the mayor of castro street

November 8: Today we did a cheesy bus tour of downtown San Fran. Cheesier still we rented a tandem bicycle and rode to the Golden Gate Bridge – those bikes are harder to ride than they look! So much giggling, so much fun.

November 7: Day one in San Fran - this was one of my fave days.
We started out by doing a walking historical tour of the Castro. Given that we have a vested interest in gay civil rights, are active in our community and (I) watched Milk on the plane over from Aus, we were super excited for the tour. We learned a lot about the Castro area on the tour, as well as Harvey Milk. We learned of the history of the Rainbow Flag (created as a banner for Harvey Milk by drag queen, Gil Baker) and of the current freedoms we/Californians enjoy because of Harvey’s achievements while he was in office (a total of just 11 months!). It was a wonderful tour and it motivated us to be more active activists, and of course to daydream about living in the Castro – a place where, if you wish, you can walk down the street wearing nothing but a thong, hat and sunglasses.
We wandered the Haight in the afternoon and I educated Zanne about Janis Joplin. We got as far as Golden Gate Park before turning around and heading back to the Castro though – the park had a creepy vibe, there were very shady characters just metres away from a childrens’ (approx 5 year olds) soccer game offering drugs to passersby.
In the evening we caught up with Sharan, an English girl we’d met on our Castro tour. We had dinner at Harvey’s before searching out a lesbian bar in the Mission called Lexington(?). We were quickly wasted! It was random, spontaneous good times.

November 6: Today we flew from New York to San Francisco. It was beautiful to see the Rocky Mountains, even if they did cause us hours of turbulence.

Shan