I arrived in San Francisco on Monday, November 20th. Coming from Australia I flew back in time and arrived a few minutes before I left. Funny phenomenon that one, it is something that Bill Bryson talks about in one of his books.
I only had an afternoon in San Francisco and would love to spend a lot more time there. On a first and very quick impression, the inner city has a quiet, laid back kookyness about it. It feels pretty livable and is not overwhelming at all. There were mounted police and people with dogs on the street, which gave it a small town feel.
I spent the afternoon hanging out, driving around with my friend Cris in his VW bus. I couldn’t think of anything that I particularly wanted to see or do, so after a half hour of driving up and down the ‘movie car chase’ hills around Pacific Heights we drove down Lombard St. The famous part of the street is only a wee section, but there were tourists lined up at the bottom and a bunch of people lining the edges of it which made it a pretty humourous experience. I bet we made for a great postcard picture coming down the hill in a bright orange Kombie. It wasn’t the only time on this quick trip that I was going to feel like I was in a movie. It made me realise just how much the world’s media and film are full of America.
The rest of the afternoon we spent tootling around in SF MOMA, with me in an ultra jetlagged state. In consequence my memory of it is pretty jumbled up. I don’t know whether it was just luck, or part of the regular show there, but we saw some great work. The museum had a lot of the Anderson collection on show. The Andersons are a couple who, inspired by a visit to France, decided to start a modest collection of about 20 odd pieces. Well the collection has grown to 800 something.
Rothko, Heizer, Kline, Close, Motherwell…all the boys.
It was the first time I had seen so many of the modern and contemporary masters in one sitting. Heaven. Very inspiring, the sort of work that made me want to head straight off to art school. I wish though, that I had had a few days to look at the work and not just a jetlagged few hours.
For a fast track through San Fran, driving around for awhile and then heading to the museum was definitely about all I could handle and allowed me to see the city in less of a touristy “rush around, tick things off” kind of way.
The city centre is quite small and so it is possible to get a good feel for the city in a short time. The city has a run down feel about it for the most part, however I think that is owed primarily to the grey winter light. I was really impressed with the local Victorian style San Francisco architecture, particularly some of the amazing apartment buildings in Pacific Heights where I stayed.
As for all the sights on the tourist track, well, Fisherman’s wharf and Alcatraz are places I have visited before and are from memory very much a tourist thing. Not bad places to visit by any means.
And as for the Golden Gate Bridge, well when we left the next morning, after driving through the Presidio, an old millitary base turned park and wealthy suburb, we drove across the Bridge to head off up through California. The view across the bay was pretty foggy, but with a ferry coming under the bridge and the haze over Alcatraz there was definitely some kind of romance about it.
After driving around the San Francisco bay area, through the Golden Gate National recreation area, past Sausalito, we drove up Highway 101 through the big hills, valleys, trees and past big rivers and gorges. Big everything actually!
One of my favorite places on that part of the trip was a section of road, which wound its way narrowly through the trees. Only a very small section, but it was if they had chosen the only route they could take without removing any trees and so there would be trees butted right up to the edge of the tarmac on both sides causing funny little bends in the road.
Oh, the Redwoods!!! We caught them just on the end of dusk. WOW. So big and calm, and quiet, with light from the sea coming through. The sea around there was big and choppy. Looking across it, I thought to myself that I was looking towards Australia. There was a salt mist in the sky, monoliths of rock rising out of the water, with the light low, and big fire pits along the shore.
