Dispatches from San Francisco, parts 4 & 5
FRIDAY, MARCH 14th, 2008: Woohoo, shopping takes a lot out of me. It's still relatively early in the evening out here (well... for me) but I think I need a night in, with pizza and a movie.
We took the Muni (the SF bus system) out to the Haight first today. It makes me sound like a high-maintenance girl, but I was getting antsy to spend some money on stuff I was guaranteed to not find in Iowa. In the Haight that pretty much means two things: Amoeba Music and a whole slew of vintage clothing stores. We started at the end closest to Golden Gate Park and worked our way up, which meant we hit Amoeba Music first. The country's supposed best music store has all the flourescent atmosphere of a Sam's Club, but ohhhhhhhhhhh it puts even the biggest audiophile to shame. I miss the days of music piracy and how downloading one song usually sparked a chain reaction of discovery, one band after another. It made shopping for music a cakewalk. Now that I don't listen to the radio much anymore, I had no idea what in the hell to even start looking for. Certainly not anything one could find at the neighborhood B&N. But that left me with... what? I ended up getting some used replacements of CDs I lost a couple years ago. Plus Shel Silverstein's recording of "A Light in the Attic." I figured it was time to upgrade from the old cassette Liz and I grew up with. Now if only I could find the SLSO's recording of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite... there's only one copy I'm aware of and it's an LP.
Next up: the search for a real live vintage hat began. Andy has a sweet black fedora that I tend to wear whenever I'm visiting his place, so one of my Valentine's Day gifts from him was a homemade gift certificate, to be put toward a vintage hat of my own. Weeha! That meant we had to find the vintage store where he originally purchased his. That ended up being La Rosa, a small shop with a LOT of classic (and expensive as all hell) dresses, toppers, femme fatale suits, pinup swimsuits, bags, and hats. Lots of hats. I originally thought about getting a cloche hat, but it turns out I'm a fathead and don't fit in original 1920s haberdashery. I don't fit in shit for vintage dresses, either -- most women were either shorter and/or skinnier than me (I forgot, everyone wore girdles back then and THAT'S how they all managed to get a 26-inch waist!). That didn't mean I left empty-handed, though -- I'm now the proud owner of a dark brownish porkpie fedora with a wide black band that goes with EVERYTHING. AHHHHH. I kept staring at myself in every reflective surface we passed by. Even though I later realized that, between the hat, scarf, and fingerless gloves (both bought yesterday when we were dealing with the Bay breeze), I looked like a really well-put-together version of the hoboes we saw on the street. Nice. I'm a classy clown.
After La Rosa it was hard for me to be impressed with Buffalo Exchange, the rather large vintage shop on Haight. It would be great if you were 17, I think, and could pull of 80s clothes again. Bah. Wasteland was WAY better. We knew it was good when we saw the owner of La Rosa in there, scouting for stuff to sell in his shop. I was sold when I found a Betsy Johnson skirt in my size. For $32. This is why people flock to big cities. (For the record, Andy was a trooper, in a situation I vowed to get him in as little as possible -- waiting around for me in the dressing room. I owe him one.)
There's too much to see on the Haight, especially when one doesn't have a ton of money to blow. Good thing Golden Gate Park and the Japenese Tea Gardens were right behind us, eh? (God, I sound like a damn cheesy tour guide.) Anyway. The entrance to the Park can make you antsy if you don't smoke pot and aren't fond of the people selling it. Right from the gate we could see a group of people sitting on a park bench, taking hits from a bright green bong. A random guy walked up, took a hit of his own, and then went on his merry way. We went under a bridge and a group of (there's no better way to say this) pot-smoking hippies (that's what they were! With the ponchos and the patchouli and the dogs and a freaking sitar, for goddamn's sake! Hippies!) offered us some "totally good stuff," as we passed through. It's like Amsterdam, but illegal. (For another record: I wasn't wigged out at the tokers or the sellers. They're far more relaxed than those who do/sell the harder stuff, like the crackhead on our bus on the way *to* the Haight, who got paranoid-crazy en route and spent the last half of the ride by the rear doors, rocking catatonically. HE was creepy.)
So back to the Park! It's a lovely park. It reminds me a bit of Forest Park in that it sprawls all over the place and is full of museums and gardens and just random places to plop down and smoke a bong. (Everyone else's activity of the day... I've never seen so many people getting high in one place before, and I lived in Iowa City!) We were there to see the Japanese Tea Gardens, though, cause Andy sold the place to me as one of his favorites in San Francisco, and March is right about the time the cherry trees start to bloom. It smelled incredible in there, especially since it had just rained. Ahhh. Rain. I miss rain. All the flowers made me snap-happy. I took about 50 pictures of them alone; I'm thinking I'll blow a few of them up and make prints out of them (and then I'll DEFINITELY have a girly-ish apartment).
