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and last updated August 15th.,1998.
Well, I'm in RENO right now, but I have, as I said, a new love affair in my life...I am in love with a CITY!!
Just know that I ADORE San Francisco ....that going there has probably made the whole trip worthwhile...and that I will tell you (almost) all just as soon as I stop making with the tourist stuff!
Spent the first couple of days out of Paradise in SiliconValley, at Mountain View, the home of Netscape...
Webweavr drove the car.....and I was gratified to find he missed the freeway exits probably more than I would have....
And we drove OVER the Bay Bridge, which I think is prettier and more spectacular than the Golden Gate Bridge, and I saw the fog rolling in.......at 3.30pm!!
We had two nights staying at the Mountain View Residence Inn, and spent the second one driving into and around San Francisco, checking where we might like to stay , since I liked the feel of the city and we WALKED on the Golden Gate Bridge...or rather Webweavr walked and I sort of forced myself to move from one stanchion to the next without letting go of any, because I had just discovered I have a serious fear of heights when they include autos hurtling by about two feet away and a slight swaying of the whole structure..and the knowledge that the San Andreas Fault is just underneath!!
And Webweavr thought I was kidding until he saw the color of my face and so he decided to come back to firm land also.
Which was where I found the perfect car for my needs......
And because I needed more film, with this being serious picture-taking country, we went to the souvenir/tourist shop there and they had the door closed twenty minutes early and only let us in if we promised only to buy film
because didn't we know there was a football game on? And that film cost me just under US$20 for two rolls..Hmmm!
But when we reached the selected motel in the Marina Area ,(The Cow Hollow Suites), which had kitchenette-suites but we hadn't scored one, *grin*, we found it had..no refrigerater and no microwave, but it DID have a coffeemaker and WE had Webweavr's toaster....
And because I had a kitchen that night, I did a supermarket stop, and took the opportunity, of course, of cooking up some lamb chops for Webweavr. AND and a batch of ratatoille because he assured me ALL modern hotels and motels have rerigeraters and Microwaves in America..
And we talked to the folk at home while I cooked and things were good!
and we improvised our own refrigeration chamber by making use of the icemachines the hotel has aplenty!
And one leaked, which meant something of a cleanup... and then , next morning, I set off the smoke alarm by trying to heat pastries on the toaster
But when I found I could type my updates AND look at the San Francisco skyline at the same time, I figured the lack of mod cons was no sacrifice!
And the second evening Webweavr manoevered the car down Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world,), and we went on to Telegraph Hill and did the speechless gaping-in-wonder-at-the-view- tourist thing, because this was just after sunset and seriously, incredibly beautiful!
And since the fog had stayed away for once, we stayed a long time..
And then we walked up and down Columbus and Broadway and saw the clubs and restaurants..and clubs and restaurants...and clubs and restaurants...and clubs and restaurants...and a computer store with a whole five generations Chinese family eating at a table set up right in the centre..
And on the way back to the car, we passed the computer store again, and this was midnight, and some of the family were still there..kids playing computer games on the floor, one guy asleep at his console right on the window, another working the offset printer, but the food was cleared away.
And after checking out a LOT of eating places, I chose the Steps of Italy and it was.......Superbo!...we ate inside and there were all these people outside, and all along the street people eating and drinking and talking and laughing outdoors, and it was all...San Franciscan .
Guess that's one way a family can save on accomodation costs, and how a migrant family can get rich so quickly in a new place!
And I was feeling in love with the world and offered a panhandler a kiss instead of the dollar he wanted and he okayed that but still wanted the dollar after, which seemed a bit greedy to me...
Webweavr says there is a quote that goes..
This is one of the coolest placesI have been in the States..
In fact, I am sorry I sent home so many of my warm clothes....everywhere here one sees people with long sleeved shirts and tops, and at night they get into parkas since the sea breezer blows chill even in midsummer..
when Webweavr asked the motel clerk about a pool, they guy laughed and said San Francisco in summer is too cold for a pool, and he appears to be somewhat right
And there are houses and apartment blocks with the most AMAZING outlooks, clinging to hillsides the same way I was clinging the uprights of the Golden Gate Bridge..
And I suppose it makes sense, all this rejoice-in-life atmosphere....
I guess when you know you are going to fall into the sea at some stage, you enjoy each day...
Wonder how the Atlantans would have handled things had they had our early warning seismatic analysis systems.....??
Actually, when we checked back in at Paradise, the manager told us there had just been a 5.5 scale earthquake in San Francisco, so I knew I was not losing my touch!!
The next night,the Sunday, we checked out the Fisherman's Wharf area, and I decided I liked it so much there that we would come back in daylight next day instead of doing the day in town..
Girardelli Square, once a chocolate factory, reminds me both of Geelong's own Wharf area, with bits of Melbourne's Jam Factory thrown in!
We saw shops with merchandise worthy of the commercial center on Babylon 5, and exciting art and sculpture in galleries clustered along one street, galleries with showings worthy of any of the great European cities....and the most ancient artist depicted seemed to be Picasso, and those were not prints!
