day78

Day 78 (November 6, 2006) - San Francisco, CA

The day got off to a wrong start, really wrong. We moved to the only campground in SanFran, and although it's not an idyllic place, it is quite acceptable, but in the wrong area. We are right across from Monster Park, the baseball stadium and judging from the garbage around there must have been a game yesterday.

The campground though is spotless clean, with a great grocery store, shuttle service to downtown, a TV lounge, 24-hour laundry, night guard, and marble bathrooms that you won't even find at the Hilton! The owners are Chinese, for the first time we have dealt with non-Caucasian people in the RV community. I had already noticed this before: the appeal of an Rv vacation or lifestyle is strictly a Caucasian thing, for some reason I still need to uncover.

We pull down the Vespa to zoom around town but it won't start. The starter does not respond. By now, we have missed the last shuttle for the morning, and taking a bus is out of question: even to owner tells us that the neighborhood is dangerous at night. But a part-time employee from the campground is just about to go home and agrees to take us with him to Chinatown. We gladly pay the round trip shuttle fare and hop into his old Westfalia wagon. We drops us off at Grant Street, right in front of Chinatown gate, and here we start our tour. We will be picked up tonight at 9:00pm in the same location. The day is saved!

There's no comparison with Chinatown in Boston or New York, this one in SanFran looks and feels authentic! There are some elegant boutique-like stores . We walk into Ross Alley to take a peek at the place where Fortune cookies were born. Yes, because they are a SF invention! A woman is working at them right in front of the door. Out of Chinatown, we head to Union Square to catch the cable-car to Fisherman's wharf, on the Powell & Hyde line. A trip on a cable car is a must for any tourist, and it's a lot of fun. Our driver is particularly friendly and likes to crack jokes. The downhill from Lombard Street to the wharf is fist-clenching. we visit some historical ships and tugs then walk along the piers to see the sea lions at Pier 39, and to grab a bite at Pier 1, the Marketplace, with gourmet shops and foods for the conneisseur: organic products from Tuscany, incredible cheeses from all over the world and "real" mushrooms. There's something for everybody. We then walk along Sansome St. towards Telegraph Hill, we don't see any wild parrots around, but we still climb it to the Coit Tower, from which you can take a full view of the city. What a beautiful city this is! Going downhill is just as difficult as climbing, Filibert Street takes us smack into North Beach, the Italian neighborhood along Columbus Blvd. We walk to Lombard Street to take a few pics of the "Crookedest Street in the World" (not true, BTW), then back to North Beach to eat. we are dining at The Stinking Rose tonight, which offers a full menu of garlic-based dishes, up to and including the ice cream. Chilled asparagus with garlic marinata as an appetizer, gnocchi with gorgonzola, garlic and pinenuts for me and with garlic/sundried tomatoes for Petr. We are ready to burst, but I cannot pass on garlic ice cream, and it comes in a huge cup with warm caramel. Yummi! It really has a delicate flavor of garlic. We still have a couple of hours to walk the calories off, so we head to the cable car on the California line, catch the Powell & Mason back to Union Square and walk around until the shuttle picks us up. We get back to the campground with a full stomach, tired legs and 230 pictures to sort. What a beautiful city this is!