San Francisco II

Okay, okay. Yesterday I went to Berkeley, and today I looked around more San Francisco. Is that alright? YOU WANT MORE?!~

Hmm, after writing the other night a large group of hostellers emigrated to a karaoke bar and we had fun with Bohemian Rhapsody etc. Then the next day I went to berkeley, which is mainly a 'collage' (university) but also where Mr. Ginsberg (holy) grew up and wrote. I found places he'd written about, had coffee in the jazz cafe basement, read poems they have on the pavement there, read 'time' magazine in berkerley public library (massive joeypoints for anyone that can figure out why I did that...), ate my hummous and bread, went to Cody's books and couldn't resist more books (I now have eleven. ELEVEN. Tell me that isn't ridiculous for a traveller. I'm dangerous). Anyway then I came back to Frisco (beat) and checked out the following areas: Mission (grey lines); Castro (the gay quarter. The gay quarter of SAN FRANCISCO. Awesome, all businesses called 'gay cleaning' and such, and more rainbow flags than the eyes could digest); and Haight Ashbury (awesome-also. I bet guidebooks describe it as 'bohemian' or 'altrnative', and it is. So much painting on walls, so much singing in the streets, so much justification for the quote 'there are more buddhists in [san francisco] than tibet).

Then I came back to the hostel and spent one of the pleasentest evenings in good conversation over wine (two buck chuck - c'mon) with Chloe and her Mum and Leigham, who from giving the impression of being a football hooligan turned out to be a poet. You had to be there, really.

So I went to bed and after waking up at a few times (bunkmate irish girl, derrrunk: 'hey i need you to set an alarm to get me up, i need to wake at 4.30 for a flght' - me, bleary: it's '4 10 now' - bunkmate: 'set it for five then' - the alarm goes off for ten minutes and she still don't wake up so I get dressed climb down, shake her, still not waking, in the end i pour water on her face, she wakes up then but still doesn't get out of bed, so I give up and retire to my bunk (top bunk) and periodically shake her duvet from above until 5 30 when I go to sleep. anyway, she misses her flight. haffharf) I wake up finally and set off for another day of exploration, go to the beat museum (discoveries: william burroughs shot his wife in the head; allen ginsberg was in a gap advert; there are no heroes) and more of Frisco then head at 6 30 to 'jack kerouac' alley for the opening ceremoney of the International Poetry Festival. Lawrence Ferlinghetti read and walked within inches of me. That was cool. He said 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by boredom, at poetry readings'.

There was also a stunning jazz band, and now Im back at the hostel for my last night here. Cool.