that’s just pulled in which you are inevitably going to miss however fast you scamper with a ticket in hand…) from large blue and grey vending machines. Ed kindly pays for mine out a massive handful of change he has lurking in his pocket – I think he wants to get rid of it to be honest! I feel less guilty when I realize that the huge number of coins he has just sent rattling into the bowels of the ticket machine comes to approximately three pounds… Bargain!
Travellers to the UK must be profoundly disappointed by the state and elevated cost of our public transport system… :P
Learn, Britain, learn!
We stand in the chill of the open platform in the crystal sunshine. The platforms are very low and open. I feel quite exposed and in fact a little frightened when the train slides into view in the distance…
It’s huge.
I mean enormous. This thing wouldn’t need a cow-catcher, any cow unlucky enough to be in its path would be barely a fly on the windscreen of this great beast. Emile Zola eat your heart out – THIS brute is surely ‘La Bete Humaine’! The double-decker, triple-glowing-eyed, corrugated, gleaming monster pulls level with the low platform.
I feel its hot breath on my ankles.
I climb the steep stairs in.

Inside, it is narrow, and set out rather like the Sydney public trains – although the upper deck has a hole in the middle so the conductor can come and check tickets by reaching up instead of searching both floors for fare dodgers. I sit next to the window and Ed squeezes in beside me, he seems rather too large for these seats and I wonder if we should have stayed on the lower deck; but being upstairs is much more fun and we watch the scenery and chat as we fly through it. We wonder what would happen in the event of an earthquake… After all Palo Alto is RIGHT on the San Andreas fault.
Eek.
I also learn that Alto means high; Palo Alto means ‘the high Palo’. I wonder how it is that the lower female voice has earned the moniker ‘high’… Then Ed and I realise that this is because, when the nomenclature was in more common use, particularly in monasteries, most women would have sung soprano (or more likely, not sung at all) and the highest natural male voice would have been the Alto. Interesting… We talk about the other names locally, how San means Saint and where the other names are from, while we zip past the sun-twinkled fields. The scenery is evident beyond the city in both directions that I can see. The massive jagged hills rise up above the city outskirts here, some snow-capped still, overshadowing the industrial lands that nestle at their feet.
I notice how the scenery around the world changes, as do the flora and fauna, they change dramatically, but the people remain the same – the same faces, jaded, tired, happy, excited, sad, smiling… Always the same. The types of people bleed into one another as I travel; there are no individuals amongst the masses of faces, just people who fit into boxes. There are the happy shop assistants, the morose shop assistants, the rude city boys, the polite elderly gentlemen, the quiet, middle-aged secretaries, the arrogant young career women, the travellers, the locals, the mothers, the fathers, the revolting children, the sweet children… Of course there are shades in between each of these, but ultimately, you can’t change human nature, whether it be in sunny Australia or chill America. The atmospheres change of course, but the people who create them still remain the same…

