Way back before the Americans got to it, California was a provence of Mexico*. San Francisco itself got it's name from a mission established by Spanish missionaries that they named after Saint Francis of Assisi (now called Mission Dolores. You can tour it for $5). The Spanish had established a whole series of missions along the west coast of what was then Mexico, and they were appreciably successful in dealing with the natives and bringing some measure of civilization to a very rough culture and topography. Happily, when America won the Spanish-American war and took the west coast as its spoils, they were wise and/or uncaring enough to leave these missions alone. As a result, a person can still see these missions, largely intact, and get a sense of one of the Catholic church's less horrifying intrusions into indigenous culture.
I have yet to go to the Mission Dolores, but I used to tour Mission San Juan Capistrano with school groups when I was a kid. I like the fact that these aged structures are still around, and that you get walk around in them and get a sense of how people used to live. I guess that makes me a layman history nerd, but I'm alright with that.
One thing I have done in San Francisco is walk. I've parked Cricket under a cupola, unpacked most of her bags, bought myself a MUNI pass and gotten lost in my new hometown a time or two as I get to know the place. I've opened all my boxes and put most of my things where they will be for the foreseeable future. I've spread out enough to pick up a bit of work at a local website, and have ambled around enough in my new neighborhood to bump into both the necessities and accouterments that every good neighborhood has. I've even found a local Italian place that does a pretty good linguine vongole - something everyone should know how to get quick access to when the urge demands it. Found a good raman joint, too.
Perhaps because I've moved from somewhere smaller I'm easily overstimulated, or perhaps as a product of my own excitement at being here I've somehow failed to see things that I've walked by several times. I enjoy thinking that my neighborhood has been offering up its secrets to me slowly, quietly letting me in - but the truth is that I'm sort of unobservant and spend a lot of my time looking up at the tops of tall buildings. Last night Halima and I walked a few blocks over to Mel's Diner, a place that recreates a diner from the 1950's a la 'American Graffiti'. On the way there we noticed a small assortment of businesses and structures that we hadn't remembered seeing before - a furniture consigner, a restaurant, a bank, like that. We got to the diner, had some pie and coffee (it was good pie and decent coffee), then walked back home and the same thing happened; the neighborhood seemed newer than it had in the daytime, different without the sun.
I'm sure I'll feel this exhilarating sense of discovery for some time to come, particularly with as curious about our environs and Halima and I are. One thing we've found that we expect will be pretty much the same for as long as we are here is the glut of tourist tents and shops set up down by the Embarcadero. There are street musicians and tents in which you can buy interesting hats or scented candles, and further along the street, up by Fisherman's Wharf, you can buy a whole steamed crab for about twenty bucks. It's an ungainly and messy meal, but worth every penny and every spare napkin it takes to enjoy it. Certainly a tourist trap, but one worth becoming ensnared in from time to time.
More to come.
*Yeah, sure, before that it was a provence of the natives, but I'm talking about structured government, not strict occupation.
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