I have now had the pleasure of a live music event at the Warfield: A great venue with the completely fabulous 'pound it into your head' rock of Queens of the Stone Age. No need for a dealer - I got quite high just breathing in there. Then onto a very cool cocktail bar in the Mission (hispanic trendy area in south SF) to top off my first proper night out here. I did a spot of Christmas shopping on Haight Street. I know it's now a little 'cheesey' but I love the string of independent shops, like a cheescloth, tie-dye, organic, yoga, flowers-in-your-hair-hippy-heaven. You can almost hear the ghosts of Janis, Jimi and Jerry. It's Ben and Jerry's on the corner of Haight-Ashbury these days unfortunately: times change.
Things are all good in my new home. The housemates are fun. I get fed daily by one of the best chefs in San Francisco (I know, talk about dropping on!) and we drink champagne and talk politics and just about everything else until 2 or 3 in the morning. And I get to do dog-walking in Alamo Square overlooking the painted ladies, one of the most famous sight-seeing spots in the city. Seriously... it's all good.
I went back to my old haunt of Venice Beach for Christmas and caught up with friends. I still love it but continue to dislike LA in general. Arron still insists that I sound like Nigella Lawson. How little she knows! Dave needed some friend support to do a major family Christmas and I ended up meeting most of them (every phillipino in LA, I think) and being fed enormous quantitles of delicious phillipino food. Dave almost managed to poison me with seafood but disaster was averted when my super primed senses spotted the tell-tale shrimp smell. If you remember my trials in Peru from last year you know that I don't want to be going there. His dad loves the pokies, so Christmas evening we drove to Las Vegas to meet more family. Barry Manilow was on: seriously tempted. "Hey, Baz! My name's Mandy. Sing it to me!" We were sitting atop the Stratosphere Bar, great view, easy jazz, and it started to snow. Apparently it only happens a handful of times a decade. Jill and I had some lovely walks along the beach and went to a really good comedy night in Hermosa Beach where Jay Leno plays every Sunday. All good times, but I have to say that as I was sitting in the bus and I saw the San Francisco skyline in the distance my heart skipped a beat. Perhaps I've left my heart here already?
"Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?" ~Herb Caen
Anyway... Ano Neuvo!
Tuesday 18 December 2007
Friday 14 December 2007
Everything is bigger in America...
There were times over the last eight weeks when I thought I was never going to make it here. With hindsight, I don't really know why I was so stressed. So the new tenants did move in with a day to spare; eventhough two days earlier my whole apartment was in danger of being condemned after Transco incompetently fitted a new gas meter which was in the verge of blowing the entire street. Ten days on, Curry's still haven't fitted the new cooker, which is apparently now sitting in the middle of the kitchen. The new tenents have Bengal Bertie's, the finest indian restaurant in north London, across the road..not all is lost.
Furthermore, whilst my bank account is not actually 'sorted', I do have access to some funds, which again, is a vast improvement on the situation as it was the day before I left. At that point one account was closed, a new one was opened, but no actual money was in existence belonging to me. The fact that I am the proud owner of an international dollar bank account which you cannot use anywhere but in the UK is a little confusing and unsatisfactory, but...
I had hoped to spend my last six weeks in the UK relaxing and enjoying my city and my friends: it turned into a Kafkaesque web of organisational incompetence, lies and deceit, during which I spent most of my waking moments berating international capitalism, the decline of social repsonsibility and the lasting effects of Thatcherite dogma. But the end was in sight and everything was going to be better in America...
Peter came with me as morale support and offering his services as a human packhorse. God I had a lot of stuff! Considering I've been offloading 'stuff and things' for the previous six months I seem to have accumulated enormous amounts of unnecessary tat; and I consider myself to be relatively frugal and unhampered by personal possessions. Now that I've unpacked I don't seem to have much; well not much of any real use. It seemed a great idea to pack my bag of bedtime worry sheep at the time. You know, tell the one inch fluffly lamb your troubles, put in the bag, place under your pillow and by morning all your troubles will be a dim and distant memory. Perhaps some stationary, toiletries or a map of San Francisco, anything else in actual fact, would have been more useful.
By the time I arrived in the US I had THE worst cold and cough I have EVER had, EVER. Poor Peter! He has had the sharing room nightmare from hell as for ten days I proceeded to cough (some might say choke) all night long, every night. Somehow he survived with only a suspicion of a sniffle. Our only real excursion out of SF was to Monterey Bay for the weekend (the main reason for an early arrival in my new home town was, of course, to find accommodation, register at college, prepare for my new student life). I was so sick I arrived in Monterey, retired to bed and stayed there for the entire weekend. Can I just say in my defence (or should I say defense?), that I was a shivering mass of alternating chills or sweats. Peter went to the Monterey aquarium, which is apparently the third largest tourist attraction in the US. On his return, I think it was clear that he had misread that particular brochure and it is, in fact, the third largest tourist attraction in Monterey, after Clint Eastwood's motel and a cheese factory. He went to bed for a nap at 5pm and got up at 8am the next morning. No excuse.
