We walked San Francisco today, up the hill, through Chinatown up to Fisherman’s wharf, then down again hanging out of a cable car. The City seemed slightly scruffier than I remember, but still at least as glorious. Exhilarating views, mesmerizing painted ladies, the historic City Lights bookshop and honey-sweetened ice-cream I could eat (peach).
The day only went a little pear-shaped towards the end when the Ford Explorer of our hosts stalled about 15 times on the way back from North Berkeley BART station and got us home tetchy and grouchy.
There are many panhandlers in California. We sometimes give them money (usually at Maaike’s insistence) but rarely remember their faces, even if we make brief eye contact. But a woman at the BART station today has stayed with us. She was in a wheel-chair, quite old, pretty smelly; she was missing a leg and was covered in sores; but her eyes were very light and alive, and full of intelligence. She said she was hungry but Maaike and I couldn’t give her money straight away because we were waiting for Ewan, who had change. So we hung out with her a bit while we waited, talking about the street performer she knew. I wanted to ask her what happened to her, her leg, these terrible sores everywhere; and I couldn’t. We looked out for her on
the way back, but she was gone.