Day 15- June 3, 2006 - San Francisco

Doug stays in bed, mostly to spite me, which means that we don't get out of the room until just before noon. We walked towards Market, stopping at Lori's for breakfast/lunch and heading afterwards to the Cartoon Art Museum, which had a featured exhibit on music in cartoons and comics. The songs and bands that I recognized I appreciated, but the others- the majority- went over my head. Doug enjoyed it, but would have enjoyed it more had he remembered to bring his glasses.

It seems that most places here don't have air conditioning, or they don't use it yet. Our hotel room has a fan which we didn't discover until this morning, after the discomfort of last night, when we left the window open for air and spent the night listening to the sound of fire trucks. They're different than the ones back home, screechier, and when they pass us on the street I have to clench my teeth together to keep my brain from rattling around inside my head, imploding on impact. Doug pointed out that there are free standing fire alarms on the street corners, and wondered if this had anything to do with their frequency throughout the night.

We came back to the hotel to rest before going out to do laundry. Well really, Doug did laundry and I stood there holding the crossword puzzle book, scanning for answers we may have missed. Afterwards, we dropped off the clothes and went to get dinner, walking all the way down Geary to North Beach, the Little Italy section of the city. It was a Saturday night and everything was packed, and neither one of us making much of a decision, I suggested that we go to City Lights before instead of after eating, hoping that the crowds would die down, trickling out to bars. The plan worked, and we got a couple issues of The Believer and some McSweeneys stuff before heading out to a restaurant at the corner of Grant and Columbus. They sat us by the door which meant that I spent half the time cold and the other half people watching out through the mirror. It was a hot night for bachlorette parties and proms. I don't know much of the details though; facing the street, Doug got a much better view of the action outside.

Heading back to the hotel sometime after 11, we passed through the deserted entirety of Chinatown. Part of me felt unnerved and I don't know why exactly, given that I've come home from the city at later times alone, and maybe it's being somewhere new. I worry that someone can spot me as a visitor and I wonder if people in this town can spot tourists the way I can back home. I wonder if they're looking.