SFO Day 2 - Seeing some things

Our second day in San Francisco, and we saw some things.

We started our morning walking west from Potrero Hill through the Mission District. This is a remarkably diverse and exciting part of San Francisco, much like the South Main / Mount Pleasant / Fairview part of Vancouver: in transition for most of the last Century. There is a mix created by being one of the first “suburbs” or the original City a century ago, and the subsequent waves of new immigrants building upon each other.

In the Mission, these were English and German, then Polish, then Mexican, and now a more diverse mix of Central American, Asian, and Hipsterstani people create a strange vibe. As San Francisco is known for “microclimates,” where the weather varies wildly by neighbourhood, the Mission seems to change its entire character block-by block.

These changes have not slowed at all. All along Mission Street itself, there are remnants of a more glorious past (mostly rendered in Art Deco), including numerous grand movie theatres converted to dollar stores. Then a block over, you will find a strip of boutique eateries selling curated organic vegan specialties to tweeded-up fixie-fetishists. Damned if I didn’t see Columbia Street’s past and future, pressed up cheek to jowl.

We went through the Mission to see two things: the first to find some real Mexican Food. Parts of the Mission with large Central American populations are wall-to wall taquerias.

 The second is to see some street art. There are several back alleys in the Central Mission where back fences and garage doors have been completely turned over to muralists. Balmy Alley is one of the more famous (you can get a tourist bus from a cruise ship to drop you off here and idle at the end of the alley while you peruse the art), and has a variety of murals depicting “Chicano” history, along with various themes around social inequity and environmental degradation...and more than one on the topic of gentrification.

Thus fed and inspired, we walked through Mission Delores Park (Where there were a shocking number of people out picnicking, enjoying the hot sun and spectacular view of the City and Bay over the most architecturally-impressive public High School I have ever seen), to the Castro.

...they don’t build them like this anymore

There is much you can say about the Castro, but you really have to be there to experience it. It is not Davie Street or Church-Wellesley. It is where you go if Davie Street or Church-Wellesley are to confining to your lifestyle expression. Walking out of a Wallgreens, we almost literally bumped into a nice middle-aged couple wearing nothing but a man purse (he) and sandals (she). We had apparently stumbled upon an annual “nude rights” rally being held at Harvey Milk Plaza.

The evening program has us travelling over the Bay Bridge to Berkley and the Greek Theatre. Thanks to our Host and her super-personable beau, we found a vegan Indian food place that set us up with some take-out, and we managed to walk it past the ambivalent security of the Greek Theatre. We hence enjoyed a relaxed picnic on the concrete lower steps of a faux-Greek open-air amphitheatre as the sun set over San Francisco. Then Wilco blew our socks off.

Oh, I should mention the opening band. You remember the movie “There’s Something About Mary”, and the two-piece Greek Chorus who narrated several scenes in the movie from within the actual scene? Funny guy with an acoustic guitar and a quiet drummer? That’s who opened for Wilco on our second day in San Francisco. Oh, and you should Google that guy, because he apparently invented Punk Rock. Who knew?  

Oh, and we noticed we are staying a couple of blocks away from this place: