JoelNothman.com

Yes, I combatted a long-term fear and had a wonderful day on Monday by riding around San Francisco on a bicycle. Everyone had been saying it’s the thing to do and bicycle rentals were littered around the city. I had liked the idea of joining the masses pedalling down the streets, only that I had never cycled on a street (only footpaths), and had never used gears. Having been in San Francisco for 5 days and not having seen its main feature attraction, the Golden Gate bridge, I knew that walking or cycling across it was a must, but gathering the courage to actually climb on a vehicle that would only fall over if I didn’t push it was a little beyond me.

So this adventure really started on Sunday, when I returned to the Adelaide Hostel after a shabbat break. I had called up to change/check my reservation the night before, and yet when I got to the counter I was told they were all booked out. Somehow it only took a few minutes and the woman at the desk (one of the army of people who seem to stay and work in shifts at the hostel), a self-proclaimed genius who “should be paid more”, managed to find me a bed. I think it had to do with a foldup bed being brought in a short while later to my new room.

It was actually a small upgrade from my past room: I had been staying uncomfortably on a top bunk, sharing the room with two other guys and reserving the closet for my belongings. My new situation gave me a small room partitioned from the rest of the room by a wall, with my side including a big firm bed, a sink, and some spare space, and theirs including a double bed and a fold-up single, as well as a small TV on a cabinet. (I think the furniture in these rooms is fairly arbitrary and you pay the same thing to stay in a room with 2 people as with 7.) But I had no idea who it was I was rooming with.

Sometime on Sunday evening, a while after returning from the Asian Art Museum, roommate #1 walked in, led by some local friends. Colin (24) is an Afrikaner, brought up on a mango and sugar cane farm, who had been working in North Dakota for a few months after completing a diploma in agriculture, but the grain had got to being a little boring. While he was moving in, a boy and girl appeared at the door and introduced themselves as occupying the double. Dan (17) and Susan (19) are brother and sister just in from Holland, travelling around the States with family, but staying in the hostel for a little independence.

While the Dutch siblings had a family to occupy them, Colin was new in town and I suggested we go bike across the Bridge the next day. The idea seemed to go down well, although it was only tentative until the next morning. (The next morning, I also discovered that while my former roommates disappeared early in the morning, I was the first up in the new place. So I made an attempt to disclaim my strange Jewish morning prayer rituals, to the discovery that Dan and Susan were Jewish, and to Colin’s great curiosity.)

Before we could head out, I thoroughly warned Colin that I hadn’t ridden in a long time and would be hopeless and would want to try out a few easy metres before leaving on the expedition, but he was nice and encouraging. We only needed to pay $15 hire for the day, and soon after 10 I was clambering onto the bicycle seat, much to the amusement of some of the people in the alleyway and the woman attending to our hire.

A little unsure, but confident at least knowing someone would be there with me, I paid my fare. My black bag which I use to carry mostly inordinate amounts of random food was not really convenient to carry over my shoulder or neck, and I ended up having Colin take it for the first while until I got my confidence up. He found it a fair hassle, but was very compliant!

The streets were a little tricky, and Colin feared me swerving left into traffic approaching from behind. But the sidewalks were fairly clear so we rode mostly there, if illegally. At first the downhills were a worry, as I didn’t know how to get onto a bike that wanted so desparately to be at the bottom of the hill. While Colin advised I should be using the breaks, that wasn’t the problem really, it was just the idea that I would have to have no legs on the floor and would immediately start rolling down steep inclines.

By the end of the day the downhills weren’t a big deal. San Francisco is known for its hills, but even for some that weren’t so steep, neither of us was quite so courageous or efforted to cycle our way up, and walking the bicycle along seemed like a much more pleasant idea.

I did have my leg scratched numerous times, got a small blister on my thumb, and fell over at least once when riding precariously between the car lane to my left and a ditch to the right. Colin certainly had a lot to laugh at (and he did), although at the end of the day his bum was just as sore from the hard seats, and his muscles from the uncommon exercise.

So now that you know all about my incompetence, I can tell you all the wonderful places we went. The plan was first to make it across the bridge, which meant heading west and north. So that we got off the main roads sooner, we went via Fort Mason, on the north of the bay. There was nothing much to see at the fort (or at least nothing that we saw was to see), but it meant a nice view off the north, another angle to see Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge invisible through the fog (despite its International Orange paint—designed to be the most visible through fog).