Strange obsession with the female frame, had Mr Picasso!!
But it was the work of the living artists that was so exciting....despite some incredibly erotic abstracts works from a Japanese artist old enough to be thinking about other things...(we told the nice gallery staffer that these were erotic but that one had to be our age to appreciate that...and left him staring fixedly at them, he being only in his thirties), there appears to be a definite trend back toward realism, and I could sympathise with Teyva about his need to be a rich man, because there were things there I would have liked very much to take home...city rooftop landscapes being a particular favourite of mine, and the graceful, , almost ethereal female figures and faces in perspex 3Ds keeping me occupied for a very long time, since I was trying to
store them on my mental hard disc, feeling I would not see their like for a very long time!
Webweavr liked the rooftop work, too, but he particularly enjoyed the humorous social commentary paintings and sketches of ClaudeBuffet, and we were told an Australian, from Melboooorne, had been by just a few hours before and purchased a matched set of four prints, leaving with one actually under his arm!
And when we paused at lights, there was a Philadelphian looking for the Buena Vista, which, he told us, was famed for serving "the best Irish Coffee in the world"..., and he, being of Irish extraction, had felt he must visit such a shrine...
So we went on ahead, (he was a smoker and had to wait), and we all drank Irish coffees together and looked at the photos of my trip I had just collected from the Russian family who had recently taken over the Girardelli 20 minute processing place, while he pumped us for inside information about the internet chat scene.....for his SONS, he said!
And there was this picture on the wall of the Buena Vista whose significance we did not, at that time, understand....
And the next day, after we checked out of our hotel, I beelined in on the sidewalk vendors along the street leading to the wharf, and I bought souvenirs and clothes for the grandkids, and then I saw an original jewelry range so good that I knew I had to have it in our shop...
And, to cut a very long story shorter, that is just what we will have, well before Christmas...
But I helped myself to the stock first, of course!
And all that had made us hungry and we were right opposite the Buena Vista, so we figured their food might be as good as their Irish Coffees, which is how we came to meet the legendary Buena Vista barman , who has been posing for photographs, (and Paintings, as we were shown) for 20 years, and who is the penultimate showman, and, no doubt, chauvinist with it.....
But folks, when a guy that tall is built like that and looks like Clark Kent in MessDress, who the hell cares if he isn't into feminism????
And I am temporarily back in Paradise right now, though, once again, I have to move out for the weekend but can come back next week..
And...I get to go to great places during my weekends' banishments....
And to those of you still asking, 'Are you still going to San Diego,?', the
answer is "er....Hmmm!!".
And I vitrioled back that I would have seen a lot more of his country had I not been waiting around so much in the hope of seeing HIM!....that I felt I had WASTED far too much of my time here!!
And that, I thought, folks, would have been the end of the traditional long and beautiful friendship..
So I asked him if he had told his wife he has an old friend from chatroom days in town, who would like to be shown around or asked to dinner...!!
June 4th:
Please mail all your questions,answers and comment about this home page to: robink@mail.austasia.net
And Webweavr, who has done a lot of hard work looking up and forwarding accomodation details, is now no longer just a picture on my hard disc...but exactly like that picture..as we would say in Australia"
And HE says I am younger and prettier than he expected, that the picture at the top of this page doesn't do me justice....
Hmmm...*grin*, THIS from the same man who said he expected to be in awe of my MIND....
Have to say, folks, that when it comes to successful LINES, one can't beat a mature male of Irish Ancestry!!
Even though he and his partner, Jack, want to talk Distance Education Business to me, and I think I might be in a position to give that business a bit of of a boost, we have concentrated, Webweavr and I , on my touristy opportunities first....
....and fighting like cat and dog I might, add, each time he wants to teach me something and I don't want to learn, our ideas of the 'teachable moment not yet having coincided...
Would that be Paradise Regained,then, Hey??
It is a nice place..has a great wisteria-entwined patio with furniture, and a lawn out to the pool..
Not many mod cons., but it is really nicely furnished, and spacious: there's a minute frig and a microwave, and a really super supermarket, *grin* alongside, and I can manage very well...
and it is a local call connection to do THIS, which San Francisco can't offer!!
This weekend WW and I can be found in Reno, staying at the Residence Inn there....
Where, since it has a full kitchen and iron and board, I shall be able to catch up on things domestic before heading back to Paradise for 4 nights and then back south, prior to flying out of LA on the 28th...
Even though the San Diego guy I came to see DID send me his entire two weeks' itinerary, showing that he MIGHT be able to make some time available , I had been just evil enough to forward back to him the email where he originally thought of this trip, explaining to me how I wouldn't have to pay any hotel expenses, and would spend most of my time 'with the person who thought of the idea.."
And he replied that, while this trip hadn't turned out as he had hoped, or as I had expected, while he was too busy to see me, I was seeing a lot of his country, a good thing!....
But he wrote me a long a jovial Email....again!!
And said he is going to get his home colmputer back online.....
And since I have the digital camera now...expect LOTS of pictures!!
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