shewhomust | A day in the city

When I was little, both my parents were teachers. In those days, teachers weren't as well paid as they are now, but they were free to enjoy the long holidays without preofessional commitments. So as soon as the summer term ended, they would fill the car with children and camping equipment and head for the cross-channel ferry. Those were the holidays which shaped my understanding of the word: it's a long time since I've been camping, but I still assume that a holiday is as leisurely as I can make it, and the further I travel, the longer I want to spend at my destination. In theory I know that the speed and relative cheapness of air travel makes short breaks in distant places available, especially to people who are richer in money than in time, but applications of this take me by surprise every time. Which is a long run up to saying that I was surprised how many people, when we told them we were going to California, did not say "Oh, wow, California!" but "Oh, San Francisco is my favourite city." Surprised how many people had been there, and surprised at the extent to which it is All About The City.

Not that we didn't want to visit San Francisco, of course. And the day after we visited Gilroy, we left the car at the train station and took the Caltrain into town. The city welcomes you with a huge and very stylish mural, just before you arrive: there's a picture of it here and another here, though I can't find any information about it.

We had two aims for our first day in town; the first was to walk about and orient ourselves, the second was to visit Borderlands bookshop. I may have been unduly influenced by the guidebook which talked about the smallness and compactness of the city, but we found a tourist office which provided us with a sheaf of suggested walks, and wandered along quite happily, looking at interesting buildings where people we'd never heard of had done things, and enjoying the sunshine - it had been raining earlier in the week, but Thursday morning was bright. It was fine enough for us to lunch outdoors, in a café whose tables spread across Maiden Lane; I had a Greek salad and observed that in San Francisco even the olives were stoned (so I must have been in a silly, holiday mood).

Getting to Borderlands took longer than I had expected, and I was disappointed that they didn't have either of the books I had promised myself I would buy there. No big deal: these were books I had held off ordering from Amazon for the sheer pleasure of shopping for them in a bookshop I'd heard so much about, I managed to find something else I wanted, the staff chatted very pleasantly about why they didn't have my books (I suspect that YA fantasy doesn't qualify), and I found the books in the Santa Cruz bookshop a few days later. And the trip was worth it if only because the bus dropped us at the bottom of Dolores Park, and we climbed up to this magical view at the top (why yes, it was by now beginning to drizzle).

We shopped at the Ferry Building for a picnic supper; I may have gone a little crazy at the Cowgirl Creamery. From the train, we phoned

desperance and

klwilliams: "We have cheese -" "You have cheese? Come on over - we have wine!"

frumpo and H. were there, and by now everyone was ready for a little cheese and wine - except H., who was asleep - and we nibbled and listened to the rain crashing down and the thunder rolling, and tried not to think about an outdoor wedding due to take place the day after tomorrow.

It was a truly exceptional thunderstorm -

athenais linked to this photo of lightning on the Golden Gate Bridge. But it was not so much an omen as one grand clearing of the air, because the next day and thoser that followed were bright and clean and sunny.

Pictures of San Francisco