San Francisco Trip |
Matthew
Stibbe's Homepage
San Francisco TripSan Francisco |
Summary:
In August 2002, I went to San Francisco for a month's working holiday. These pages record some of impressions the trip made on me.
San Francisco seen from Sausalito
I had gone to San Francisco to have a moment of calm in which to figure out what I wanted to do with the next part of my life. I came back with more questions than answers and the answers I did find (the 49 business ideas I wrote in my notebook and the pages of notes and questions from the Zen monastery, for example) are still working themselves out six months later as I write this.
I read that one explanation of the rocks and sand in a Zen garden is that at first we think we are like the rocks - big and important. Later we find we are like the grains of sand.
I loved this sign so much that I started taking pictures of other eccentric signage all over the city. I have about forty pictures. My second favourite is a street-side sign reading "Share the Road"
When I went to Goa, I wrote my travel story the day after I got back. I had a terrible fever that took several weeks to go and there's something of that fizziness in the article I wrote then. I came back from this trip much cooler and just couldn't find a way into writing about it. Now, six months later, I realise that I also picked up a bug in San Francisco. The Califonia virus is in my mind, latent like maleria, and I don't think the patient will ever make a full recovery. And doesn't want to.