looked round some of the town including the Castro - the gay part of town
famous for its murals (we spotted no street art but did find somewhere to
email) - and civic buildings. We spent quite a while walking because the public
transport system was not nearly as user friendly as in New York. The city did
not feel nearly as safe as the Big Apple either. We spent a lot of our time
feeling quite tense, especially when out after dark, and this was not an
irrational fear either. People were often quite confrontational, staring, trying to
sell their petrol pumping expertise and so forth. In fact, within minutes of being
dropped off by the 'shuttle' we saw a man running hell for leather after a
robber. However, part of the reason why we did not feel safe was because the
area of town where we were staying, and had to walk through late at night,
was a very dodgy area. It must also be said that nothing untoward happened
to us while we visited San Francisco, or anywhere else in the USA in fact -
even when we put ourselves in risky situations. And our faith in human
kindness was restored when we lost our travel passes on our last day in the
city, only to have them handed back to us by a stranger who found them lying
on the street. And she didn’t even ask for a tip!
On our second day in the city we decided that we would visit an attraction not
on the beaten path, but one that was recommended by our Lonely Planet
guidebook - our second 'bible'. Armed with our travel passes and map we
embarked on a journey that meant taking three buses as we searched for the
Californian Academy of Science. Part of the reason for heading away from the
city centre for a day was because the weather forecast was for rain and the
only other things we had left to do were outdoors activities. The rain did start