A place with a heart and soul (San Francisco)

Member Name: Daisybelle

Product:	San Francisco
Date:	11/08/00 (66 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Loads to do and see, great people

Disadvantages: None really

San Francisco is somewhere I had preconceived ideas about, which were fulfilled in a way , but the reality of the place was even better than expected. When I've talked to others who've been there they seem to have the same feelings about it.

I think I was hoping to find a laid back hippy town, but what I found instead was an very diverse, multicultural, but more importantly caring and kind community.

The (extremely) hilly streets of San Fransisco soon make you realise that the trams are not just a tourist attraction, they are a necessity for survival unless you're a contender for Iron Man. A wide array of eateries are on offer, tried my first Vietnamese food here, Goat soup for starters, better than expected.

Frisco boasts just about every kind of shop you can think of. Macy's is worth popping into just to see how much its possible to pack into one shop . My partner insisted on visiting all of the “Christmas” shops (We were there in December, but still wore T-shirts as it was about 22C) which was a bit boring, but we've got some damn fine tree ornaments to show for it;-)

After having warmed myself up on a couple of Kerouacs' I found the wharves a bit of a disappointment, though the trips round the bay were worth the money, the bridge looks fantastic from the sea and Alcatraz is a must-do. Worth a visit is the City Lights bookshop, where a lot of the beatnik scene was spawned, and the bar next door where Kerouac and his drinking buddies did a lot of their R&R.

A big afternoon in there did for my partner, who was in bed by 7 o’clock, so I visited our Hotel bar. This happened to be a gay bar, something new to me, but everyone was friendly and kind . This kindness was obvious on the streets as well, in the poorer areas of the city centre there were numerous vagrants, lots of people stopped and gave them money, food, hot drinks. Something that would be surprising in the U
K. A place with a heart and soul.

Summary: