Los Angeles

I went to Los Angeles yesterday. No not the city, the island. Seems the Spanish had this thing for angels. It's a little island in the middle of the harbour, near Alcatraz where they built the "Ellis Island of the West" and I joined a tour there, mostly Chinese and one gorgeous big hunk and his slender tall wife. The place had been used as a detention centre and then a POW camp but this woman was doing was talking about the chinese and how badly these illegal immigrants had been treated. Can you believe that they only gave them western food, day after day? How dreadful!! And some were left there for up to 2 years!!! How dreadful! (Think Christmas Island, Woomera, 7 years etc). Anyway, we came to pay and the hunk was in front and I thought I heard him say "Three" and was turning this over in my mind when he turned around and said "It's OK, I got it". I felt silly with my single dollar bills trying to make him take it back so graciously said Thank You. (Did I look poor? Down and out? I mean even rich people look daggy some times?)

Then I went for a long hike up to the top of the mountain which had 360 degrees view of the Bay - it was the most beautiful sunny blue day you could imagine and when you turned around you saw the Bay Bridge with its wonderful long elegant curves, then the city outline with just enough tall silhouettes to make it interesting, The the shorter stronger curves of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin and Sausalito linked to the upper country with more beautiful long sweeps of bridges. Bridges were the reason I did Civil Engineering and I do regret at times not being able to work in the profession. Then the hawks riding the thermals all around, paradise!! Drank a nice cool Corona on the way back in the ferry and there was the day.

Reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and it's quite compelling.

It's really weird. The Golden Gate Park is full of Australian plants - gum trees of all types, Calistamon, Tea Trees.

If the Pacific Ocean at Ocean Beach had been blue and not brown,
and the sand white and not dirty brown
and the sruf had been white and not grey
it would have seemed like being back at home.

Kurt and Sausalito

Last night was great. As I went further into the Mission district to visit Kurt, there were more restaurants and lights and people milling around and more and more latino. In the end I was the only blond person in the bus and felt like I was back in Colombia. I found my way to Kurt's place and went up the stairs and Julia, Kurt's girlfriend, opened the door for me and welcomed me into a really nice semi-detached type house furnished in a really nice arty way. Kurt was there and also a school friend, Marc. Marc had just come from Vancover and after a big trip around the USA will be going back to Australia at the end of next week. All 3 of us had a great night, good food and good company and then the owner of the house (Kurt just rents a room from her) came and we had lots to talk about. She ended up giving me some bath salts that she sells.

This morning I went out to catch a bus to Sausalito to look around for the hiking trails that the Lonely Planet talks about. I ended up talking to a nice lady, Diane, who lived in a house boat on the shores near a place called Strawberry Hills. We stayed on the bus past where we got off the other day and then got off and she showed me where to walk. What an incredible scene!! All the houseboats were different and I walked up and down the wharves amazed at the variety of house boats that were there. One was called Freedom, another The Answer. I stopped to take some pictures and Diane called out to me from a big blue boat and she told me the system, $700 it cost to moor the boat and that includes all the services. Then she ran after me and gave me a copy of a book that she had written and I made her write some words in the front.

After that I walked back and found the Engineers bay Model by the US army Corps. This is one huge scale model of the San Francisco bays used to model and predict effects of dredging and other activities and weather on the bay. Now it's also used for education. All very interesting. Apparently one of the worst effects were caused by the gold diggers who used pressure from streams to wear away soils so that the gold would be exposed.

Then I took the bus back to San Francisco and found the book shop that Kurt had recommended. It's on the corner of Columbus and Broadway called City Lights and is a great independent book shop with big sections on History, Philosophy, American Literature and Poetry. I bought the book that we are doing at the book club in early December.

Whew!! what a day. Exhausted. Must have walked miles.