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So I land in San Francisco to be confronted with the region's first rain in months. And there's lots of it; a dense semi-static matrix of little rain drops that hang in the air and wait for you to walk into them, which turns into a torrential downpour while on the coach to Santa Rosa. When we approach Golden Gate Bridge, I can only glimpse the beginning of it as the rest vanishes into fog. Not quite the welcome one hopes for. But then Aly picks me up off the bus and a shower followed by beer, margarita and mexican food rectify the situation.
We then spends the weekend setting me straight on a couple of important points. Namely, not only do Californians actually make good wine (they just keep it to themselves and send us the rest), but they also make a wide range of, sometimes, excellent beers. Also, it's not always sunny (maybe that's just in LA). We also manage to fit in a game of Cranium, which we duly win despite my inability to recognise perfectly well hummed songs, watch Star Wars on Laser Disc, which requires one disc flip and one disc change, and watch the 49rs fail to get to the Super Bowl because of a misplaced knee, before Aly drives me to my hostel in downtown SF. In the pouring rain.
OK, so far I have implied that it never stopped raining the entire weekend. That is a lie. Saturday had some lovely sunny spells during which we walked around Healdsburg. Now let's move on, and change from a present-tense semi-narrative to a past-tense list.
During my first few days in San Francisco, I have visited a few museums (SFMOMA, cable car, cartoon art) and various shops and boutiques (including a music shop full of vinyls and cassette tapes, yes that's right, cassette tapes), walked up and down lots of hills, ridden a cable car, walked/meditated in the labyrinth of Grace Cathedral, drunk an Irish Coffee in the first place to serve Irish Coffees in America, lunched al fresco in the californian sun-shine (finally!), got suckered into a sales pitch for skin products by being lured with a free sample (you shouldn't be allowed to use that term for something that isn't food), refused to purchase said skin products after the most aggressive sales pitch I've experienced (WHY? why won't you buy it? take it. take it. it's for you. I do this because I like you. you should take it. TAKE IT!), and taken pictures of things endlessly photographed, but some of them with me in it.
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Mark All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey I've been for a walk on a winters day... I'd be safe and warm if I was in LA...