when sundown pales the skysan francisco – 9^th entry

It’s been four days since my first visit to Northern California. I really liked San Francisco; it felt both safe and accessible. The brown hills, the pine trees, the vineyards were so familiar that I kept thinking I was back in southern Italy. The temperature was cool; the whole time I was there I wore a light sweater and long-pants. The Pacific can be ignored, but the Bay is wonderful. The city exudes a sense of tolerance and the gay community takes that tolerance as a given. I was proud to be in a city where Liberals run an amazing urban center. The urban landscape is on the other side of the Bay – out of sight and maybe out of mind. The housing density is second to New York City and housing prices are extreme. (I kept thinking that Tokyo, must have the same dense feel to it.)

The Golden Gate is majestic, but the Bay Bridge is elegant. (The above image is of the Bay Bridge.) Mendocino is New England, but Napa is Italy. (The rugged coastline and quaint shops of Mendocino stand in for Jessica Fletcher’s home in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine. And the Spanish haciendas and Italianate cantinas blend wonderfully with the long rows of grapevines of the Napa Valley.)

But San Francisco shows that Liberals can succeed in an America held hostage by an intolerant Republican Congress.