San Francisco - May 2003 (8)index | previous | TI homeMichael having returned to Portland, JP and Joel visited Cat in his hotel room and recorded their lines for Quake Time. Totally against type, JP plays a visitor from Sydney, and Joel plays a long time SF resident. The lads then went off to an art opening courtesy one of JP's Aussie mates, and then to a Tapas place Joel recommended called Zarzuela. Joel surprised and nauseated his friends by ordering and actually eating tripe. Cat thought the sangria left much to be desired, but most of the Tapas ordered were edible. The following day Joel was under the weather (attacked by the tripe, no doubt) so JP joined Cat in SF to do some serious touristing. A seriously touristy bus took them to the Golden Gate Bridge. The Palace of Fine Arts looked close on the map, but they had bus transfers, so they decided to get to it by bus. Bad decision. Although they specifically asked to go to the Palace of Fine Arts and pointed to it on their map, the bus drivers took Cat and JP in the opposite direction, to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which Cat had seen the previous day. They finally had to hail a cab to take them to this obscure remnant of the 1915 World's Fair. Another cab ride took them to Fisherman's wharf, which Cat had last visited in 1962 on his way to the Seattle World's Fair. He recalled the fish being quite good 41 years ago, and was not disappointed, as they feasted on cioppino at Swiss Louis on the wharf. And what would a day of sightseeing SF be without a ride on a cable car? Perhaps not San Francisco's most entertaining mode of transportation, but at least it didn't take them in the wrong direction. Joining Joel for dinner at La Cote in Rockridge was a fine end to the day. Sunday, June 1st, saw JP catch a plane for New York. Cat's favourite album is Vince Guaraldi at Grace Cathedral, which necessitated a trip to the famous San Francisco church. In the same area, Cat searched in vain for a house on California street where Phil Austin (one quarter of The Firesign Theatre and star of Seem Real Theatre plays Neal Amid, Box of Time and Red Shift) had lived in the early 60s and about which he wrote his enchanting tale The House of Little Men. He was more successful in finding the Haas-Lilienthal House which flashed him back to the 19th century. After some searching, he found The Palace Hotel, whose café is a recreated relic of that distant era. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner, Cat could only stare at its luminous ceiling and imagine his uncles stopping by for a cup of tea, between their carpentry jobs rebuilding the quake-shattered city. Dinner at the home of friends in North Berkeley concluded Cat's 8th visit to San Francisco, and by far, his most productive. It had been 12 years since his last visit. Perhaps it would be a lesser collection of years before his next. |