San Francisco

So tonight is my third night in San Francisco.  I haven't really done much or written much about it for a few reasons.

The first evening I got here around 7.30pm after 7 hours of driving. My tomtom (the GPS navigator I have) decided to take me in enough circles and weird directions for me to get into the city area right into peak hour traffic. So you can imagine my mood. Then it kept pointing me to the wrong hotels! So I was a bit exhausted when I eventually found the correct motel.

Motel I'm in is central but weird. It has automatic lights on timers over the Study and in the Bathroom. So when I'm showering, I have to periodically stick my hand outside the curtain and wave to turn the lights back on.

I resolved to sleep in and do nothing on my first full day in the city. I mostly succeeded, but then I remembered that Amanda Palmer was doing both a (free) ninja gig and signing at a record store and then a full proper performance with her current band, The Grand Theft Orchestra.

I was quite far back.

So with the aid of googlemaps and SF's confusing bus system, I managed to make it to the record store. That was fun, in a dodgey-ish kind of area, loads of hipster cafes, 'tobacco' stores and tattoo and piercing parlors. This is the forth 'gig' of some kind that Amanda Palmer has done that I've been able to get to, the first outside Perth and the second 'ninja' gig. I love how she'll just rock up to an area, no real preparation and proceed to force everyone to have fun.  I got her new album signed too which was cool, even saw her husband Neil Gaiman (v. famous sci-fi and comics writer) wandering around the store at one point.

This shot doesn't really show how foggy it gets. But I like it anyway.

So that was nice. Afterwards I managed to find what must have been the only restaurant in this entire city that couldn't work out what vegetarian meant, but I got a decent meal out of it in the end.

I can't really make up my mind about this city. It's very hilly, the drivers are kinda nuts and it get's really cold in the evenings. There are rules absolutely everywhere too and every cafe that has free wifi (easiest way for me to plan for what to do next) is filled with computer geeks talking up their big projects to one another.

The graffitti around the place has been fun.

Start Wars, a graffiti image with what I think is George W Bush's face in a Darth Vader helmet.

Tomorrow I'm hopefully going to manage being an actual tourist. Today was all about getting decent clothes and working out the preparation for what I'm going to do in New York. I have been asked to interview a very famous artist for a website I guess I'm now volunteering for. Which is exciting, but means I need to start preparing.

I'll be here a couple of weeks. The International Vegetarian Conference is here, on the 5th of October which a few friends are going to, so I figured I might as well go. After that I'm going directly to New York, but straight into the NYCC events. Which will be fun. A friend I made in Seattle will also be reporting there, for the same website I am.