GGWoo

SF Travelogue #3

5:27am PST - I not only managed to stay up until 9:30(!) last night, I actually slept in until 5:00 this morning. I'm slowly shifting out of the East to West jetlag. It was humorous that everyone from my institution who is out here for the conference greeted me yesterday morning as I walked up to the communal breakfast table with, "what time did you wake up this morning". It seems 3:15am was about the normal.

After the conference ended yesterday, I high-tailed it down to the Castro as I was instructed. Apparently "high-tailing" out here means a lot of walking and and about an hour and a half. I managed to navigate the F-Train only to be discharged twice because something was blocking the tracks. In between I then just walked and walked and walk (and at one point threatened to take the BART or the MUNI until I realized that I had no earthly idea how to use it or even if it was going where I wanted to go...and that was with reading the maps).

So I finally get to the Castro, walk around a bit, and realized that the thing about traveling to new places is, it's not about walking around and looking at things, it's more about getting to a destination where there are things to do. My problem is I never have an agenda so in yesterday's case, simply walking around the Castro was kind of over-rated. I was tired, hot, and frustrated from the travel and it ended up looking divey and like Christofer St. in NYC. I might of felt different if I lived in Nowheresville but coming from NYC, there isn't that much new someone can do with a gay ghetto. I don't even like Christofer St. or Chelsea that much in NY so why would the Castro be different. Not only that, but I'm lame enough to forget that at 5pm in the afternoon, anywhere, that is absolutely bubkus going on. Everyone is still at work. And because I didn't want to go sit in a bar alone somewhere, I was kinda of shit-outta-luck.

So eventually after finding some coffee at Cafe Fiore, I hoped back on the F-Train and actually headed back up to Fisherman's Wharf, found some dinner, then hit the hotel and went to bed with a better plan for today.

That plan is: destination, destination, destination. This afternoon I'm either hitting Alcatraz or the Palace of Fine Arts and doing some walking around Pacific Heights and North Beach this morning. I'm conclusively a die-hard morning person and would much rather say I've seen more by 9am than most people do all day. This evening I might try to venture out for some cocktail somewhere but I'm going to have a destination in mind, not some aimless wondering like a freaking nomad.