The two weeks here have been taken up with chores, but I can now tell you that I am settled in an apartment in the Lower Haight district which is very central, close to the Castro, some good restaurants, and has an english pub showing all the soccer games five minutes away. My housemates, Joanna and Justine, are very amusing and Joanna being a very good chef, has fed me every night. They also have two dogs and a cat, so I even get to do dog walking and pet stroking. Perfect. I have a new laptop, complete with US english keyboard and spellcheck - watch this space as I struggle with "google' " and "center" and "gotten". I am also now only contactable on my US cell (all of you should have received that number by email). I've registered at college and paid for my first two terms. So I'm pretty much ready to start in Jan. I just have a medical exam and health insurance to sort out. Oh and that english use only bank account...
Peter and I discovered a few great places to eat while he was here, including a steak house whose portions even bettered Mr.Illidge. I know I drove you all to near madness and I insisted that everything is bigger and better in America, so just to prove that the 'bigger' part of that statement at least is true, here's a few snaps from my first two weeks here.
Peter drinking cappuccino in North Beach
The Christmas tree at Fisherman's Wharf
The receipt for my new cell phone
Furthermore, whilst my bank account is not actually 'sorted', I do have access to some funds, which again, is a vast improvement on the situation as it was the day before I left. At that point one account was closed, a new one was opened, but no actual money was in existence belonging to me. The fact that I am the proud owner of an international dollar bank account which you cannot use anywhere but in the UK is a little confusing and unsatisfactory, but...
I had hoped to spend my last six weeks in the UK relaxing and enjoying my city and my friends: it turned into a Kafkaesque web of organisational incompetence, lies and deceit, during which I spent most of my waking moments berating international capitalism, the decline of social repsonsibility and the lasting effects of Thatcherite dogma. But the end was in sight and everything was going to be better in America...
Peter came with me as morale support and offering his services as a human packhorse. God I had a lot of stuff! Considering I've been offloading 'stuff and things' for the previous six months I seem to have accumulated enormous amounts of unnecessary tat; and I consider myself to be relatively frugal and unhampered by personal possessions. Now that I've unpacked I don't seem to have much; well not much of any real use. It seemed a great idea to pack my bag of bedtime worry sheep at the time. You know, tell the one inch fluffly lamb your troubles, put in the bag, place under your pillow and by morning all your troubles will be a dim and distant memory. Perhaps some stationary, toiletries or a map of San Francisco, anything else in actual fact, would have been more useful.
By the time I arrived in the US I had THE worst cold and cough I have EVER had, EVER. Poor Peter! He has had the sharing room nightmare from hell as for ten days I proceeded to cough (some might say choke) all night long, every night. Somehow he survived with only a suspicion of a sniffle. Our only real excursion out of SF was to Monterey Bay for the weekend (the main reason for an early arrival in my new home town was, of course, to find accommodation, register at college, prepare for my new student life). I was so sick I arrived in Monterey, retired to bed and stayed there for the entire weekend. Can I just say in my defence (or should I say defense?), that I was a shivering mass of alternating chills or sweats. Peter went to the Monterey aquarium, which is apparently the third largest tourist attraction in the US. On his return, I think it was clear that he had misread that particular brochure and it is, in fact, the third largest tourist attraction in Monterey, after Clint Eastwood's motel and a cheese factory. He went to bed for a nap at 5pm and got up at 8am the next morning. No excuse.
The two weeks here have been taken up with chores, but I can now tell you that I am settled in an apartment in the Lower Haight district which is very central, close to the Castro, some good restaurants, and has an english pub showing all the soccer games five minutes away. My housemates, Joanna and Justine, are very amusing and Joanna being a very good chef, has fed me every night. They also have two dogs and a cat, so I even get to do dog walking and pet stroking. Perfect. I have a new laptop, complete with US english keyboard and spellcheck - watch this space as I struggle with "google' " and "center" and "gotten". I am also now only contactable on my US cell (all of you should have received that number by email). I've registered at college and paid for my first two terms. So I'm pretty much ready to start in Jan. I just have a medical exam and health insurance to sort out. Oh and that english use only bank account...
Peter and I discovered a few great places to eat while he was here, including a steak house whose portions even bettered Mr.Illidge. I know I drove you all to near madness and I insisted that everything is bigger and better in America, so just to prove that the 'bigger' part of that statement at least is true, here's a few snaps from my first two weeks here.
Peter drinking cappuccino in North Beach
The Christmas tree at Fisherman's Wharf
The receipt for my new cell phone
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