When we visited my son at UC Berkeley a couple of weeks ago, we had one day in San Francisco. We went out there for homecoming weekend and parent weekend. The first night, we attended a lovely dinner at the school. The next morning, there was a tailgating party where we ate hamburgers and hot dogs prior to the big homecoming game and then the following morning, the school offered us brunch at the dorms.
So, when the brunch was over, we had the entire day to do anything we wanted.
“I’ve never really been to San Francisco,” my son said. “I’d love to tour around the city.”
We went into the rental car and headed nearly an hour into the city of San Francisco. We thought about attending a free concert at Golden Gate Park but there was no parking anywhere — not even a nearby lot! So we drove.
We went to Lombard Street and drove down the winding, steep street. I jumped out to take some photos but they didn’t come out that good from my mobile phone.
“There’s a art fair/street fair in the Castro district,” my husband said.
“That could be fun,” I said. “It will be nice to get out of the car.”
So the three of us headed over to the Castro district, parked our car and walked in. There were hundreds of people and exhibit booths galore. Each booth had very unusual things to offer. For example, an insurance company handed me a sperm stress ball. I saw it and laughed.
We knew the Castro district was known to be the homosexual area of town, but it was a lot more apparent than we thought. There were more drag queens and people walking around with bondage chains than I had ever seen in my life.
But it wasn’t until we were standing listening to a drag queen band playing the Patridge Family tunes that my husband said, “look to the left.”
I turned my head and saw a stark naked man leaning against the wall. No one was saying anything to him and he seemed totally natural standing their naked. My eyes popped out of my head. “Ummm, I think it’s time to leave,” I said.
As we were heading out, we noticed a group of police officers. I said to my son, “I wonder why they aren’t saying anything to the naked man.”
“Mom, that’s because they aren’t real police officers,” my son said.
Hmm… as we were leaving I noticed a couple of paintings and a pair of shoes on a board. I guess that was the big art show…
[…] A Day in San Francisco […]