a WITHANEE production: goodbye l.a., hello san francisco

thanks to gail and the loan of her magical expanding case. sunday morning i was trying madly to fit my toiletries in the bag and remembered that extra couple of inches. phew! but that was not the end of it. after a great breakfast with julie down in manhatten beach (and missing a street arts festival), i get to the airport and what a rigmarole. it's worse than anything we have in australia, and for bloody domestic flights. damn it. shoes had to come off, i had to carry my boarding ticket and id to show it to everyone and their dog (the dog i didn't mind but the rest...dear heavens).

anyway, as you can probably tell i did get to san fran and that's where i am now. it's tuesday morning here and i'm sitting in starbucks. the connection at my hotel doesn't work really well so i figured i'd kill two birds by breakfasting and blogging at the same time. no, i don't think this is the equivalent of talking with my mouth full. i'll catch you up on the last couple of days.

checked into the hotel layne around 3 on sunday. it's just on the edge of the seedy part of town, but it's fine. it has one of those old fashioned elevators where you have to slide open the door and then the grill. very cool. the room is small but clean. and although i have to exit the room to use the bathroom i haven't had any problems yet as i think i'm up earlier than the rest of the inhabitants.

(oh dear, a very cute boy just walked into starbucks. haha!! and no, i'm not taking a photo.) and lost my train of thought...

let's see - really the last day and a half has seen me wandering around town, getting my bearings. so i'll stick up a few pics that i've taken along the way. today i start the serious sightseeing... well, serious meanderings. and the trolley cars are just the best. haven't got a recent photo of one yet but i'll make sure to get a few before i leave.

i guess the first thing i did was walk down to the embarcadero and around to the more crowded area of sf. that is, the fisherman's wharf area where i took a pic or two of alcatraz.

didn't bother with much else until i walked up columbus into north beach... LOVE that area of the city. very cute. anyway, came across the u.s version of a police box. absolutely nothing on the TARDIS.

north beach has the best bookstore, city lights. it's a store that was born in the mid 50s by lawrence ferlinghetti. a beat sympathiser and writer himself. he was the one who published ginsberg's the howl. most people would've heard of jack kerouac and his novel, on the road (one i've yet to get through) but this is the area where the beat generation hung out in the mid to late 50s into the 60s. i'll get you a sampling of poetry one day.