BBQs than anything Russian and lots of Korean OAPs around. I stopped for a coffee at a Boudin Bakery, they are a legendary SF institution set up in 1849, and treated myself to a sweet cheese croissant out of curiosity. Well, curiosity didn’t kill me but it wasn’t much of a treat. I’ll stick to the original French creations next time. I did find one Russian shop and it was full of amazing things like caviar spread, pickles, a dozen different cakes with more cream than cake, and little old Russian women buying their groceries. I will have to go back when I’m not walking in the opposite direction to home. It was a sunny day but, like lots of SF sunny days, there is a chilly wind that makes it cold especially in the shade. I turned off Geary before I hit the sea and made my way to Golden Gate Park. The park was full of groups with BBQs, tables and chairs, games, gazebos, decorations, flags and mountains of food. The Americans certainly know how to have a picnic, no soggy sandwiches anywhere.
The park is full of little pathways through the trees, I keep expecting to come across nefarious
activities but apart from the occasional group of bums it is quiet. There is even a fishing pond in the park and there are coyotes which I only discovered after I had exited the possible coyote sighting area. I eventually made it to the sea but it was so windy that I only walked along it for a couple of minutes. There is no swimming because it is too dangerous but people surf and kite surf instead.I turned inland and found a cafe where I could eat outside. I had a share a table with an elderly gent and, as I’m getting used to happening, he struck up a conversation. He is a local resident, a retired teacher, who now spends his time organising the local community into making the locality a bit prettier. They have put in little gardens on the sidewalks and are planning to renovate the street car stop with a bench and mural. It is obviously a very community based area, everyone said hello to him as they walked past. He offered to show me how to play Bocce Ball, his team of volunteers have set up two pitches next to the cafe. The game is basically petanque but Italian, the first to 12 points wins. I beat him 12-7 which I don’t think went down very well! Although he was the kind of person who most of the time seems to have no emotional reaction to what you say but then will occasionally burst out laughing at something completely inane. So maybe he wasn’t annoyed but just indifferent.
I caught the street car back along the south side of the park. Bradley had invited me to his friend Tommy’s house for a 4th July BBQ but it’s difficult not to worry when you are invited by a second party that they haven’t even asked the host or that there’s no way that they can say no. I felt like that might have been the case when I was there but it’s pointless worrying about these things because a) I don’t know any of them well enough to interpret their reactions and b) I’m only here for 2 months so does it matter if they think I’m cleaving my way into their social group? No. The BBQ was nice but apart from the few people I’d met before I didn’t get the opportunity to chat to anyone new and some of the guys there reminded me of the horrible, aggressive Yank who used to live downstairs so that put me off even trying. We decided very late on to try to see the fireworks which are set off in 3 locations around the bay but there was so much fog that we didn’t see anything apart from some illegal fireworks that were set off in the park we were in. Amateur fireworks are illegal in the state of California. I also discovered that if you have ever been to jail you are never allowed to vote again. That is why a disproportionate number of African Americans can’t vote. America also has the highest percentage of people in prison in the world (Russia is second, S. Africa third).
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