The last little bit is quite bumpy. On the way in I notice the water. There are shags, seagulls and a large, elegant raptor with a russet tail. Everything is clearly beginning to grow and get ready for Spring here. When we pull in, San Francisco station is not of such terrifying hugeness as I expected it to be. I was anticipating something of the magnitude of St Pancras. In fact, it is considerably smaller than Euston and has the continental feel of Brussels or the local Parisian platforms, though without quite so much charm – the trains are monsters rather than sweet little slam-doors after all. We are nearly lost in the morning bustle, but Ed steers us deftly towards the exit among the gentle throng. He tells me about the cable cars and I am intrigued. We head towards the nearest cable car stop, which is a terminus.
San Francisco is so colourful, so free and alive. The sun appears to have brought many things out into the open – bright colours, interesting people, tourists… We walk through the busy streets and pass by the world as it we watch it pass by us. There is a guy driving down the street in an old car, beeping like crazy and waving a Bible out of the window with instructions to Believe! and Repent! and Accept Jesus as Your Saviour! He catches our eyes and I cringe inwardly, wanting simultaneously to affirm my faith to this strange man and remain unnoticed.
Ed murmurs something non committal and we cross on green. I haven’t yet J-walked but am beginning to see why it might be more of a problem here than in the UK. The ‘streets’ are far wider and, even in SF, are quite a bit faster and more hectic than your average London road. We pass the subway stop from which we would have emerged had we taken it and I am glad we didn’t miss the overground interest on foot, particularly as we just pass a very interesting chap: an elegant black guy with a white trilby and white shoes and a long green felt coat, singing under his breath, almost as if the tune couldn’t wait to be allowed out, so came out here. He is kinda like Huggy Bear. There is also a high shoeshine platform near here, with a guy sitting in state in the sun having his shoes polished by a dainty black guy. Some echoes of apartheid are more pronounced here than in the UK, though the blacks appear, in SF at least, to have embraced them.
We reach the cable car stop and look at the burgeoning queue. It goes from the entry point all around the bulb of the terminus and we join the other end. Not that I mind waiting here of course, it is fascinating. I am mildly mortified when a passing local walker is heard to comment to his mate, ‘are those tourists?’, to which his mate replies, ‘yup!’. Hmph. Ed I’m sure counts as a local boy now and I’m a traveller, not a tourist… :P
Still, I guess we are both fairly European in appearance, Ed particularly, with his striking Viking looks. I think Kiwi intently and indignantly until the walkers have gone…
I then turn my attention to the terminus – it is a large, flat, circular bulb at the end of the tracks. I ponder it for a moment and then realise what it’s for – the cable cars have no way of turning the dog leg to take them up the next street so this mechanism is for turning them. As we are fairly near the back of the queue I have a couple of cars’ time to inspect the method:
Driver pulls carefully onto turning circle and tries to stop before cable car bongs off the internal stops, with varying degrees of success.
Driver puts on brakes.
Driver somehow disengages clamps from the cable beneath the street.
Driver leaps out of cable car, followed by his conductor.
They pick an end each and shove, with all their might.
The car begins to grind around on the circle, gaining momentum.
The whole ‘Lazy Susan’ assembly clangs to a halt as it engages with the other street.
Driver scampers around to correct end of cable car and reengages clamps onto the new cable.
Conductor climbs back in too

The whole process is refreshingly old-fashioned and entirely mechanical, which I find strangely reassuring. We are near the front of the queue now, at Market Street and Powell, apparently, which is written on the side of the cable car we are about to board.
It is neatly painted, with a few unobtrusive adverts pasted to the side, and the interior is almost entirely wooden, carefully varnished and feels like an old tram. Ed and I squeeze inside at the front end of the long wooden benches, one on each side. I grin and Ed smiles wryly: I am thinner than he is! Although I do have a friendly fat lady sitting next to me and some of SF is very hilly…
We could have stood on the outside of course. Unlike the Nannyish behaviour in the UK which led to the sad and untimely demise of London’s wonderful Routemaster. Here you can stand, entirely external to the car, clinging on and standing on what, to all intents and purposes, is a running board with poles. You wouldn’t want to drop anything…
We head up towards Union Square; there are heart sculptures decorating it at the moment. The cable car hauls itself up some very steep hills now, we slide sideways…
I cling to the seat with my legs to avoid, in a very British way, sliding into the green duffel-coated, pink chubby lady next to me. She chuckles and clearly doesn’t mind; we exchange pleasantries about the journey.
I inspect, through the grille at the front of the passenger section of the car, the driver’s activities. At the front, it’s all clamps, gears and levers, plus one socking big brake that the (not inconsiderably-sized) driver has to bounce on with both feet… I want to know which bit is which!
It looks like a hugely physical and demanding job, not like a modern tube train where you can just push buttons and let the train respond – here you have to grind the mechanisms into the places you want them, against the power of the car itself.
I smell hot metal and watch the driver intently. One lever appears to latch on and off the cables; I guess that one is quite significant!
The three levers the driver controls are all set into a massive hole in the floor, over which the driver dances like a demon, pulling more or less on one or another depending on speed, ascent and location. Up one hill (Jackson) he dings his bell ferociously too… Bingle bingle cling clang!
The hills remind me rather of a lovely animation at the end of one of the Pixar animated short films of some small and grumpy sparrows on a wire who are joined by a large crane-type creature which honks happily and lands amongst them, causing them all to slide towards the middle, bouncing against each other and eventually all squashing up together.
Everyone slides to the back of the carriage and my knees give out – I slide too and land gently on the lady with the thick parka… Fortunately she doesn’t seem to mind! You get real friendly on these hills!
I feel for the smaller lady on whom broad-shouldered Ed is trying not to land…
*snigger*
San Francisco is all hills!

