Back from the West!

San Francisco, as always, was delightful. The weather was less cool than I'd hoped, but otherwise things were sunny and clear, with not even a hint of rain. No cloud dared show its misty face! On my Favorite Places list, San Francisco is #2 with a bullet. (London’s #1, in case you were wondering.)

My plane took off only twenty minutes late, surprise, surprise. Unfortunately, I had to deal with a child sitting behind me kicking the back of my seat. His name was Graham, and his sister was Chandler. Urgh. I’m sure that the next kid will be Tyler, Ashley, or Chelsea. An hour into the flight I wanted to ask Mom how she thought Graham would kick with a pair of bloody stumps. Dan’s portable DVD player made the seat-kicking bearable, though, and “Jackie Brown” got me through the 5.5-hour flight.

The room was swank, with a giant bed that could easily have slept three. (It didn’t though.) It was well situated, too, right near a Muni stop, a Whole-Foods-type store that provided my morning fruit cup and a 7-Eleven that sponsored my afternoon milk. The room’s best attribute was that it was free.

Look at my San Fran pics, but I'll make a few observations here.

1. Restaurant service is slow, slow, slow. I think it's just a West Coast thing.
2. You know those seats on buses, trains, trolleys that are labeled, “These seats must be yielded to elderly or disabled passengers”? Well, in San Francisco people actually yield them, without even being asked. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen that on SEPTA.
3. Those San Francisco hills you hear about are NOT exaggerated. I walked up one hill that had to be angled at 40 degrees.
4. I’m a diehard liberal, but the liberalism there is cloyingly strong. My gosh…I couldn’t enter a store without hearing customers ask if something was organic, locally grown, free-trade, etc. Sheesh! (I left some of my liberalism there, as you’ll see from the pics.)

Coming back my plane took off right on time, a minor miracle in itself, but I paid for it by being seated once again near a child. This time I was behind him, and I had to restrain myself from taking revenge on Graham by proxy. I was the envy of my seatmate because I watched “Dog Soldiers” and a Go-Go’s concert on the DVD player.

Yay nearly free trip!