We take the F-line down to Pier 1 at the waterside which takes about 20 minutes, not because of the distance particularly but because it stops at the end of each street. At the harbour at Embarcado, piers which have an even number peel off clockwise and piers with uneven numbers peel off to the left. This is the direction we walk and will take us along the waterfront, past Coit Tower and to pier 33 which is our first destination. It's hot and sunny and despite wearing a hat I can feel the heat of the sun on my face. By happy coincidence with our stay, San Francisco is hosting the America's Cup final and today (Sunday) entry to the event is free. It's busy but well organised and it is easy to find a place to stand which will give us a good view of the finish line. Large screens show the bits of the race you can't see from the shore. Not having followed this kind of sailing event before I am surprised how exciting and dramatic it is. The US is trying to reclaim it's title but the New Zealanders trounce them in the first race and so the Americans walk away from the second race in a sulk. Yes, really. We try not to sulk when we realise the bar is selling beer at $11.50 a pint. We buy a pint each and savour it slowly.
After we've had our fill of the sailing, we continue our easy walk along the waterfront, past the gaudy and commercialised Fisherman's Wharf, past the swimming and sailing club and up the hill to Mason which is a perfect spot to get our first good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It should really be named the famous disappearing bridge because sometimes you see it and sometimes you don't. Today happened to be a 'don't' day. San Francisco suffers from a peculiar weather condition which is produced by a difference in air temperature between the land, hills and sea. This produces vast and thick banks of cloud on the far side of the bay which then spill over the hill and down onto the water and when they do, which is frequently, it can completely obscure the bridge. On a bad day it can extend all the way into down-town leaving everything grey and damp and miserable. You can see the clouds as they develop and roll down the hill in a great swirling mass which is then somehow sucked right across the bay. It's all quite strange and not a little frustrating when, having struggled to the top of a steep hill, heart pumping and legs aching, you gaze across to where a hulking great bridge should be and instead see nothing but a thick bank of fog. It's like Derren Brown has been in town.
Having decided the fog is not going to lift we walk back to Fisherman's Wharf and queue for one of the famous cable cars which run on the hilliest parts of town. Slow, noisy but iconic and quite exciting as they are so packed with bodies I was never quite sure the below-ground cable wouldn't snap and send us all hurtling backwards to the sea and our death, it did, eventually, dispatch us in one piece at Market and Powell where we picked up the F-line once more.
No one does weird quite like America and weird seems to be concentrated in Castro which is a district very close to where we are staying. The F-line trolley bus which runs between Castro and down-town seems to be a focusing device for all the pan-handlers, homeless and just generally batty folk in the area. I know we shouldn't, but it's really hard not to stare. How can one's eye not be drawn, for example, to some guy of indiscriminate age, but probably in his sixties, thin to the point of emaciation, with no teeth and wearing a pair of men's pants on his head keeping in place a tea towel which is hanging down the back of his head? The chap is also wearing what appear to be a pair of leopard print combinations over which is a pair of ragged blue flannel shorts. He pulls himself onto the bus, ricochets off one of the metal poles and then off a customer and then stands there talking to himself and swearing very loudly. It is way beyond eccentric and unbelievably, he is not the weirdest guy we see that day. San Francisco hosts an unbelievable number of homeless and mentally ill people; some sleeping in doorways; some shooting-up in quiet corners; some raging away to themselves on street ends. It's all quite sad and depressing. At the wine social later and before we go out to dinner we all sit and chat about the day, what we've done and what our plans are for tomorrow. It makes me think about how random life is and reminds me how lucky I am.