Sniff, sniff

And so we come to the end. After a whirlwind few months—we went to Paraguay! We saw Iguazu Falls! We bought tickets home to New Zealand!—we leave the city by the bay just when spring appears to have arrived, durnit. The packing guys are here, wrapping up our memories in layers of fish and chip paper. The sleek neighborhood dogs are passing below our windows with their sleek owners and the women at the nail salon across the road are sitting in the big cushy pedicure chairs waiting for customers. I will miss this city.

A few final San Frantastic moments:
* I went and ate sushi with a couple of the interns at this funky no-name sushi place that is somewhere between the Mission and Noe Valley—more Mission than Noe I think. I got there before they arrived and when a typically hip SF guy asked to look at my teapot, I shrugged and passed it over. This set off a stream-of-consciousness prattle that did not end when the rest of my party arrived. I was told about some amazing dance event in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Portugal and told to get in before all the tickets sold out, man. I was advised to write a story about Mayor Hunky’s (Gavin Newsom’s) recent treatment of the homeless in the Tenderloin (according to Mr Hip, one young drunk homeless guy hassled Hunky for money and Hunky has had the police on patrol down there ever since). And I learned that Mr Hip likes to refer to himself as “a sassy little bitch” which I found quite endearing.
* Our friend Megan from London came to stay and we did all kinds of fun SF stuff. The capper was a cocktail at the dear old Carnelian Room, where we watched the sun set and pointed happily at Alcatraz and Coit Tower and Fisherman’s Wharf and the seals on their platforms bobbing in the oily water. Both M and I had a funny experience when we used the restroom. A small Chinese woman was stationed by the door. She welcomed each of us to her restroom, showed us to a stall and when we were seated began to sing and whistle. I wondered if this was to make the situation less awkward—we were peeing in her office, after all—or to help us conquer potential stage fright.
* After dinner at Tommy’s Mexican restaurant where I had the best-ever margarita, Tim gave me a wooden sign reading ‘San Francisco’. He announced that every day until our departure I would receive a San Francisco present. After the sign came a baseball cap, some old-style postcards, kiddies books about the city, a map of wine country, and today my favourite of all, a reproduction of a map of the city drawn in 1909, three years after the earthquake.