San Francisco

These are the famous sealions down at Fishermans Wharf. They made some terrible noises and smelt like rotten garbage.

This is the Castro area, the centre of the universe if you are a gay man.

San Francisco definitely is one of the most beautiful cities that I have been to. However, like Seattle it also had its fair share of homeless people. In the Haight area I saw many scruffy skater kids selling and buying drugs. I couldn’t quite figure out whether these were genuinely desperate people with no other choice, or just kids who had chosen to run away from their middle-class families to live a junkie lifestyle for thrills.

A few times I met up with Michelle, a Swedish friend of mine who has recently moved to San Francisco. One day we rented bicycles and rode through Golden Gate Park - a massive stretch of green space which was the centre of the 1969 “Summer of Love”. Hippies from all over America once congregated here to sing songs about love, talk about love, make love and take copious amounts of drugs.

This is me and Michelle. That big red thing in the background is the Golden Gate Bridge.

I also happened to be in San Francisco during the day of the presidential election. I knew that, whatever the outcome, there would be some exciting things happening in the city that night. Ever since the start of my travels the talk of the town had been who would be elected president. Many I met on my trip were appalled by the small-minded, “hockey-mom” ignorance of Sarah Palin and the possibility that she might become one of the most powerful people in the world. A few others feared that if Obama would win, the US would be run by a “communist”. One thing was for sure, this election would be a historic event for an America at a crossroads.

At around 8PM, when the first news came that Obama had been announced as the winner, I took the train into town. Many people had gathered at Union Square in the centre, and were singing, dancing and shouting in the streets. Cars were honking their horns and the crowd would yell “Obama, Obama!”. There was a festive mood mixed with a great sense of relief. Me and Michelle joined in with the rest of the people, yelling campaign slogans with a Swedish accent. I felt happy to have been there on that historic day.

During my time in San Francisco I stayed with Glen Allen who is a relative on my paternal grandmother´s side and lives in a suburb called Dublin. Glen was an extremely generous host and made sure that I had a really good time during my stay.

One night I got to meet Glen’s son Mike and his family, who live in nearby San Jose.

On another occasion I also met with other members of Glens family. This is over at the house of Glens nephew Mark (far left), after having celebrated his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary at a very exclusive local restaurant.

written by  niklasbergstrand on January 20, 2009 from San Francisco, United States
from the travel blog: Niklas in America
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