San Francisco

As I've told some of you, one idea behind this trip is to help me decide if I want to stay in DC. I spent most of yesterday in the city that (after New York) has seemed most likely to make me feel at home. San Francisco is a real city that offers most anything you want, and where you can get to most of those things on foot, or at least without a car. It's close to family and many dear friends live there.

So yesterday I made the trip north that I make on almost every visit to San Jose. I was true to my goal of not overplanning this trip, with the comical result of finding my first destination, SFMOMA, closed as it is every Wednesday. So was the nearby Contemporary Jewish Museum. The old San Francisco Mint, which I have wanted to visit since my years in the 1990s as a Treasury Building docent, was closed and its website says that it is no longer open to the public.

Then a cold rain squall swept through and I was forced to take shelter in a shopping mall, of all places. Afterward my wanderings took me through the Moscone Center, beautifully lighted between rain showers (photo), and to the California Historical Society, which offers cheap admission and a moderately interesting collection of old paintings and photographs.

Then I crossed Mission St. to the Museum of the African Diaspora. It's surprisingly small given its imposing façade but I loved it, especially the interactive touch-screen exhibit on African musical heritage in the Americas and the hands-on computers and videos in the Heritage Center. I watched most of a video documentary about the many rises and falls of the Tremé neighborhood in New Orleans from the era of slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the jazz age, and the ravages of "urban renewal" and the destruction of its business district to put in an interstate highway. The current special exhibit is "The Art of Richard Mayhew" - wonderful abstract-looking landscapes full of color; as I was leaving I crossed paths with the artist, apparently there for a special event bceause the exhibit ends March 10.

Then I recrossed Mission St. to The Grove to enjoy some nice smoothies and a very happy reunion with Jen, Darcy, and Kat. Darcy and I then headed off to North Beach for dinner at one of her favorites, the House of Nanking. Darcy asked the waitress to choose for us and one of our dishes, chicken with thin-sliced sweet potatoes and what may have been kohlrabi, was worth the trip to San Francisco in itself. I don't find a website for either The Grove (one of a small chain) or the House of Nanking. Afterward we wandered North Beach, stopping at Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store and Cafe for coffee and then an Italian restaurant for dessert.