San Francisco: First Impressions
Caleb and I arrived in San Francisco last night. He’s here for work, and I picked up some assignments so that I could make the trip over here. By assignments I mean one review for a magazine and one personal project I’m thinking about doing around the small batch weed dealers who live in clearings in Golden Gate Park.
The city already has left many strong impressions, the first being that it’s clean and beautiful and smells strongly of cologne. The reason why it does that it because every male, even our Prius-driving taxi cab driver, seems to have dipped themselves in it.
I’m going to try to stay away from my computer as much as possible, but I thought I’d quickly write down three observations I’ve had this morning alone, even though all I did was leave the Clift, where we’re staying, to go get coffee.
1. How do you know you’re in San Francisco? When you see an Asian girl wearing a Google t-shirt and running leggings emblazoned with the word “silicon” walking down a hill.
2. Caleb and I asked the hotel doorman to point us in the direction of a great coffee shop. “Do you like the whole blue bottle thing, man?” he asked in response.
“Yeah,” I said, knowing that otherwise we’d end up at a food kitchen in the Tenderloin or Starbucks, for lack of other options.
He pointed us in the direction of a place he said was awesome. It was called…Farm to Fresh. Seriously.
When we arrived, a guy wearing a red beanie cap, a white t-shirt, and two full sleeves of tats greeted us from behind a hewn wood countertop. “What’s your poison?” he said in a vaguely foreign accent.
“We’ll have two large coffees,” Caleb said as I inspected the display of baked goods along the side wall of the shop.
“Those are awesome,” the guy said when he noticed me gazing longingly at a triple Mexican chocolate scone. I was trying to figure out what a triple Mexican is.
“What’s this?” Caleb asked, pointing to two pieces of focaccia stuffed with what appeared to be kale and pickled eggs.
“Kale and pickled eggs,” the guy said.
“Should I get one?” Caleb asked me. We’re on this new kick where we’re trying to save money all of the time, so that Caleb can become a responsible adult.
“It’s on focaccia made in-house,” the guy said.
“I have to get it,” Caleb said, as if that made all the difference.
“Help yourself man,” he said. San Francisco is a do-it yourself kind of place, I’m learning. I was surprised the shop didn’t have us drip our own coffee.
While he attended to the next customer, I looked around for milk. It wasn’t on the sidebar with the napkins and plates and utensils. It wasn’t on the counter where he had served us. “Do you have any milk?” I asked the dude politely.
“As opposed to cream?’ he said, pointing to a silver container in the center of the large wooden communal table that took up 3/4 of the store.
“Thanks,” I said. I was happy with either.
Caleb and I woofed down the sandwich, and then gathered our things to leave. “Do you have tops for the coffee?” I asked the dude.
“On the table outside of the door,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. We walked outside, and found a little wooden sidetable sitting right on the sidewalk, with tops and a container of milk. It was then that I started to feel like I had slid into an alternate world, one that was much like my own, but also very, very different.
3. There’s HBO and Lifetime on the television in the hotel, but no Bravo. I’m considering complaining to the management.