I like it already…

We reach Fisherman’s Wharf, having traversed the twistiest street in San Francisco. It is quite long, prettily paved in russet stones and is all dog-leg turns, neatly and tidily accented with perfectly manicured hedges, white edges and neat little flower beds. While we watch, several cars attempt (successfully) to glide down this odd little street. They creak down the hill, making the four awkward turns with the practised ease of locals. I certainly wouldn’t fancy even getting my tiny Corsa down here, yet a chap with a large van manages it with grace and speed! Apparently it would be even harder without the turns; the risk of hurtling off down the hill and killing people at the busy intersection below is all too great!
Fisherman’s Wharf is quite a large area, and widely held to be the tourist and bohemian capital of San Francisco. There are so many things to see and do here. It is bewildering and I am lucky I have Ed with me, plus a little map of the local area. There is a guy on a marimba here.
We head into the chirpy throng and wander past several interesting looking places. We are both hungry, so we start looking for lunchables… We pass a tourist shop, which seems to have San Francisco pin badges – they have been few and far between so far here, so a shop with more than one is quite a prize! The shop also boasts a large wooden pirate keeping an eye on the door… I persuade Ed that coming back after lunch would be a good idea; though he seems quite happy to be persuaded (very forbearing of him!). Just along here, there is a seafood restaurant called Cappurio’s which Ed recommends.
We go in.
It is relatively quiet, but I suppose it isn’t particularly late and it is a weekday. The seats are simple, typical wooden diner-style benches in little low cubicles, but all in seaman style, with odd lobster pots and bits of rope here and there, along with jolly pictures of sailors and fishermen. The menu all looks rather inviting, but as I am not starving and there is promise of dinner later of some tasty description, I decide to go for the Child’s Fish and Chips. Ed has a Red Chowder.
I remain fundamentally mistrustful of the majority of shellfish and anything that can wave at you, look at you, or bounce back when you chew it, so I have stuck to proper fish. However, when the Chowder arrived, is smells lovely and is beautifully served, Eastern-European-style, in an enormous bun, a bread-bowl. My kids’ fish and chips is very good indeed, the perfect size for me not to waste any and still be full up. The waiter is friendly and attentive and brings bread to nibble and pours us water periodically. Water and occasionally nibbles seem to be a given in restaurants here – you never have to ask for them and they are invariably free, unlike Prague where bottled water and nibbles are placed tantalisingly in front of you prior to your food arriving, without prompting, but you lose a large chunk of a week’s wages, should you so much as consider touching them!
Cappurio’s certainly seems like considerably better value than I am paying for (it seems only fair that I get lunch!) and we leave well-fed, watered and contented.
Ed tolerates me dragging him around the tourist shop I found with good grace. I find what I am looking for eventually, after asking at the counter and being presented with a motley selection of pin badges in a little basket from all over San Francisco. I pick a generic one, since I’ve not been to any of the other places yet, and buy some postcards to send home too. There is a rather lovely one of the Golden Gate Bridge, taken on a misty, frosty, peach-tinted dawn, which I particularly like.
Ed and I wander vaguely, the pull of old mechanics and the gentler days of travel leads us both onto a small pier, almost a museum, which tethers several beautiful antique ships. The most notable of these is the Balclutha, which has had several incarnations both as a trading or carrying vessel, and as a passenger vessel. It is currently painted largely shiny black and the rigging is pale wood. There are also several little tugs here, nestling amongst the larger steam ships. We admire each and every one, walking slowly down the wooden pier to the very end. You can understand how sailors become so superstitious, standing here, listening to the living ships, creaking and cracking. There is an eerie grinding noise as the boats ride gently on the water and a whistling and slapping as the wind slips through the rigging. The sun gleams brightly off polished, varnished surfaces, and flicks cleanly off seagulls’ wings as they ride the wind over the rigging of the vintage ships. I look out over the glistening water and see Alcatraz gleaming solidly ivory in the distance, so close, yet so far away. I look the other way and see the Golden Gate Bridge bravely spanning the water, there is a tint of red in its hazy silhouette.
We wend onwards, up the Wharf.
There is a steel band, which I peer at for a while, I do like the undiluted cheerfulness that pours from these bands, who have probably made and tuned their own instruments. There must be a lot of interesting heritage in that music that the mere sound does nothing to reveal…
We arrive, in short order, at Pier 39. It is bewilderingly busy but friendly and fun. It is a mass of colours and activities and is considerably larger than I had imagined it, encompassing not only about 50 shops, but also a mezzanine level and a merry-go-round. I am entranced and bewildered and decide to enjoy it! The merry go round twirls with a horde of happy children on board, a few watching stickily from the sidelines with sugary treats clasped in their hands.
The Hard Rock Café is the main reason I am here and I head in carefully. There are the usual racks of neatly packed t-shirts and interesting vests laid out for casual delectation. But I am after another t-shirt for Andrew and a pin badge for me. I find a suitably funky one, exclusive to SF, and head towards the counter. The chap serving is lovely and talks me into joining the Hard Rock Café club for $20. I think this sounds like a lot, but when I do the math(s) in my head, it turns out to be pretty good value for me. I pay $20 to join, which entitles me to permanent slightly preferential treatment in any HRC in the world, plus $20 off my next HRC purchase, and another free pin badge and a HRC bag… So given that my next stop is NYC and I KNOW I’ll go to the HRC there and spend at least $20, a free bag and preferential treatment sound like a bit of a bargain! I trot out of the Café, happy that I have got what I came for and eager to drag poor Ed into a couple of other shops I spotted…
On the way we see, on his own little podium a bit further along, quirky Captain Jack Sparrow, dreads flying everywhere, fingers all akimbo as he chatters away to an intent crowd. This artist is really rather good and we pause a moment to watch him.
The lure, however, of a fudge shop up on the mezzanine level is too great.
We head up and wander in and are presented with a bewildering and tantalising array of hundreds of different flavoured sweet things! We are also allowed to taste them. I try a maple and pecan, as the pretty, plump girl in a stripey apron behind the counter recommends it. The flavour is excellent, thought the fudge less crumbly than I like. I acquire a slice to share with the guys back in Palo Alto and decide to buy (with Ed’s approval) Thomas a sugar-coated chocolate ladybug ladybird on a stick… It’s rather cute.
Ed also tells me, to my surprise, about the sea lions. I wonder if he is having me on about there being sea lions HERE among the tourist crowds and bohemian tat at the heart of SF, but he takes me up to the back of the mezzanine level and we peer over the balustrade. There they are in droves, snoozing like elderly gentlemen after dinner at a private members’ club, all over the little floating platforms that presumably were put there by someone wanting to encourage their presence. The float, lazily and luxuriously, velvet brown in the chill Spring sun. I almost envy them their lifestyle, adulated by all comers, protected celebrities, pampered guests… But it’s cold too and I shiver; Ed suggests we continue…
I drag the poor man into one last shop, a shop exclusively dedicated to charms. This is unusual; charms have been so hard to find along my journey, yet here they are, laid out in many ranks, of all shapes, colours, sizes and styles. I pick a dainty silver cable car with SF on it for little Alex’s birthday back in England.
Then, we begin to head for home. I had hoped to see Chinatown on the way, so Ed kindly indulges my whim and we walk back towards the station instead of getting public transport. This route takes us through the edge of Chinatown.

