Vancouver photos are now up, not that they're anything to shout about. I don't have any SF photos just yet but I will endeavour to right this wrong within a day or two.
My flight here last night was delayed by two and a half hours, and when it did arrive the bags took quite a long while to follow, so it was nearly 1am before I got to my hostel. Fortunately everything was OK, and the nice lady behind the counter was happy, even at that hour, to give me the full lowdown on San Fran and its innumerable attractions. Plus, once I'd gotten my room key, I turned round and bumped straight into an Irish guy and we got talking and he was enthusing about Keano and Quinny, so he was, to be sure.
Popped out for a slice of pizza (if anybody reading this has never been to America, a slice of pizza over here is plenty for a meal, even by my standards) and then came back in to have a few drinks in the communal area. This hostel is more lively than the ones I've been to previously, but it's also a bit less cosmopolitan - almost everyone is from an English-speaking country. Not that I'm complaining.
But it's a peculiar contrast to the city of SF itself, which is a veritable monument to diversity. Normally I am suspicious of cities which trumpet too loudly their 'unique diversity' (translation: nobody speaks English and all the women are lesbians....great) but in this case it does make for a very interesting place, and one which looks well set to displace Chicago as my Favourite American City To Date. Indeed I'm getting quite into the diversity vibe myself, so much so that today I went to Quizno's instead of Subway for my lunch.
This morning I had my toasted bagel for breakfast and then wandered out down to the waterfront, past the Bay Bridge and through Fishermans Wharf and Fort Mason and up to the Golden Gate Bridge itself, which I walked up and down, as you do. By the time I got back to the Marina I had been walking for some four hours solidly, so I hopped on a very reasonably priced bus and headed south through Pacific Heights. I was overjoyed to find a decent pint of cask beer, at a little pub/microbrewery called Magnolia, on the corner of Haight and Masonic, just one block along from Haight-Ashbury itself.
H-A has innumerable T-shirt shops, several tattoo parlours, a busker playing a sitar, and an 'anarchist bookshop'. I was tempted to test the principles of the latter by taking several books and refusing to pay for them. But I didn't, in the end, obviously.
Well, there's a night out tonight, and details are sketchy but the poster mentions $3 margueritas and $2 bottles of Corona. I feel it is my duty to investigate. Will report back in a couple of days.
