... and stops again

Both James and I were a little worse for wear after dinner last night.  We didn't drink that much, but a couple (three ?) of glasses of wine before heading out to dinner with a local friend of his seemed to leave us both a bit slow, grumpy and nursing sore heads this morning.

To be fair, my excuse was not being able to sleep.  I was ready to crash when we got home from dinner at about 11, but by the time I finally settled in to sleep it just didn't happen.  I remember seeing daylight before I eventually dropped off for a while.  After breakfast James had to move out to another hotel since this one doesn't have any vacancies for the next few days, which is a shame.  It was nice having him just down the hall to collect to go find meals etc.

So, today I had a roaring headache, but despite the forecast, there was no rain as such so I headed off on a walk.  I headed west of the hotel this time to have a look around Golden Gate park.  For Sydney siders, imagine the domain, the art gallery, botanical gardens and centennial park all rolled into one huge rectangular space with significant hills and you'll be getting close.  Pictures can be seen in the ongoing catalogue of the trip at Graham Escapes Again - The Gallery !.

Something I found interesting at first and then almost annoying was the number of gum trees.  I smelled the first one before I saw it, which probably contributed even more to the sense of familiarity of the place:

It was one thing when there were only one or two, but eventually there were whole groves off them.  I suppose they might seem nicely exotic here.

I had considered seeing an exhibition at the De Young museum, but when I checked what was there I realised I had actually seen most of it before in Sydney, and I didn't really feel like being indoors today.  By 11 or so a lot of the cloud had started to lift and mist was starting to rise out of the hills:

... so I decided to press on.  Took a few pictures of a series of fountains and then had a fellow photographer insist on taking photos of me - I have to admit, as much as I hate photos of myself, they're not too bad.  Amusingly while he was taking them, another couple of tourists wandered by and offered to take the camera so the two of us could have a photo together, on the assumption we were traveling together.  I could see this could turn into a very large group photo if we weren't careful, and so could the insistent American who started it, gracefully declining the kind offer and moving on.

This is something I've been told about the US previously, and certainly since I've been here: there does seem to be, more than a willingness... almost a compulsion to just strike up a conversation with the nearest person you can find about anything and everything as if you've just bumped into an old friend.  I won't say it's universal, but it is very much the opposite of the Anglo/Australian 'polite but distanced' way of being around strangers.

There was a great example of this on the bus ride back to the other side of town when I had seen enough parkland for one day (nearly 3 hours of traipsing around an admittedly beautiful park seemed like enough).  I'm sure I would enjoy the very crowded buses more if I weren't so tired and, well, myself.

Standing near me was a young guy carrying a box with a picture of a candy dispenser on it.  A woman sitting nearby caught site of it pointed it out to her friends "look at that, isn't that cute...." etc etc.  We got the whole story of the thing, where it came from, who it was for, that he was on his way to buy candy to put in it to give to his little sister for xmas and so on.

After a couple of stops, passengers had moved a little and a young woman standing behind candy dispenser boy mentioned to him that she thought she recognised him - he's a ballet dancer of some kind and she had seen him perform recently.  So another little conversation ensued until the young woman left.  Candy dispenser boy, who by now I had learned was named, almost inevitably, Daniel, sat down next to a guy in his teens who had got on the bus just after me.  He turned to Daniel and asked what kind of dancer he was because he was too... and so on.  By the time we all reached our destinations I knew rather a lot about these two, their youtube videos, what they liked and didn't like about dance, teaching styles and so on.

I could see how someone could grow to either love or loath that kind of free flowing exchange.  Being on the reticent side myself, and coming from a maintain a respectful distance and sense of decorum kind of society, it's all rather strange, but not without it's charm.

While I've been writing this someone has started playing the trumpet somewhere outside.  Playing rather well I have to say, possibly there's a restaurant or club of some kind nearby, something with a slightly Spanish sound to it.

Despite the fascinating conversation, I still had a shocking headache and was beginning to regret deciding to go all the way downtown to try to buy a local sim card for my phone.  When I arrived I found something to eat and headed down to the water front to see if I could find somewhere nice and open to sit down for a while.  I found Pier 14, a pedestrian walkway not far from the Bay Bridge and ended up taking some quite decent photos:

... this one is probably my favourite.

I was tempted to try to make my way around the waterfront to the Golden Gate bridge, but by now fatigue really set in and I just couldn't see myself doing it before I lost the light.  If I'm lucky the weather will hold and I'll have time to head down there tomorrow on the way to my Alcatraz tour.

I've just been off researching the best way to get to the best spot to do a bit of bridge watching.  So, provided the weather does indeed hold, I should be set.  Right now though it's 10pm and I'm just beginning to feel drowsy.  I think I should now put this thing away and allow the instinct to sleep to kick in.