Sunday we were up early-ish, made it back out to Haight for breakfast and a wander about the shops. This is one of those neighbourhoods where every shop is an independant. Not a chain in sight (unless a SF local chain), which is just perfect. At the end of the main street was the Golden Gate Park, a huge place, really pretty. I think it's about 2-3 miles long and a mile wide, of which we walked about half before coming back to Haight and checking out SF's biggest independent record store, Amoeba Music. I think they claim that it's the US' biggest independant store - not sure about that one. There was loads of cool stuff happening in the park - including a boating lake, and a mini roller rink. Someone had got a system up and running, mic'd himself up and was leading a dance session, with others roller-skating, roller-blading, bmx-ing around in a loop, joining in as and when they felt like it. At one end of the park, called the 'panhandle' there was loads of homeless folk, panhandling - guess that's where the name came from. There was also a coffee shop there, next to an organic supermarket, where they served speciality coffee via condensers, vials etc. It was also here that I got used to the 'half and half' milk mix they have over here. 50% milk, 50% cream. Mmmm.
We then made it back to the hostel for a rest in the early evening and went to the cinema in the evening. Fabulous place. Superb screen - Sony 4K digital, great sound and very comfortable reclining seats, for not much more than it costs to go to a UK one ($12 apiece). I would go to the cinema a lot more if our screens were that quality. We saw Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' - about slaves, one slave in particular, hooking up with a German bounty hunter. Pretty brave subject matter for the States. Definitely worth a watch, but is pretty long at around 3 hours. Another trip to the same sushi joint before bed - yum!
Saturday morning was a bit of a lie in, got going around 11, did a wee bit of essential shopping (US sim card, three day bus permit etc.), then headed out to the 'Mission' district, situated between 16th and 24th street. The main drag turned out to be pretty run down, and also not - wealth next door to poverty unusually close together; on one street there was an old tramp digging through a bin to get food, while on the side of the pavement was a luxury organic vegetable delivery truck carting expensive food into nice homes. It had quite a nice vibe to it in some parts and not in others - the nicer parts were set back from teh main drag, really pretty townhouses, almost a colonial design with lots of character and colour. We also found a really interesting alleyway that had been painted by locals over the years since the 70s called Balmy Avenue, plus an equally good one on another street that was carrying on the tradition, but only started in the last few years. There was also a really lovely cafe called La Boheme (just off 24th street) which served for lunch particularly nicely. Running parallel to Mission Street was another called Valencia, which looked a lot more fun and lively. We were planning to go out there in the evening, but decided not to, as I'm sure it would have been fine, but was also quite a long way to go.
Saturday evening turned out to be a playoff game for the local American football team for a place in the super bowl, a big deal here, so we watched that and met some friendly Americans. The SF 49rs won fairly easily - great atmosphere as you can imagine. Against our better judgement, it was in an Irish bar in the centre of Downtown which didn't turn to be too bad (just expensive) and B was really chuffed that they served Magners. We had been planning to head out to Haight (another district) for some drinks, but were a bit tired and in need of some refreshment. After the game had completed satisfactorily (to the locals) we headed out to Haight, much nicer that Mission. Although Haight seemed pretty dead, we found a rum bar that was busy, met some more Americans and had a lovely time. There was one chap who's birthday it was - so I introduced him to the delights of Sambucca. Turns out that the rum cocktails in this bar were pretty strong, so we left before I disgraced myself - rolled in around 1am.
B noticed the amount of homeless people in SF in general, and around 90% of them (it seemed) had some sort of mental health problem. Talking to themselves, shouting at doors, riding buses (or 'muni' transport) to keep warm. In the evening it was even more prevalent; it was rare to see an empty shop doorway without a homeless person sleeping in it - we guessed that the homeless situation was so bad because there were just no shelters available, either due to budget cuts or lack of care. It was a pretty sobering thought considering that it is a 1st world country and more than a little bit sad.
