I, who can't even stand the crowds at Fiesta in San Antonio, found myself in the most packed and populated place I've ever managed to stay for a whole day. I was moved along by the sea of people.
I am trying to avoid a cliche--especially one related to the sea and fish and cans--but here goes one anyway:
We who had stood in line for an hour to board the cable car were packed like sardines and it was near-impossible to see anything through the vertical sardines in the middle. And I'd planned to do a real Rice-A-Roni sort of ride, hanging off the sides, arms waving, hair flying!
I did manage to get a stranger to take my picture pretending I was doing that--but I haven't figured out how to post a video from my iPhone.
Coming from a car culture, I am always confounded by mass transit, but I discovered if you smile while looking totally confused and helpless, someone will come to your aid.
On the way into the city, a man named Phillip gave me a very helpful crash course on riding Bart. The left side of the escalator is for fast movers, the right for slow pokes. If you get off at Powell Street, you can buy a ticket for a cable car. "Get a day pass," he said. "That way you can hop on and off all over the city."
He meant well, but trust me: On a Sunday in San Francisco, there is no such thing as hopping. With a day pass, you can hop off, but good luck hopping back on. Prepare to wait. Take food. Take comfortable shoes. Take popsicles.
Back in the day when I was fourteen, what you did (what your daddy did) was drive up to the wharf and park and walk around. Same with Chinatown. Now, it takes city transit cards and transfers and long waits to get from any one place to any other place.
A woman from Marin County named Rhoda and I waited for over an hour for the bus that was supposed to take us to the Ferry Building (she was catching a ferry, I the train)--and during that time we managed to find out most of the salient points in each other's biography. When we finally got to the ferry, she'd missed her boat, so we sat out on a deck and ate apple cake and drank iced tea. We exchanged phone numbers and she invited me to come for a visit in Marin County.
People are incredibly hospitable, helpful and friendly here--as, actually, I find them to be everywhere.
I will have to say--and this is a conservative estimate--that 95% of the people in the huge droves of people had not even been born last time I visited this city. Rhoda and I agreed that--except for the Sunday tourists--the median age must be about 24.
Will I go into the city again? No--I think not--unless I am going with someone who lives here and/or I'm driving. Give me a wheel and a set of keys and I can get anywhere. Tell me to board a train--and I tend toward lostness and irritability.
But I had to go.
I hoped it would be chilly (as I remember it) so I dragged my green pancho all over the place and it was hot as Texas all day.
I had a $3.00 IN AND OUT burger as Phillip had advised--then later wished I'd waited for some seafood on the wharf.
But I did buy some postcards and take some pictures--probably the exact same ones every other tourist took--and now I can say, I went, I saw, and I bought the T-shirt.
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