We're going back to the Haight on Monday, probably including it on our walk-through of the Castro and Mission Districts. Lots more walking to come.
SATURDAY, MARCH 15th, 2008: So much walking, my mind is starting to feel the cumulative effect of all the hills. We didn't do much today (well...relative to other days). Anthony was off work and Libby wasn't due in until well after lunch, so they decided I needed to be indoctrinated on the teachings of the House of In-n-Out Burger. Animal-style. There's a reason the In-n-Out is always full, while the McDonald's down the street was struggling for business. Why put a crappy chain practically next door to an institution? (Remember when Baskin Robbins tried doing business next to Ted Drewes? Hahahahahahaha... suckers.)
After lunch we wandered back down to Pier 33 to try and get Alcatraz tour tickets, but the tour is sold out until Tuesday morning... the first one available one hour after we fly out. Damn. Oh well. I knew something would get crossed off the list. (By the way, down by the Wharf we got the closest we'll ever get to Coit[us] Tower... and the gigantic hill it sits on top of. I am NOT that interested in seeing Coit[us] tower up close anymore.)
We let a cab driver take us like a bat out of hell back up to Union Square, dropped off our stuff from the Wharf, and then Andy and I headed out for a second visit to Japantown (because one round of kooky figurines and silly t-shirts just isn't enough). We got there just in time to see the kickoff to the annual Asian Film Festival (small deal, not much to see at the time of our arrival, unfortunately). Then we went to Chinatown so I could pick up a couple souveniers and take the pictures I meant to get the first day we were there. My mind was so fried at that point I couldn't remember what I wanted to get, and wasn't in the mood to take as many photos anymore. Also, I had to pee. Bad. And no place in Chinatown has public restroom access (excluding the tiny toilet kiosk in a parking lot across the way that hoses itself off when you're finished... I don't have high standards when the situation is dire but I wasn't to that point yet. I would make it back to the apartment after all).
Oh, And: There is a Stuart Weitzman store in Union Square. It carries shoes in 11 narrow IN THE STORE. Too bad the shoes cost $200-300 a pop and oh yeah, the store is in San Francisco and I live in Iowa. *cries*
MaCay
We took the Muni (the SF bus system) out to the Haight first today. It makes me sound like a high-maintenance girl, but I was getting antsy to spend some money on stuff I was guaranteed to not find in Iowa. In the Haight that pretty much means two things: Amoeba Music and a whole slew of vintage clothing stores. We started at the end closest to Golden Gate Park and worked our way up, which meant we hit Amoeba Music first. The country's supposed best music store has all the flourescent atmosphere of a Sam's Club, but ohhhhhhhhhhh it puts even the biggest audiophile to shame. I miss the days of music piracy and how downloading one song usually sparked a chain reaction of discovery, one band after another. It made shopping for music a cakewalk. Now that I don't listen to the radio much anymore, I had no idea what in the hell to even start looking for. Certainly not anything one could find at the neighborhood B&N. But that left me with... what? I ended up getting some used replacements of CDs I lost a couple years ago. Plus Shel Silverstein's recording of "A Light in the Attic." I figured it was time to upgrade from the old cassette Liz and I grew up with. Now if only I could find the SLSO's recording of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite... there's only one copy I'm aware of and it's an LP.
Next up: the search for a real live vintage hat began. Andy has a sweet black fedora that I tend to wear whenever I'm visiting his place, so one of my Valentine's Day gifts from him was a homemade gift certificate, to be put toward a vintage hat of my own. Weeha! That meant we had to find the vintage store where he originally purchased his. That ended up being La Rosa, a small shop with a LOT of classic (and expensive as all hell) dresses, toppers, femme fatale suits, pinup swimsuits, bags, and hats. Lots of hats. I originally thought about getting a cloche hat, but it turns out I'm a fathead and don't fit in original 1920s haberdashery. I don't fit in shit for vintage dresses, either -- most women were either shorter and/or skinnier than me (I forgot, everyone wore girdles back then and THAT'S how they all managed to get a 26-inch waist!). That didn't mean I left empty-handed, though -- I'm now the proud owner of a dark brownish porkpie fedora with a wide black band that goes with EVERYTHING. AHHHHH. I kept staring at myself in every reflective surface we passed by. Even though I later realized that, between the hat, scarf, and fingerless gloves (both bought yesterday when we were dealing with the Bay breeze), I looked like a really well-put-together version of the hoboes we saw on the street. Nice. I'm a classy clown.
