Day 2 - San Francisco

Gay dog - the must-have accessory of the season
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Ok so day 2 in San Francisco. I woke up bright and early at 6am – damn jet lag. By 8am I had been stared at by the resident pug throughout the duration of my breakfast which was rather disconcerting, had been shown pictures of some woman’s 23 day old granddaughter – she was obviously very proud, and someone had also poked their head into the breakfast room wished everyone love and happiness and disappeared before I could see who the hell it was. Thus my day began… I had a wander round Castro this morning and I have found that the two must have accessories every gay man must have in this city are tight shorts and a rather large dog. After spending some time amusing myself by counting the occurrences of these two things I walked to Union Square and passed the morning indulging in my favourite activity – shopping. Have now discovered that my smugness at only bringing one bag was shortlived as I cannot fit what I bought into my bag. Well done me. I will not be thwarted by this minor setback however and will think up some ingenious plan to remedy this situation shortly. The strangeness of the day continued however, firstly by spotting some woman who had the twin towers tattooed down her right arm. I was tempted to ask her if I could take a photo of it but decided against it as she looked a little scary. Mulling on this thought I continued pottering down the road when suddenly an air raid siren sounded really loudly. This continued for about 2 minutes and I did begin to wonder if I should run for the nearest subway station, but no-one else seemed to bat an eyelid so I pretended to look like a local and carry on my pottering. Finally a voice said ‘this is a test, do not be alarmed’ – I thought that perhaps they would like to have said that before commencing the test, but as both the voice and the siren had appeared out of nowhere I couldn’t really raise this point with anyone. I went down to the Ferry Building for lunch where there was a farmer’s market and loads of restaurants too. Have to say though, not a patch on Borough Market, but nice anyway. I then took a wander through Chinatown but at this point it was baking hot and I had been wandering around for about 6 hours so had had my fill of hills for the day. I took the MUNI tram back to the hotel – was impressed at my skills of mastering the public transport system, and collapsed on my bed which I where I write this now. Not sure what I am going to do this evening – I saw a nice café this morning which is open late so may wander there for dinner. Tomorrow I leave for Fresno by car – fingers crossed everyone, I’m taking on the American road system!!!

Castro
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Distance travelled today – technically 0 but I must have walked about 10 miles.

Distance travelled today – technically 0 but I must have walked about 10 miles.

Bearwatch – 0, although gay bears about 10.