Jun 17 2003
Festive homecoming
We were so glad to be home, where it looks like this (no rain, no clouds, no thunderstorms and temperatures in the 70’s, where they belong), that we had to go outside immediately on Saturday morning and re-acquaint ourselves with the beautiful city we love. We had a new-found appreciation for the clean sea breezes, the lack of humidity and mosquitoes, the beauty of the buildings, the ability to buy booze at the corner store the way nature intended (I was still Vestigial Vacation Suzy last weekend, though as of yesterday I’m back at the gym and my boring, water-drinking non-vacation Self).
We headed to the North Beach Festival. North Beach is the Italian neighborhood and home to countless great restaurants, Molinari’s deli, where you go in, grab your bread, and hand it to one of the guys behind the counter, who will make you one of the best sandwiches you have ever had, and of course, Caffe Trieste, one of the oldest coffeehouses in San Francisco and supplier of caffeine to Me, making it possible for me to get out of bed as early as I do when I’m not being Vacation Suzy. Oh, yeah, and the oldest bar in the city, the functionally named The Saloon, which is small, well-used, and unpretentious – everything a bar should be.
However, we chose to do our drinking outside in the bright sunlight instead. We drank Margaritas which were being sold from a booth along with great street food (I love street food) to the strains of a fantastic band from Santa Cruz called SambaD?, a wonderful and unclassifiable mix of Brazilian dance music blended with reggae, funk, hip-hop, and who knows what else. They had no fewer than three percussionists and it was a blast (check out the MP3’s on their site). You have to love being able to drink and dance in the street.
Even SPF 45 wasn’t enough to stop me from getting a slight sunburn on my face and arms – to go along with all those Canadian mosquito bites – but it was worth it. It’s good to be home.