San Francisco, California, USA - Part II

Today lets give a continuation to our last post on San Francisco from Sennen Pinto from Live and Let love Live (Torch Bearers), giving us his few distinguished experiences about the people and the culture besides the scenic spots of San Francisco :)

Two weeks later, I ventured to go to San Francisco again, before the sun rose in Santa Clara. To my disappointment, due to the infrequent commutes, I reached the Superior court at San Rafael after 9am. I wasn’t allowed by the secretary to fix a time to plead the judge for a court hearing, as the court was already on session. This prompted me to argue my case before the sympathetic secretary. She then hushed me to silently enter the courtroom, and allotted time for my hearing at the end of all the other sessions.

As I entered the court trying hard not to look at the others in the court room, I couldn’t help but see their pitiful eyes. This motivated me, that probably many of them already know that I was one of the odd ones there. I listened patiently as a few gentlemen and many oddly looking people had presented their cases. (One thing that I cannot let pass about this city is the different haute couture’s of the tourists amidst the bizarre dresses of a few locals. This often gives me a thought that may be I am in a different planet. I speculated whether this city really needed to celebrate Halloween.) Finally as my time came, the judge patiently listened and gave me a 10$ dollar fine, when I showed him my two state licenses and acknowledged being guilty for not changing it in time.

I immediately took a bus to the station after a lunch in the cafeteria, tired after only a few hours of sleep the previous night; I viewed the scenic spots on the long bus journey, taking pics now and then to the amusement of a few locals and a nod of a few tourists. One of the locals youngsters pointed at the Island Alcatraz on the journey, a federal prison, home to criminals like Al Capone.

To my amusement an elderly woman changed her seat and sat next to me, telling the other ladies, “I will sit next to this gentleman”. She was a round stocky jovial white haired woman with a large rucksack. In a few minutes I saw myself having an interesting long banter with her. She stated that she lived in a boat house with her husband and wrote articles for the mad mariner website and had her own small production company. As we conversed nonchalantly, exchanging information and as I was assimilating some cultural information about San Francisco, she provided me her business card and invited me to visit her boat home. As the bus reached the station, I bid farewell to her and headed to the Cal station.

I sat in solitude wondering how to spend time for another half an hour, looking around in boredom until I was greeted by a wild pigeon. For some reason it was fascinated by my presence and kept trotting towards me. As it came close to me, I leisurely stretched out my hand to catch it, only prompting it to flap its wings in annoyance. I fondly let it have a few pecks of my writing pen making sure that it didn’t get too close to me. I looked on the other side to see a pretty Latino woman sit beside me. I casually introduced myself, and heard her (a delta airline air hostess) tell me about her last flight experience, at the same making sure that the affable bird was a safe distance from me, as it still enjoyed pecking my writing pen.

As I headed home tired after another train journey, I thought I had really seen enough of San Francisco; In contrast, with those sweet reminiscences , I often think It may not be very long before I would want to visit that dazzling city again...

Once more a super thanks to Sennen Pinto and hope to have you participating again soon!