Oh, Right, The Rest

Day Six

Today dawns a little later than I had hoped and we don't end up leaving the house until 11 am. I decide to mix with the locals in a purple, short-sleeved turtleneck, jeans cut off below the knee, a moth-eaten patchwork cardigan, my new Saucony sneakers, and my hair in two braids. It's time to walk!

(Update: We eat breakfast at The Grind. I have a ham & swiss scramble.) We walk up a big hill (imagine that) to the Upper Haight. There I am, at the famous corner of Haight and Ashbury. Groovy. Sean points to where the Grateful Dead used to live, and I marvel at the fact that they lived in houses. I never thought about that before. There are all sorts of funky clothes shops and head shops. I turn up my nose at one or two "vintage" stores until I see a place that really catches my eye: Held Over. This store is huge, and everything is categorized and organized by color and not expensive! The variety and quality is impressive. New York doesn't have anything like this. I vow to bring a clothing allowance on my next trip.

On our way to Amoeba Records, we're accosted by an overly aggressive homeless man who has a strong sense of entitlement. Get a job, hippie!

Amoeba is a record store the size of a warehouse, selling used and new CDs as well as LPs. They also categorize Prince under R&B, but I forgive them. I pick up (used) Graffiti Bridge (my third copy), Come, Controversy, an out of print maxi-single of "Gett Off" (all second copies for me), and At Worst The Best of Boy George and Culture Club, another CD I lost in the Great Apartment Robbery of 1997. Sean is more highbrow than me, and he picks up a CD by Kyuss, the band that would become Queens of the Stone Age. We get all 6 CDs for $41! Wow!

Our pleasure with our purchases is quickly dampened by the, well, dampening power of rain. It's coming down in a very annoying manner. We have umbrellas, but they can only do so much. The grumpiness descends, and soon, I hate everyone. We walk back down to the Lower Haight to dry off and determine what we can do without getting wet. We consider the SF Modern Art Museum, but I don't have the energy to look at art. Seriously. It's been a long trip. We throw in the vacationing towel and get tickets to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at the Metreon, a ginormous entertainment complex downtown. The movie is great, and when we emerge from the theater, it's stopped raining. Hallelujah!

The Metreon also features something called HyperBowl, a virtual DVD store, an various other scary things. I beam a program into my Palm Pilot that tells you what's the haps down at the Metreon each day. The whole experience is surreal.

Next stop? Club Waziema (pronounced "why-Zima", which is a good question) for Ethiopian food. I enjoy Ethiopian food, but it's very expensive in New York. this doesn't make sense, since it's mostly lentils and chick peas, but San Francisco gets it right. $6 for all you can eat. Oh baby. We stuff ourselves on veggie platters with injera, an Ethiopian bread you tear and scoop up the food with. I'm sure I could phrase that better, but you get my general drift. Sean catches up with an old college buddy and has a few beers. (Update: Club Waziema does not have toilet seat covers! WTF?) We then hit Chances one more time, but I'm not feeling it. Eventually, we head back, because we still have stuff to do tomorrow!