There are interesting vegetables.
There are interesting people.
I like it…
Here, between Pier 39 and Chinatown, it feels safe and pleasant, rather like Kensington. There is clearly money here, but also the Bohemian lifestyle that people value so much about SF. The houses are tall, pale and unsullied and people pass pleasantly by, leaving no sense of threat. Just on the edge of Chinatown, a man pauses at a busy intersection with his large Alsatian. It looks worriedly to him for reassurance with liquid brown eyes, and he looks down into its face and places his hand briefly and kindly on its head.
A true moment of trust.
We head further into Chinatown. It is like a different city.
This place even smells like Soho! It throngs with people, mainly Chinese. An elderly, bent, Chinese man, shuffling with slippers and stick, bowed beneath the weight of his years, toddles before us, clutching a plastic bag of groceries. Interesting smells waft out of grocery stores and we inspect oddly shaped fruit, stroke silks and peer with interest at the fish in one shop front. They are clearly extremely fresh.
Some of them are still gasping for air and the crustaceans wriggle and look at you.
A vegetarian’s nightmare, but to me, merely exceedingly fresh and good. Not that we buy any of course, we just wander on, safe in the knowledge that, should we ever want to make sushi, this would be a good place to come!.
Chinatown fades into domestic streets, slightly grubbier than those further down the hill, but still with a genteel London elegance – tall white buildings and wide front steps onto the street where the odd tree grows here and there.
Our route wends past some larger buildings, one of which is a science museum and we are clearly heading back into a different tourist centre. This area is clearly for the city boys and spending fiends. Macy’s rises, high and visible, over Union Square and slick besuited guys walk past. Much to Ed’s relief, I exhibit no shopaholic symptoms and we wend on. This area feels rather like the Piccadilly Circus and Regent’s Street areas. An interesting sculpture/fountain/thing arrests my attention as we are trotting for the station. It sits on the steps of some wealthy office block, gloomy and intricate. It appears to be just a large, rough-hewn blob, but it draws me closer to inspect it. A little fountain plays in the centre, above my head, and I look at the blob’s carved sides. It turns out to be an intricate cityscape – almost an affectionate caricature – detailing the significant points of San Francisco. It is a fascinating thing of beauty and I drink it in, wondering to whom the cleverly-hidden, bas relief initials, ‘HH’, belong.

