So Long San Francisco

                                 Kyr pondering

                                        A movie in Union Square Saturday night - Roman Holiday to a huge
                                      audience - hundreds of people.

                                             Me hauling the requisite new suitcase per trip.

                                Kyr at Yerba Buena Gardens

                                 Olga, Dave and Kyr

Olga Zilberbourg reading at Portuguese Artists Colony

The last few days in San Francisco have been fun and event filled – as we tried to squeeze every last juicy morsel from the city. Forget going to Alcatraz. I think you have to book weeks, even months ahead. I'll know for next time. We shopped excessively. Kyr is going to look very hot attending college. He failed to find any decent Fluevogs so he is now a proud possessor of Campers. A lovely Spanish brand maybe even as weird as John Fluevog.

We struggled through China town – picked a bad time to walk down the produce street – completely jammed with people buying produce for supper. It was not too fun trying to work around the desperate purchasers but I tried to take consolation in how zealously they were buying vegetables – how healthy is that.The streets were horrifically littered and completely wet as the meat places were being hosed out. It had the horrible wafts of gross anatomy lab every few feet. We gratefully made our way to the parallel street with all of the marvellous knock off wares directly from China. I had to control my urge to outfit Hippoworth with tons of asian paraphernalia. Perhaps Horace needs to do a trip to the far east.

We ate again at Kyr's favorite – the Tonga room. Just gets better and better – quite the hub of the universe.

Yesterday we meandered around the Museum of Modern Art. Saw a few good exhibits and the entire collection of the Gertrude Stein family – tons of beautiful Matisse and the evolution of Picasso.

We met my friend Olga and her husband David at the tea room at Yerba Gardens. It was nice to be removed from the noise of the city and have the sounds of running water superimposed. The shrieks of the doormen whistles echo from hotel to hotel and almost shatter your nerves. Kyr thinks they are communicating to eachother like dogs do barking around the neighbourhood. No matter what, it was good to have the intense noises in abeyance for awhile.

We then accompanied Olga and Dave to the Fivepoint Arthouse for an evening of readings by writers at the Portuguese Artists Colony. Olga was one of two writers highlighted that evening. She read two of her short stories. I love her voice. Her characters communicate a wry, almost incredulous acceptance of their fates. Kyr and  I enjoyed ourselves immensely. We were also entertained by a 10 minute write off – where four writers expound on a topic - “She had his head” while the rest of us listened in awe to a singer who staggered her own background voices on this little machine she tapped with her foot and then launched into the body of the song seemlessly accompanied by many harmonious voices and sounds.

Despite the distractions the 10 minute writings were amazingly diverse and some hilarious. It was such a wonderful opportunity to witness a section of SF's writing community. Olga said that the community is very vibrant and excited about the changes the digital age is bringing - unlike some other areas of the country. Both Kyr and I were caught up in the enthusiasm and wished we had something like it back home.

It was hard to say goodbye to the lovely Fairmont. I think I might actually miss the intense workout that is imperative the second you step out the doors of the hotel.