Curiosity Roving V.7 : Gilded Rollercoaster
Curiosity Roving
The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen
V.7 : Gilded Rollercoasterin which I lay down the 101 on the 415
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Greetings and Salutations!
Welcome to the seventh volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. To all new subscribers, a special hi-hello-and-how-d'you-do. Thank you for joining me on this madcap mission to explore the world with maximum enthusiasm and verbosity. I hope you like words.
I'm writing to you today from an extremely comfortable nest in an iconic world city, which, ever since one fateful September weekend, has been steadily settling ever deeper into my heart. Reader, I'm in love, and it's no secret. We need to talk about San Francisco.
romance ain't dead yetLet's begin with the basic understanding that this city was born in chaos. The California Gold Rush began in 1848, and in the course of only two years, inflated the local population from one thousand people to twenty-five thousand. Planned expansion didn't become apparent for another decade. The cable cars, ornate fairyland houses, narrow side streets, sprawling parks, and neighbourhoods of strong identity that still define the local landscape were mostly developed between 1860 and 1890.
bridge to treasure islandThen came the bridges, both of which opened in the mid-1930s, and connected the peninsula with two neighbouring edges of the coast. The Golden Gate Bridge is a famed symbol of America, particularly as seen from the Asian perspective, and the Bay Bridge, though less frequently flaunted on postcards and sitcom intro sequences, is more impressive in width and span. The bridges were major feats of engineering and they are beautiful, as both structures and metaphors. The necessity of crossing them lends a sense of poignance to any excursion in or out of the city. As much as they are implements of connection, they are also reminders of isolation; if the chilly water beneath them doesn't inspire a romantic sense of distance from your intended destination, the rush-hour traffic probably will.
phantom shipI love any city that has sharply defined neighbourhoods, and San Francisco is exemplary of that. The historic Chinatown was my first destination. Although its flavour is primarily Cantonese, the teeming wet markets and back alley hair salons cut close enough to my beloved Taiwan to soothe the achy homesickness. If you wander to the northeast corner of Chinatown, the crossing of a single street is enough to land you in North Beach. The transition is immediate and unmistakeable. One minute you're knee-deep in bubble tea and mochi, and the next it's all espresso and biscotti. The Financial District gleams with slick glass and brand names, but go up and over one little hill, and you'll step into the abject seediness of the Tenderloin (and maybe something else if you're not careful). Over to the west, Haight-Ashbury still upholds the old psychedelic totems of tie-dye and crystal, and neighbouring central districts of the Mission and the Castro, which are famed respectively for Latin heritage and gay culture, turn the entire geographic centre of this tasty metropolitan jelly donut into a glorious rainbow squish.
because ChinatownWandering downtown, you will find decorative tablets on every sidewalk corner to celebrate local history and the characters who have written it. Next to each of those, you will probably also find a small patch of graffiti, more recently applied, with a timely message to make you giggle or give you hope. Murals line the alleys and brush the sky, and quotations from past eras offer themselves from the most unexpected niches. One way or another, there seems to be an artist's name on every street. The city speaks to anyone who will listen, and it speaks in poetry.
slanted streets, painted ladiesThe weather of San Francisco has read the manual on seduction. Like a practiced lover, it is full of tricks to keep you guessing, wishing, hoping, and humble. Even a short excursion through the hills and microclimates has the potential to lead you from a shades-and-ice-cream kind of outing to the "why didn't you bring a jacket?" kind. You will navigate the capricious whims of wind, water, fog, sun traps, and pressure zones, as the city subjects you to an artful display of its bountiful charms, gives you the twinkly eyes that brim with sweet promises, looses a seemingly delighted peal of laughter, and then dives under a damp grey blanket and leaves you shivering, lost, entirely lacking landmarks. You will never know what to wear. You will be irresistibly compelled to analyze the situation with total strangers. It will drive you wild.
palms and chimesAs for the social climate, it is famously tolerant, innovative, and cosmopolitan. Modern residents of San Francisco are mostly recent transplants, as a high percentage of true locals have been driven out by the rising cost of living. Wealth and privilege exploded in the area with the development of Silicon Valley and the tech boom, but homelessness is also on the rise. All the elements of society are highly visible, and co-exist pressed up against each other in an area of less than fifty square miles, so if you are not tolerant upon arrival, you will soon learn to be.
fog rolling inI am a scrappy kind of girl, and when I was a child, my father would often have occasion to scrutinize the holes in my favourite clothing articles and tell me that I couldn't leave the house looking as though nobody loves me. Similarly, there are cities of this world that show up dressed in rags, neglected by their populations, but San Francisco shines with all the doting care of its two million adoptive parents. The builders of this city were committed to maximizing the power of pretty, and it pleases me to see that after more than a century, every Victorian facade and bay window can still unabashedly show off its Sunday best.
island in the sunIn my roving of the last two months, I have encountered a prevailing attitude among proud citizens that San Francisco does it better. Although this initially smacked of arrogance, I am now forced to conclude that they are not entirely wrong. Whether it's a rooftop garden, a dive bar, a yoga studio, a chocolate shop, a tech headquarters, a billboard campaign, or a bayside boogie, everything on offer here is a great example of its type. Part of that is because there's money in it, but wealth alone does not a great city make. I am charmed by all the evidence of investment and initiative that I see around me, whether it's a brass commemoration from the nineteenth century or a fresh sticker on the bus stop.
we brake for gigglesThe city is generous with reasons to smile. Shoutout to the guy rolling down Brannan Street with a blue and gold macaw riding shotgun, and the dude taking his pug for a run by riding a skateboard downhill with the leash in one hand and a smoking bundle of sage in the other. My praises for the loose flow of compliments exchanged like verbal currency on the street. And just so you know, the mass transit system addresses you alternately in the voice of a telemarketer and that of Stephen Hawking. The city was born in chaos, and it is still the same, and I love it.
We'll end today with another friendly reminder that love is a choice. I joke that I've been happily stuck here, but really, I have chosen to spend my time getting acquainted with this particular patch of earth, because knowledge is a component of love, and I want a piece of this. I arrived here with only a handful of hazy memories, and now I can tell you where to find a post office, a secret beach, a restaurant you can't afford, a stacked breakfast bagel, a decent hike, a golden grilled burrito, my favourite Mexican bakery, and much more. When I go, I will not leave my heart in San Francisco, but it will always be happy to return.
golden knowledge, golden sunThat's all the news that fits! If you ever have the opportunity to visit the city by the bay, I hope that this enraptured preamble will provide you with a shortcut to swooning bedazzlement in the sparks and flashes that cobble the streets of my sainted sweetheart. Wherever these words may find you, please don't forget to lean into all the love that surrounds you. Thank you for taking the time to accompany me on this loquacious stroll through some favourite fantasies.
golden sun, golden cityOur sauce du jour is rated G and you can find it in the same old place:
Until next time, stay curious. -- Rose
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