A Room with a View

My weekend in San Francisco was a seredipitous  addition to my California geography road trip.   (Did I explain this yet? Not having been to any of the San/Santa’s beyond the two greats – Diego and Francisco – I decided to mold my trip around visting  all these places.   The hope is that getting to know them will seal into my memory some meaning for later retrieval.   Then, conversations with allusions to California geography or learning that someone is from SanaSantahmmnah will draw more than a blank, “Hmm.   Oh, Okay.” from my lips.)

Like I said, I’ve already been to San Francisco multiple times and done all number of touristy things.   However, it was Elly’s birthday, the city is always fun, and she had a free place to stay.   Sounds nothing but wonderful!

“Free place to stay” does not adequately describe our accomodations, however.   It just so happens that a relative of Elly’s keeps an apartment in the city, and Elly stays in this usually empty abode when she leaves Santa Rosa to attend her weekend classes.   This apartment is in a high-rise at the front of the line overlooking the Embarcadero, the bay, Treasure Island, and Coit Tower.   This view is what is on display through floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors the moment you enter the apartment.   Wow!

We both arrived before dark and gave over our evening to enjoying bottles of wine and yummy cheese complete with fantastic conversation.   I love this woman!   Saturday we made breakfast and then she took off for class.   In an apartment that only has occasional weekend occupants, I figured housekeeping wasn’t high on the list of activties  and set out to find things that needed TLC.   TV is a novelty in my little world, but the apartment had it!   I flipped on MTV while I worked to keep up with the pop culture that my CASA kid (and millions of other people) so adore.   It amazes, disappoints, and fascinates me how ridiculously sexualized, flashy, and overstimulating  every single music video is.   !Que lastima!

I spent most of the day cruising around the city people watching.   Being stuck in the 70’s – technologically – wouldn’t work well long term.   Public libraries (internet) and pay phones are my mainstays for communication, but are pretty impractical.   I finally spotted a pay phone – an endangered species these days – as I was on my last few blocks back to the apartment.

Saturday night we celebrated both Elly’s birthday and the end of her school semster  at Bissap Baobab –

a Senegalese restaurant in the Mission District.   After bar hopping a bit, we ended up at a tiny dance spot.   I found a great spot to avoid unwanted dance partners and had a fantastic time!   It seemed like we left after 20 minutes, but somehow two hours had gone by!

Make A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.