4 posts tagged “san francisco”

Sitting in my best friend's living room computer in front of me. Home under my finger tips. Sacramento's flat in geography and lifestyle. Lying a couple hours outside of San Francisco makes it better though.

 

Drove into SF yesterday around two PM. Cruised around Haight and hit up Golden Gate Park. Hippies, hipsters, bums, families, pets, music, marijuana. Multitues gathered to share the 420 experience and no authority in sight. Thousands sitting, singing, smoking, dreaming, frying, and flying. Me and Max wove through the webs of smoking circles, pictures of people dancing and singing to the friends around us.  A beautiful witnessing of smiles and handshakes.

 

Dredg tore the roof off of San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Their set was haunting. Selections from 2nd and 3rd albums with four from the new one, unreleased.  The sounds amazing. The band brilliant. The crowd unattatched.  Dredg's crowds are usually the best around, driving, screaming, bleeding with the band on stage. Last night the crowd preferred their mixed drinks to the love pouring from the performance.

 

My flight home leaves at four. I've a few hours to kill with Indian cuisine and protesters at the capitol. The battle against our governer's budget cuts is waged and the march is begun. I'm just arriving for the festivities :)

    I am home. I am home a refreshed and newly revised Adam. Nothing insane... more like an upgrade. Adam 3.2. San Francisco was amazing. That dirty city is one of the most comfortable places I've ever been. I walk the streets and feel like I live there. Like I've lived there for the last 21 years of my life, only I get lost pretty easily. It's a complicated place.
    I flew into Oakland on Wednesday night when Kendra picked me up and we went over to Jenna's house, who I've known for a number of years as well. Jenna and I went to highschool and middle school with Kendra. We hung there and just enjoyed eachother's company. We watched some retarded horror flick called Slither and ordered delivery Chinese food. Fortunately for me, Jenna's neighbor boys are two stoners and we got to engage in some debauchery that I love oh-so-much.

OH MY GOD... that smoke was absolutely DANK. I had relatively high... haha... high... expectations and was blown away. These guys played it off like their greenery was pretty good, but just a no-name bud. Not only was it tastey, I had one snap, not even a big one, and I was ripped. Good times... One of the guys might be going to Coachella, as I hope to as well, so I can repay him with some SoCal smoke.

Thursday, Kendra and I got up around 10 and headed out to Hait to stroll up and down and find some lunch. I was amped on heading to hait, cuz their headshops are pretty good and they're some good restaurants. For lunch we hit up Cha Cha Cha's, my fave SF cuisine, a Cuban Tapas joint. I ordered the fried platanos with black beans and some jerk chicken. MMMMMMMmmmmm mu-tha-fuck-a mmmmmmm. So damn good. It's right next to Amoeba Records, so naturally, we had to head in. We meandered up and down hait and then took off to look at some sights. She showed me the streets to party on during the weekend and the best view of the city from Twin Peaks.

   After some driving through the gay district and the ghetto, we headed back to her place to relax for a bit before we hit the bars. We went to this bar called Delerium and met up with Andrew, a cat I've known FOREVER. Like elementary school forever. It was great. A hole-in-the-wall with the most disgusting bathroom I've ever seen, but the serve Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap for $2. Andrew and I got shitty to say the least while Kendra was our chaperone for the evening. What killed me was that lovely smell being emitted from the back dance room. Like a bloodhound on a trail I made my way in the back and EVERYONE was smoking bowls. Apparently the bar is known for not giving a shit about it... my kinda place.

Friday I headed out for Portland.
What a funky-ass city. I loved it. I landed in Portland around 9 pm and took their train system, rather blindly, in the direction that Richard had told me to go. I exited the train and walked about a mile through the city just checking out what's there. Richard was still at work, so I didn't have anywhere to got... so I just walked. It just so happened that I walked right to where Richard's apartment is without even realizing it. I was just wandering around with my backpack and bag strapped to my back.  He picked me up at a bookstore called Powell's Books around 11. It was a bookstore bigger than our public library. The place was HUGE. Two stories and filled up an entire block building. I half expected to walk through pearly gates rather than the front door. We headed to his little rinky-dink apartment and smoked some bowls and drank some beers, just catching up. I love that guy. He's just a genuinely good guy.
Saturday morning we hit up a local pizza place for some grub and wandered through Portland's main streets.  That's a cool place. The people are really friendly and everything has an old-world charm. The building that Richard lives in looked like it was gonna collapse. He took me up to Pittock Mansion where the view of Portland is astounding. You can see Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens in the distance and a handful of Portlands countless bridges.

    Later we hit up a couple of Portland's headshops in search of a piece for my buddy Kuntal. The big shop in Portland is called Third Eye and has the most brilliant selection of glass I have ever seen. Not a whole lot of selection, but all were quality and beautiful. I found a sick piece for him at Third Eye. It's similar to a sherlock pipe but the coloring is more like a watercolor with blue and brown and the pipe itself has a really unique shape that I'd never seen before. The shop owner was calling it a Gandalf pipe, but I think more of the LONG stemmed pipes with a smaller bowl at the end. I'd have stuck with calling it a sherlock pipe.
    Saturday night, Richard and I hit up the pubs to get faded. It was great because he lived only a couple blocks away from most of the pubs. That means: Get drunk and walk home. Yeeeeeeah. It was a great time.
    Sunday was lame. Travel, travel, travel. I started at 10 am and got home at 10 pm. And I lost my Bob Marley picture I picked up in Portland. I left it on the shuttle from LAX to my car. I am still fucking pissed about it. It's the only thing I bought the entire trip other than food and booze.
    Other than that, the trip was amazing. I have great friends abroad and visiting them is a blast and a half. Now I'm stuck back into reality. I'm in class now and work in a couple hours. Then I do it again tomorrow. Joy.
cheers
adam

My itinerary:

February 14th-
Depart from LAX @ 4:30 PM
Arrive in Oakland @ 5:45 PM
Through Southwest Airlines

February 16th-
Depart from Oakland @ 7:35 PM
Arrive at PDX @ 9:15 PM
Through Alaskan Airlines

February 18th-
Depart from PDX @ 2:57 PM
Arrive in Oakland @ 4:38 PM
Through Alaskan

Depart from Oakland @ 6:00 PM
Arrive at LAX @ 7:15 PM

Everything is coming together for my California/Oregon trip. I know what flights I want, who I'm staying with, and what I'm gonna be doing... here's the breakdown thus far:

On February 14th my flight with Southwest leaves about 7:30 am from Los Angeles International and lands in Oakland an hour and fifteen minutes later. Kendra picks me up and we enjoy our Valentine's Day on the streets of Frisco. Thursday's up in the air as to what's goin on... Maybe a little breakfast... maybe some lunch... I just don't know. The possibilities are endless. When Friday rolls around, the only thing on the menu, beside the flight, is a possible rendevous with Kirstin.  Bar, coffee... bar sounds better... it'll be figured out. My flight leaves around 7:30 pm from Oakland International and lands in Portland around 9:15. I'll either take The MAX to uptown Portland or Richard will pick me up. Saturday is a matter of me meandering through Portland, checking out the sights, smoking the local buds, and drinking the local brews.  Sunday, the 18th is Richard's dad's birthday, so I was planning on following him where ever he may go and then being dropped of for a 7:00 flight from Portland to LA.

It's gonna be gooooood.
cheers
adam