Back from my San Francisco trip for two days...and the bathroom pipes clogged again. Steve - my good-looking plumber - came by, unclogged the pipes and once again refused payment. He's going to come back next week with a camera and see if he can find the root of the problem. There's got to be a reason the pipes keep clogging. I hope we can get this taken care of...I can't keep calling him every few days and he can't keep unclogging my pipes gratis.
San Francisco was nice. Visited the Castro District and enjoyed the Different Lights Bookstore; went to Chinatown to eat Dim Sum and to North Beach to eat Italian. Traipsed through the rain to the Japanese Tea Garden, had some tea and met a delightful young man from the Netherlands.
Johan was in the states on business and enjoying the sights. He is 32, single and fluent in Dutch, English and German with a smattering of French. He recently met a very nice young lady online named Eva and was hoping the separation would not thwart a budding romance as the eight hour time difference made communication difficult. As we sat and shared stories of hopeful romance found online, I found myself wondering if an American that age would be as comfortable chatting with a sixty year old woman as he was.
Also visited the famed City Lights Bookstore, prowled the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, walked Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiradelli Square, rode the trolleys and the cable cars, and toured Alcatraz as described in my previous post. It rained a lot and the temps stayed between forty-five and sixty.
It was a nice trip, but I was ready to come home. Rather unusual for me. I'm usually gypsy-like and never quite ready to go home. This time was different. I learned that, while I love to travel, who I am with matters more than where I go and the person I really wanted to be with was back home.
