Blog Minx

I made it to San Francisco in one piece! I will write a proper account of the whole thing but of course that will have to be on my other site, Travel Minx. Here I’ll mention the money.

A few people have exclaimed, “A six hour flight! Whoa!” but really, that’s nothing. NZ to LA is 12 hours at least. Now that’s a long flight. NY to SF cost $250 one way, no lunch. Cheers from 25 years ago played on the big screen at the front. Cue ’80s flashback.

You don’t have to spend much money to enjoy San Francisco. I’ve been walking everywhere, puffing up hills, tumbling down hills, only stopping to refuel with a strong coffee at Italian North Beach cafes where hippy poets Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg used to wax lyrical, and Mr Coppola wrote a first draft of The Godfather. “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

City Lights Bookstore is awesome. They published Howl in the’50s. “Pull up a chair, read a book,” the signs inside urge, so I do. For an hour. The smell inside is one of my favorites: fresh books, studied silence, black and white photos from half a century ago of tattered, bearded poets.

The views of the city from the top of the crooked Lombard Street are amazing. Once I get my breath back, I take photos of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The wind is cold and fresh and the cable cars trundle past with tourists hanging out. $5 a ride, up and down the streets, all the way straight to Fisherman’s Wharf with the tacky souvenir shops, $5 clam chowders and smelly protected sealions sunbathing by Pier 39.

Chinatown has $6 noodle soups and steaming dim sum. A box stands outside a shop labeled ‘Karate Kid Drums, $2′. Three blocks and I haven’t heard a word of English.

Union Square is a mini Fifth Avenue: Tiffany’s, Saks, Macy’s. I avoid. The pace here is slower than NY. People aren’t rushing or shouting into their Bluetooths, taxis are rare. Homeless are not. Venture into Tenderloin and you get asked about wanting crack. I avoid.

Internet cafe, $8 an hour. Gotta go.