After La Rosa it was hard for me to be impressed with Buffalo Exchange, the rather large vintage shop on Haight. It would be great if you were 17, I think, and could pull of 80s clothes again. Bah. Wasteland was WAY better. We knew it was good when we saw the owner of La Rosa in there, scouting for stuff to sell in his shop. I was sold when I found a Betsy Johnson skirt in my size. For $32. This is why people flock to big cities. (For the record, Andy was a trooper, in a situation I vowed to get him in as little as possible -- waiting around for me in the dressing room. I owe him one.)
There's too much to see on the Haight, especially when one doesn't have a ton of money to blow. Good thing Golden Gate Park and the Japenese Tea Gardens were right behind us, eh? (God, I sound like a damn cheesy tour guide.) Anyway. The entrance to the Park can make you antsy if you don't smoke pot and aren't fond of the people selling it. Right from the gate we could see a group of people sitting on a park bench, taking hits from a bright green bong. A random guy walked up, took a hit of his own, and then went on his merry way. We went under a bridge and a group of (there's no better way to say this) pot-smoking hippies (that's what they were! With the ponchos and the patchouli and the dogs and a freaking sitar, for goddamn's sake! Hippies!) offered us some "totally good stuff," as we passed through. It's like Amsterdam, but illegal. (For another record: I wasn't wigged out at the tokers or the sellers. They're far more relaxed than those who do/sell the harder stuff, like the crackhead on our bus on the way *to* the Haight, who got paranoid-crazy en route and spent the last half of the ride by the rear doors, rocking catatonically. HE was creepy.)
So back to the Park! It's a lovely park. It reminds me a bit of Forest Park in that it sprawls all over the place and is full of museums and gardens and just random places to plop down and smoke a bong. (Everyone else's activity of the day... I've never seen so many people getting high in one place before, and I lived in Iowa City!) We were there to see the Japanese Tea Gardens, though, cause Andy sold the place to me as one of his favorites in San Francisco, and March is right about the time the cherry trees start to bloom. It smelled incredible in there, especially since it had just rained. Ahhh. Rain. I miss rain. All the flowers made me snap-happy. I took about 50 pictures of them alone; I'm thinking I'll blow a few of them up and make prints out of them (and then I'll DEFINITELY have a girly-ish apartment).
We're going back to the Haight on Monday, probably including it on our walk-through of the Castro and Mission Districts. Lots more walking to come.
SATURDAY, MARCH 15th, 2008: So much walking, my mind is starting to feel the cumulative effect of all the hills. We didn't do much today (well...relative to other days). Anthony was off work and Libby wasn't due in until well after lunch, so they decided I needed to be indoctrinated on the teachings of the House of In-n-Out Burger. Animal-style. There's a reason the In-n-Out is always full, while the McDonald's down the street was struggling for business. Why put a crappy chain practically next door to an institution? (Remember when Baskin Robbins tried doing business next to Ted Drewes? Hahahahahahaha... suckers.)
After lunch we wandered back down to Pier 33 to try and get Alcatraz tour tickets, but the tour is sold out until Tuesday morning... the first one available one hour after we fly out. Damn. Oh well. I knew something would get crossed off the list. (By the way, down by the Wharf we got the closest we'll ever get to Coit[us] Tower... and the gigantic hill it sits on top of. I am NOT that interested in seeing Coit[us] tower up close anymore.)
We let a cab driver take us like a bat out of hell back up to Union Square, dropped off our stuff from the Wharf, and then Andy and I headed out for a second visit to Japantown (because one round of kooky figurines and silly t-shirts just isn't enough). We got there just in time to see the kickoff to the annual Asian Film Festival (small deal, not much to see at the time of our arrival, unfortunately). Then we went to Chinatown so I could pick up a couple souveniers and take the pictures I meant to get the first day we were there. My mind was so fried at that point I couldn't remember what I wanted to get, and wasn't in the mood to take as many photos anymore. Also, I had to pee. Bad. And no place in Chinatown has public restroom access (excluding the tiny toilet kiosk in a parking lot across the way that hoses itself off when you're finished... I don't have high standards when the situation is dire but I wasn't to that point yet. I would make it back to the apartment after all).
Oh, And: There is a Stuart Weitzman store in Union Square. It carries shoes in 11 narrow IN THE STORE. Too bad the shoes cost $200-300 a pop and oh yeah, the store is in San Francisco and I live in Iowa. *cries*
MaCay