californiaaa

¡hola!
so through a series of events i am confined to rachel's house til 5pm today with nothing more to do than pushups, writing, reading, and making a post on this blog dealio. ah, and eating cheese strings and hemp granola.

so california began a little slow... (including getting there- 22 hours that could have been 7 if i weren't such a cheap bastard). it was recommended that i just randomly wander, and that i did.... and ended up getting very disoriented and indeed lost on many occasions, without seeing alllll that much. san franciscan streets are effed up- the same street will be both north-south and east-west because it just decides to make some dramatic turn somewhere in the city. also, market street- the main street downtown- does a diagonal across the rest of the streets- it's messed up. also, sometimes the roads just change names randomly and the street you thought you were following actually now goes backwards down the hill you passed 45 minutes ago......
so it took me a little while to figure out the orientations and such, but i think ive finally got it down : ) and whatever, i met some interesting people and came across some wonderful views of the city in my days of confusion.

on the way from the airport to rachel's place, i saw a city so densely populated with houses alone (i.e. no foliage or anything) that on the rolling california hills it looked like a sea of homes, bobbing along with no interruptions.

as always, i must mention the price and variety of fruit and foods in my respective place of travel.... here, artichokes are rampant (i bought a mammoth one that didn't even fit in the pot with the lid on... delicious.. but the smaller one was more delicious), berries can be super cheap if you look hard enough, apricots are 1/3 of the price in canada, and if you buy two buck chuck (wine), yer having a mighty fine night on but two american dollars. everything else though, save s.f. transit (1.50 for the DAY), is ridiculously expensive and it has mightily hindered my explorations of the surrounding area.

as for san francisco, i feel like i've really explored it. i've seen art museums (they're presently obsessed with animation and comics here) and galleries,
the awfully AWFULLY cheesy fisherman's wharf (i actually laughed when i saw it... classy s.f. suddenly buckles under pressue and lights up with cartoon signs and colours and many old couples with safari hats and khakis and young kids yelling they want popcorn... i would've loved it as a kid),
musee mechanique (a super old school arcade- rajat the fortune teller told me i was going to be a night club hostess, and for a quarter you can look inside the viewer and see "naughty marietta do her stuff" hahah...),
golden gate park (HUGE- got very lost, but eventually saw everything i wanted to see.. i'm impressed by the amount of greenspace they have here),
golden gate bridge (i don't see why it's such a big deal.. and it costs $5 to re-enter the city...),
saw a play by myself- the imaginary invalids (the funniest play i've seen... i left with a huge smile on my face.. and it was interesting because it discussed hypochondriacism and having faith and zero faith in medicine),
saw an opera by myself (it's interesting how you have to balance so many parts of the opera... you have to appreciate the singing alone (which gave me goosebumps- amazing), and the orchestra's talent and their part in making the mood, then take in the english translations that are projected above the stage, and tryta keep track of all the crazy names they talk about, then tryta see if you could understand the opera without the english translations, using only the music and actions on stage (in this case, i decided no.) it was a very interesting experience!! and since i only paid for standing room, some guy gave me his ticket when he and his wife left at intermission- so i got like a $70 ticket for free!! lovin it),
saw a crazy band on a streetcorner composed of a bongo-like drum, a didgereedoo (nooo idea how to spell that), and a guiatarist who was also singing into a mike (they were PHENOMENAL, and they had just met two days ago),
seen the view from multiple spots- twin peaks (get a 360 of s.f.), the golden gate bridge, various parts of the waterfront, buena vista park, etc,
met a load of interesting characters (from the 55 y.o. guy who was smiling for "no reason" at the bus stop, who then told me he liked my skirt and we talked the whole bus ride about his cancer and his mother and the new zealand girl who offered to take him around the world, to the lady who had just been on a 10-day silent meditation retreat who felt her chakras were open but everything was going wrong so the universe was telling her not to live in s.f., to the 3 people on the bus who all joined me in discussing the music of s.f. before we all had to get off the bus, to the friends of rachel, whom i really loved, to the man at mystic pizza who thinks italy is ssuuuppeerr dangerous, so he had a thing or two to say about my trip, to the bongo player/rapper on the street etc etcccc...),
went out a couple times, experienced the beauty of the haight street festival, and seen a gnome shoe garden,
seen chinatown and bought dried yams (deLICious!), seen north beach and eaten at "the stinking rose- a garlic restaurant", which was very expensive but an amazing gnocchi with asparagus and garlic cheese sauce dish... mmm, and been to castro (the gay district), and the mission (supposed to be really sketchy, but i just got many cat calls- nothing harmful.. i just checked out balmy alley- a full alleyway of art.. beautiful),
SEEN the jack kerouac museum (literally, just the outside of it), but i'm an idiot and couldn't find the front door.. i swear there isn't one.. they're just trying to mess with your head...
aannndd, of course, i've seen a man with a pylon on his head walking hesitatingly with his arms to the side (there are sooo many homeless people here.. it's sad), and a thugged out black guy locking arms with an old, white, blind man crossin the street (nothing has made me more happy to witness!!), and two of those silver-painted people that pretend they're statues just chillin outside a subway, chatting (BAHAHahahahha... you never think to yourself "how do those people get home?" til you see it.. awesome)...

as for the surrounding area- my hopes of seeing yosemite national park and big sur have been slightly dashed (though that may change tomorrow?...) because it's sooo expensive to stay in the park and i have no one to stay in it with, so it'd cost me big bucks.. but i HAVE seen san mateo (nothing there cept a gem show), half moon bay (lovely waterfront), moss bay (awesome hostel there with a beautiful lighthouse right on a cliff), then the coast back to s.f.... then we went to point reyes and muir beach (gooorrgeous- it's what i expected the california coast to look like, so its always good to fulfill expectations once in awhile), and to fairfax (there was an ecofest goin on.. cool music!)... so that has at least slightly fulfilled my nature needs for now, and i'm sure on the drive down to mexico i'll see at least some of the coast and countryside also : )

i think stopping here first was key- i'm not directly thrown into a foreign country, alone and sad from all the teary goodbyes, i get worked in by being with random people, most of whom are friends with rachel though, i get used to rachel's randomness (like we're driving along and she sees an "owl trail" sign on the middle of the road, so we take it and end up on a ranch with goats (!!) and a really pretty cat that flips over every 3 seconds when you pet its belly and a kid's day camp.... random, and i LOVE it) which broadens my adventure..ness... it was just a really good first stop. plus the weather's been surprisingly wicked considering it's sposta be gross and foggy in the summer (never fails- i always pick the worst time to travel!!)

k i somewhat ran out of things to talk about, so that's that for now- much love to all!!

p.s. the college pro-er n me was fascinated by the beautiful "painted lady" victorian homes of s.f.... and through careful observation and inquiry i found out they use not ladders or scafholding to paint, but cherry pickers! also, the painters get paid $30/hr and a front door and frame costs more than the largest job i ever did with college pro, and an entire house costs about $25-30 000 to paint...... which is the equivalent of about 30 house paintings in durham.... fascinating. mom, you'd love these homes.