San Francisco is a nice city, well worth exploring. It doesn’t feel big and there are a variety of interesting people: locals, Bohemians, artists, musicians, interesting minority groups, tourists, visitors… I have thoroughly enjoyed looking at this little slice of city life here. I have also come to the conclusion that an American accent, or at least a San Francisco one, is considerably less repulsive in situ and in fact, on ordinary people, can lilt and sound quite pleasant. I wonder if the people in SF are less rambunctious and quieter and that maybe it is only Tourists who are loud and obnoxious whilst being American. I begin to feel that I have not been fair in my long-term pre-judgement of normal, domestic America – bits of it seem lovely and California is definitely worming its way into my affections quite nicely.

Ed and I reach SF station, gleaming and sterile and toodle onto the platform, happily tired, to wait for out next train. It soon arrives, a ‘caltrain’, vast, tall, corrugated and huffing mightily, and we clamber in. It takes very little time to get back to Palo Alto station and as we pull in, I admire it; it is neatly and subtly art deco in style and very well-kept, like so many things here.
Ed calls Meg as she has kindly agreed to pick us up and we head out of the station to wait for her. There is a moment of unaware and unintentional but manly superiority from Ed as we watch Meg sail past us, clearly heading for something geographically similar but not identical to our location… LOL
We stay put, call her and wave madly next time we see the car and Meg comes around and stops for us. We hop in, me into the front, which feels very weird, being on the driver’s side but without pedals or steering wheel! It is sunny and Meg is in sunglasses, hair bouncing around her face as she talks to us and we tell her about our day. I notice, as we drive along, a quiet atmosphere of absolute contentment, and sense the peaceful, silent, solid affection here. I am so glad that my cousin has found a person and place where he appears to be perfectly happy…
Meg is a local girl and points things out to me as we drive back towards the house. There is a windmill, which she points out, is part of a house – cool house! She also points at something I only glimpse as it flits past, fleet of foot, a big grey local deer. It is rather exciting to see the natural fauna in situ, and to be able to recognise the basic genus at least; it all seems less outlandish that the Antipodean creatures, which all seem rather alien, and excessively powerful or poisonous…
I also learn that many places here are pre- or suffixed with ‘Yerba Buena’. I had wondered why this was, having seen it dotted on street signs and posters. This is the old, Spanish name for San Francisco, and it trips rather neatly off the tongue...

We are soon home, in the late Spring sun and we are mobbed by Thomas who wants to know where we have been. Dinner isn’t long in coming, with a little help from everyone, and we eat, chatting about our day, and do ‘our Alphabetas’ with Granpa Ken and Thomas. Once the clearing up is done, and twilight has descended softly over Palo Alto, we sit, Thomas on the sofa with me and Ed and Meg perched comfortably on chairs nearby. We chat for a while, then Thomas asks if I can read to him. Meg gently corrects him, suggesting that he ask me nicely and take me to fetch a book or two.
He does so. I am pulled carefully to Thomas’ room, where there is already a sizeable bookshelf of books he has both read and books to read. He selects an alarmingly hefty tome for a three-year-old and passes it to me. He also selects a book about London, at Ed’s suggestion. J
The large tome is introduced by Meg as something she had when she was a child and apologises for its peculiarity. However, Thomas picks that one first and snuggles next to me, all ears. I open ‘The Big Green Book’ (which I believe is actually its title) and see a story, similar in oddness to James and the Giant peach, but illustrated more like Little Mi from the Moomins. I am intrigued by this old story and begin to read aloud – putting voices and accents in for Thomas’ benefit. He listens intently and watches me as I read and turn the pages. It is simultaneously rewarding and slightly disquieting to have such rapt attention from someone barely a tenth my age… Still, the interaction is immensely satisfying and I thoroughly enjoy myself. Ed and Meg listen too…
The London book is read differently. I start at the beginning, but am interrupted by interested questions from the little chap. He thinks as I read, and turns back pages to ask questions. I am quizzed about London – fortunately I can answer the questions with interesting local answers and anecdotes and we all thoroughly enjoy ourselves!

I head bedwards. No need of tea tonight, I am sure I will sleep well…