pouring rain
We spent the afternoon around Union Square, the more commercial area of San Francisco, and Chinatown before I had to leave for San Leandro. We started off at the Ferry Building, which was supposed to have a food hall, so I imagined something like the Markthal in Rotterdam. It ended up being a bit of an anti-climax because there were not that many food stands, so we headed up towards Fisherman’s Warf. On our way up, it started pouring rain, so we mostly sheltered and took photos of the rain and then headed to Chinatown, without making it to Fisherman’s Warf.
There wasn’t that much exciting going on but what intrigued me were the tents of homeless people you could find scattered across the city. Below all the high-rise buildings and the offices of multi-million and billion-dollar companies, homeless people were camping out in the pouring rain. For San Francisco, this was the coldest and wettest it has ever been in years. If people with houses, extra sets of clothes and cars were complaining about the rain, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live on the streets and not be acclimatised to the changing weather patterns.
Honestly, I don’t have a solution, but part of the reason I wanted to go to San Francisco was also to get a reality check. In the Netherlands, we are all fairly well off, and we definitely don’t have people camping out on the streets around the Zuid-as. However, we do really like to complain. I know that I do it too, that’s what I sometimes mean when I tell people I feel like I’ve become too Dutch.
What I liked about growing up in Shanghai, is that you’re constantly surrounded by the richest and the poorest people. Not saying that I’m happy poverty exists, but I do think it’s good to be aware of its presence. In the Netherlands, it feels like you could go a whole lifetime pretending poverty doesn’t exist.
In San Francisco, the contrast between extreme wealth and poverty is tremendous. An average household in San Francisco earns nearly $100,000 per year, which is almost double the median household income of the United States as a whole. Meanwhile, almost 20,000 homeless people are sleeping outside on the corners of streets or metro stations and in tents. The contrast between extreme wealth and poverty is tremendous and definitely hard to miss.
Hidden gems
I think you could probably call SF a foodie’s dream. Thomas reserved a spot in a “hidden and secret” bar called Bourbon and Branch tucked around the edge of Tenderloin and Civic Center, which quite literally takes you back to the 1920s, a time when the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages were outlawed and the concept of a speakeasy emerged. Stepping into the bar felt like walking into a Peaky Blinders episode, with well-dressed barmen and decor.
Phones were banned, the lights were dimmed and there wasn’t a single window. Pretty much the perfect place for a date night, or to be the third wheel. The drinks were also incredible by the way, however, be prepared for a glass that might be a lot smaller than you expect. Since I don’t have any photos I grabbed one from the website just to give you an impression.
For dinner, we just had random luck (and my incredible search skills) to have found an incredible Italian place that served Roman pizzas somewhere on a side street south of Market Street called Montesacro. It was so delicious I forgot to take a photo before eating, and for those of you that know me well, I am a picky eater.
San Leandro
Arriving in San Leandro felt like arriving in a hole in the middle of nowhere compared to San Francisco. It’s about half an hour's BART ride from San Francisco on the East side of the Bay, but I didn’t know much else about San Leandro besides that my office was over there and the corporate apartment.
The corporate apartment was part of a complex called Woodside apartments, who have very nice photos online, but in reality the vibe there was a little different than I expected. Since I didn’t have a key, I had to wait for the apartment manager to let me in. As I waited, the few people that did pass seemed like the type of people you see in movies that stay at a hotel and honestly a little bit dodgy.