Day 12: San Francisco

Woke up this morning nice and leisurely. We had 2 things on the agenda: Go to the Giants game, and drop Liz off at the airport. I am not a baseball fan, but if it were up to Liz, we would have stopped at every ballpark we passed. Since the Giants were playing the Mets, her team, it was a given that we would be taking in a game. I didn't mind too much, if onle for sociological reasons. SBC park is gorgeous, and we had great seats. The Mets lost, of course. I tried not to cheer for my new home team. I have a dilemma - stick to my roots in rooting for NY teams, or embrace my new home and root for SF teams? Live in the past, or live for the future? I think I will do neither, and root for whatever suits my mood at the moment. After the game we wandered back to the car, passing many bars filled with Giants fans. We walked by this one bar, and I idly looked in the window, when I realized with a shock that I recognized a face! I've been in San Francisco for all of two days now, and I can count on one hand the people that I know here. The people in the window I did not count upon my hand as they were former coworkers of mine back in NY. I knew Bob was moving out here a week before I myself left, but I never pictured him a baseball fan. I didn't know his former creative partner (in advertising, creatives come in teams, an art director and a copywriter; Dave had actually left Euro a year before to join another agency so Bob had had a different partner in the remaining time), Dave, had moved out also, but there he was, SF Giants visor perched firmly on his head. I walked into the bar to accost them. Dave, it turned out, had been offered a job soon after Bob had joined DDBSF. He bought the Giants visor as a show of new hometown pride, even tho he is no more a fan of baseball than I am. We chatted for a few minutes, exchanged numbers, and then Liz and I left. We had quite a bit of time until Liz's plane left that evening, so we opted to explore more of San Francisco. We drove to the Presidio, a former Army installation that is now a park under the Golden Gate Bridge. We parked at some random parking lot and wandered down to Crissy Field. Crissy Field is a reclaimed marsh that also serves as a park trail along the waterfront. We hiked up the trail til almost the end, reading the informative signs describing how they restored much of the marshland from its former use as an airfield. Almost at the end are a string of dilapidated structures that look like they date from the turn of the century, or maybe the 1920s. I don't really know my army architectural history, but the buildings looked cool even though they were abandoned. There is a warming hut further on (to give you an idea of the normal weather patterns) but we noting the crunch of time we turned back through the park alongside a road. Along this steep route we passed a pet cemetary. Pet cemetaries always freak me out - blame it on the string of bad horror movies in the 80s, which, admittedly, I never saw, but the commercials were enough to make me never want to go near one. We got back to the car and drove around a bit more to look at the housing options. The Presidio was the largest Army Installation in the west and had lots of housing built in many different eras from the 1860s-1970s, and most of that housing is available to rent. We drove through some gorgeous older structures that I'm sure is expensive to rent, and through some cheap ass housing that i'm guessing is from the 1970s era. That area is right on the ocean so it must get terrible fog. We had forgotten about time again and raced off to dinner at Andalu, a small plates restaurant in the Mission. I had been there before for New Years and it was yummy, and was glad to see the quality was still the same. Liz's parents had offered to pay for our meal which was very sweet of them, but we had to eat rather quickly in order to make Liz's flight. Mad dash to the airport, drop Liz off, and it's official - I'm a San Franciscoan. Well, an Oaklandite, as I'm staying at my brother's cat-sitting while he is at Burning Man.