Day 274

274/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

Day 4 on the road and today we explored San Francisco. 

I love San Francisco. I can't even really tell you why, I just really enjoy being there. Maybe it's the architecture. Maybe it's the museums. Maybe it's the bridges. I think a big part of it is the fact that when I'm walking around, I never feel like I'm in a big city, even though I am. It's just a cool place.


Anyway, I went to SF for the first time this summer (Day 81 to be exact) and I've been wanting to go back ever since. I keep getting lucky, Claire was a great tour guide and Jaimie ended up being just as good. We started out just driving around and exploring, and then we went to the Palace of Fine Arts. 



It was absolutely beautiful. It was originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition, and while it was originally one of ten original palaces, it is the only one that still survives. This is partially due to the fact that, during the fair, Phoebe Apperson Hearst (of the same Hearst family that built the castle) founded a committee to preserve the palace. Since it's construction, it's been used as a storage facility for military trucks, a limousine parking lot for the UN, a Parks Department warehouse, a telephone book distribution center, a flag and tent storage depot, and even served as the headquarters for the fire department for a bit. Now, it's a museum and a huge tourist attraction. We didn't have time to go inside the museum, but next time I'm in the city I'm definitely going to check it out. 



Then we went and met up with my friend Erin and Julia, her friend who was visiting from Germany. Jaimie's dad has an apartment in the city, so we met them there, got some coffee, and chilled on the roof. I had something called a "New Orleans Style Coffee" and it was absolutely delicious, I need to find somewhere in SB that makes it because it was amazing. Anyway, while we were at the apartment, I pulled apart the bolex because it was sounding funny to me and I wanted to check the film. It was a good thing I did, because I had a film salad. 



Basically, the film wasn't being rewound properly after I had shot it, and it was bunching up inside the camera. It wasn't much film, so I just cut it out, and then I actually made it look like a salad. 


After Jaimie's dad's place, we went down to the Ferry Building and checked out the farmer's market. Then we decided to walk to Coit Tower, which was about a mile away but up about a thousand stairs. I didn't mind it, but Julia was dying. Apparently Germany has escalators everywhere or something...


Coit Tower was pretty rad, the view was amazing. That's where I ended up taking today's picture, which I think is a pretty cool shot of the city. I especially like the fact that you can see Lombard Street on the far right side. After taking it all in, we walked towards Chinatown, which took us through an area filled with nudie bars and adult bookstores. 





I really liked this area, there were a ton of people around and lots of cool little places, like the Beat Museum. We finally got to Chinatown, which was almost exactly what you'd expect. I was in love with the streetlights, they all looked like Chinese lanterns:





Pretty sweet. Then we went down to Haight-Ashbury, which is always exciting. Before I even got out of the car I had a guy try to sell me a HUGE nugget of mary jawana as he walked down the street and I politely declined. Then Erin and I had a beatbox sesh in an alleyway




Standard. We hung out there for a while, and then finished our day at the de Young museum in the Golden Gate Park. The place is beautiful, before we went inside we explored the garden/amphitheater area. This is where we met quite possibly the most interesting man of the trip, it was almost as if he knew we were coming and was waiting for us. 




I still am not sure if he was homeless or just a crazy old guy, he had a cellphone which made things harder to judge. When we walked towards the amphitheater, he urged us to come up onto the stage, and when we did he started telling us about how Ceasar was murdered in the corridor to the left. He wouldn't tell us things outright though, he would quiz us until we guessed what he was trying to tell us. He was a "teacher," but he didn't want to teach us what to think, he wanted to teach us how to think. While teaching us about Ceasar, he went off and started performing Shakespeare's "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" monologue from Julius Ceasar and he actually knew the whole thing. He was completely swept up in his performance. The amphitheater was empty for us, but for him it was a full house and the lights were on.




After Ceasar, he started to tell us about his childhood. He grew up on a farm somewhere in the midwest and had two dogs. His dogs would bring him his boots in the morning, work with him all day, and could bring him a beer from the fridge at night. Almost like Alyssa from Slab City, he looked behind him to see that there were no dogs, and he started to tear up because both dogs had died. It was getting late, and the museum was going to close soon, so we had to leave. He shared one last thing with us before we left, an old Native American poem. The poem was actually quite beautiful, and his performance was another powerful one. When we got home later that day we were actually able to find the poem online, and while he had changed things up a little bit, his version was actually a lot better. When we left, he thanked us for indulging him. He was a sharp guy, and the fact that he could recite Shakespeare and that poem was impressive, which makes me think he was just a lonely old man spending the day outside rather than a bum. 


We finished our day at the museum, which we got into for free because it was so close to closing. The old guy actually saved us a couple of bucks, so that part was really cool. I got to see some Ansel Adams prints, which I was stoked about, and I fell in love with this picture of a white horse running down the street of a war torn country (I think it was in Baghdad). I liked this sculpture too, it looked back at me as hard as I looked at it.




Overall, it was another solid day in the city. And, as usual, I took a billion pictures, so if you'd like to see more you can check out the flickr album from the trip!