Continuing along the shore west towards the bridge, we had to make our way up some tough hills, but I guess bridges need to let tall boats under and so are at least as tall to get over. (Colin rode some stretches where I dragged the bike up the path.) And we weren’t by any means the only ones getting over it. We were among hundreds on foot and spoked wheels trying to see more than the next few suspension cables through grey clouds. For a few moments the fog did clear (although by the time we were coming back it had returned) and let us see our destination and the islands around. It was great fun to slide along on the bike through the breeze, stopping when there was a photo op or too much tourist traffic, and waiting for Colin to catch up.

When we got to the other end, we went to a lookout, looked around us and saw only mountains. Although there are some beautiful tracks on the north side of the bay (Muir Woods, Sausalito), we decided that mountains meant inclines and that there was enough still to see back on the other side. So we spun the bikes 180 and sped back, dodging increased oncoming foot traffic (and bikes loaned at twice the price we paid).

Stopping for lunch at a visitor’s centre, I grabbed some pepper and added it to the avocado that had somehow survived a ride on my handlebars, and them together to bagels bought the day before. Colin opted for hot dog, chips and coke (I guess he’s experiencing the real America, while I’m doing the same as at home, only with worse, mass-produced bagels).

A little digestion time and we headed on, veering west which led us past some beaches, my fall, an expensive-looking neighbourhood, and up a hill to Legion of Honour Drive to find: a big fountain (these mark many important places here); an abstract sculpture; yet another (but closed) art gallery with tall Grecian pillars; and a Holocaust memorial with scattered plaster bodies. The memorial sculpture was absurdly unviewable from either the street it faced or the plaza it backed onto, while its inscribed plaques included a line using strange Hebrew grammar, equally strange in English (but I can’t remember it).

Up a hill, we had to come down, but managed to miss the turn that would take us to a beach with seals. We’d both seen seals and beaches so we didn’t feel the need to turn back. We made our way into Golden Gate Park, which stretches quite some distance east to west, and I’d been to its eastern extremity in my journey on Friday. The park has many wonderful features—many waterfalls, lakes, botanical gardens, japanese tea gardens, interesting buildings, an art museum (De Young: quite famous but again we missed it), birds, rodents and cars.

While at times Colin had decided he was tired and the day was running to an end, I convinced him to come see some other areas. We went back up Haight St, and popped into the enormous Amoeba Records store, which includes all kinds of new and used music from various parts of the world, on vinyl, casette, CD and DVD. Around the outside of this store there were handfuls of young people dressed in some very nice hippy outfits (but I thought it would be rude to photograph), ironically not found a few blocks up the street at Haight and Ashbury which is known for its hippy history. The only thing we found worth doing at Haight and Ashbury was getting ice-cream at Ben & Jerry’s.

We turned right to head towards Castro, San Francisco’s big gay scene. The neighbourhood has numerous rainbow-striped flags, and many bars that likely become a big party like some of ours on Oxford Street at night.

Heading home down 18th St, we made friends with a local named Crystal (Colin had been very kindly greeting most people we passed throughout the day, but this time he decided to start a conversation too), who told us about a nice park we were too tired and sore to watch a beautiful sunset from. Trying to help out another woman with a punctured bike tyre (who knew I had a pump while I didn’t), Crystal had to continue on, so we didn’t get to keep in touch, or meet up at a bar that evening as she’d suggested.

We eventually made it back home, going a little through the Mission area, and cycling on the main street downtown (how many cities have a bicycle track on their main street?), having been out for over 7 hours, leaving ourselves quite sore.

And yes, for dinner I went out again to Sabras, although I did consider a vegetarian Japanese restaurant, it seemed like they would only offer super-expensive dinners (lunch prices were bearable, but I was never around at lunchtime). While the Sabras food is good, I am convinced that the manager is an unfriendly grumpy person, who spends his time watching DVDs on his laptop at a table in his restaurant when he’s not too busy upsetting his staff. If I had more choice I wouldn’t support the shop—and I’m considering writing a letter of upset.

So that was quite a day, that was completed by Colin and I sharing a 6-pack of beers (him taking the majority) after failing to find a bar around with good company and being too tired. The beer itself was nice—Coors I think. Eventually I let it put me to sleep too, only a little later than I should have for the early Tuesday morning pickup in a white van that would take me on my next adventure.