The San Fran Post

When I left you last I had just wrapped up four days of SSRC workshops and an afternoon of research at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, where I was able to delve into their collection of prints from Mexico’s Taller de Gráfica Popular. I’m now comfortably settled into my home for the next ten days: La Coperacha guesthouse in Guatemala City. In the time between, I spent a lovely four days exploring California.

My host and guide in San Fran was my roommate Elena, a doctoral student in Stony Brook’s Philosophy department and a San Francisco native. Upon completing my workshop Sunday afternoon, I caught a train into the city and Elena whisked me off to the Muir woods, to see California’s famous Redwoods. What an incredible place! Our time there was limited, but it was enough to get a sense of the park and the enormity of those trees. As a plant lover, I was enchanted. I can’t wait to go back and spend an entire day wandering the trails. We followed up our afternoon in the woods with Burmese food in Elena’s neighborhood of Inner Richmond. It was my first experience with Burmese cuisine and it didn’t disappoint. With full bellies, we headed home to watch Game of Thrones, two episodes left me deeply unsettled. (I might add that the season didn’t wrap up before I left, so I’m now stuck in Guatemala with spotty wifi, cursing the fact that I probably won’t be able to watch tonight’s finale for at least six weeks.)

My host, with our feast of
 fresh oysters

Our second day of touring took us all over San Francisco, starting with a dim sum breakfast before we headed to the Esplanade. We started with a waterfront market, where we indulged in fresh oysters and good coffee. From there, we wandered into the Italian neighborhood of North Bay, which it turns out was the haunt of the Beats way back when. Next time I’ll make it to the Beat museum, but this time I had to be satisfied with a quick stop at the gift shop. After North Bay was Chinatown, and I must admit that it wasn’t high on my list, having seen many other Chinatowns before. I expected that it would be more or less the same as New York’s Chinatown, or even Vancouver’s, but San Francisco’s Chinatown – the first in North America – was colorful and full of interesting architecture. I soon realized that I could easily spend all day there, so we beat a hasty retreat so as not to miss out on everything else we had planned.

As it turns out, my favorite neighborhood was the last one we made it to that day: The Haight. Of all the touristy things one can do in SF, the only request I made of Elena was that we make a pilgrimage to Haight-Ashbury. I can’t help it. I’m a historian of the 60s. I was surprised – and happy – to find that the neighborhood retained some of its hippy past, with psychedelic murals, smokeshops, and a wide assortment of colorful characters wandering the streets. Elena assured me that, contrary to the types to be found on street corners, gentrification is in full force there. Much more than the traces of hippy days gone by, however, what I loved about this area was the architecture. Allow me to pause here for a moment to say that my favorite thing about cities is architecture – but I’ve recently realized that what I mean by that is residential architecture. Skyscrapers and famous buildings are interesting too, no doubt, but my favorite thing to do in a new city is wander around its different neighborhoods looking at houses. And San Francisco did not disappoint. The houses in the Haight were absolutely gorgeous, with bold colors and ornate detailing. Some were trimmed in gold (a distinctly SF feature, in my experience) and some featured turrets or intricate gates around their front doors. In fact, I think I can be so bold as to say that, at least in terms of architecture, San Francisco is my favorite city thus far.

At the end of the day, Elena asked me what I thought of the city. Aside from fawning over the houses, I told her that in a certain way, it felt like home. It felt like Vancouver – cool, crisp, and distinctly west coast. It was nice to be back on the right side of the continent for a little while.