shifter

I don't think I could ever adequately describe jet-lag. But I'm going to make an attempt: Flergh. Lazy Wednesday baby, rolled right through. My buddies and I hit up Van Ness and saw The Simpsons Movie. I'll give it a 6.

Or as I like to call it, the "Realisation of Hills" day. Hailing from Perth, hell even hailing from Australia, you don't see a whole lot of hills. With most of the population living on the coastal plain, its generally fair to say that most folks don't venture beyond a 15 degree incline on a daily basis. Not so in SF.

I started the day like most other people. I ate breakfast. But a few hours later, Mick drops me off at Tiburon ferry terminal, and its all on from there. I took a ferry to the SF side, and managed to find and chat with the only Kiwi on the boat. I think I have a knack for picking them.

Landing in the Fisherman's wharf ti became pretty clear I was in a very touristy area. Random street performers, hundreds of people wandering with no purpose with an amused look in their eyes. Its not really the kind of thing I was looking for, so on advice from Cozza I set out to find out about North Beach, and on first impressions, it was welcome sight.

I first ran into Washington square, after passing numerous cafes and bars. One thing took me straight away, the amount of people just relaxing, sleeping, sunbaking and just doing general parky things was a big shock to this Perthite. So I joined in, pulled up a tree and read the book I'd been carrying around in my Go bag.

A little later I hit up a bar, and talked to some locals who were watching the baseball. The night I arrived Barry Bonds had broken the home run record so most folks were keen to wax lyrical in the state of the game. The conversation dribbled into soccer, and by that time I'd downed a couple of pints so I said my goodbyes and wandered out again.

A prominent land mark is Coit Tower. Unfortunately, its on a big bloody hill, so in my grand unfitness I took a few photo stops on the way up to the top. I'll say one thing, walking and riding around town all day every day would definitely get you fit. The view was probably one of the best I saw in my time on holidays.

From there I decided to head downtown and see what the city had to offer in the way of shops. Believe me there's a lot there, from computers to bikes, and a whole smorgasbord of fashion. Something which we don't see a lot of in Perth is big brands with their own stores like Puma and Oakley. Interestingly enough, Puma gear seemed more expensive in the US than it is here. Also, for you Apple Geeks out there I did drop into the San Francisco Apple Store. Its really, really cool. Now, I can't say I'm a fan of the Macbooks, iMacs, and Powermacs, and I'm so-so on the whole iPod thing too. But the iPhone? That thing is fantastic. Not perfect though, you can see some definite areas of improvement, but its definitely a fun and cool device to use.

Following the Apple Store, Mick & Kelly met up with me and we made a trip through the Mission district to a couple of hills known as Twin Peaks. There was no evidence of Laura Palmer shooting, nor could I remember the theme to Twin Peaks. Instead, I started humming the X-Files theme. Go figure. Anyways, at the top of this hil it was rather cloudy and rather windy. Kelly opted to stay in the car on that adventure.

So for such a large day, how does one wrap it up? One goes to the pub and gets rather pissy.