I can't think of a good April Fools joke so let's just move on

I arrived in Emeryville, CA at 4:45pm on Saturday March 27th. My host and I spent my first evening in San Francisco catching up and drinking entirely too much wine. The next day, as we walked around Golden Gate Park, I discovered that the Bay Area was the perfect place to be hungover because no one else had any more energy or drive than I did.

A beach near Golden Gate Park.


The tulip garden in Golden Gate Park.


Golden Gate Park.


The Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.

While I appreciated the reminder that the Boston/NYC attitude of "Hurry up! I've got places to be!" is needlessly stressful most of the time, something about San Francisco just didn't set right with me. I think this had to do with the fact that everyone managed to be happy and laid-back without also being friendly. Additionally, there are a crazy amount of homeless people; I assumed that there only seemed to be more than in Boston or New York City, as the warmer weather would make it very easy for homeless people to stay outside in San Francisco and therefore be more visible. Then I read the Wikipedia page on homelessness in America:

The city of San Francisco, California, due to its mild climate and its social programs that have provided cash payments for homeless individuals, is often considered the homelessness capital of the United States. The city's homeless population has been estimated at 7,000-10,000 people, of which approximately 3,000-5,000 refuse shelter. The city spends $200 million a year on homelessness related programs. It is believed that New York, which is 10 times as large in population, has only few hundred more chronically homeless individuals.

That's pretty intense. Another thing that disturbed me (and I'm not claiming that these two social issues are correlated) was the shocking lack of policing. Now, I'm not in favor of wasting police time and jail space on prostitutes and potheads, but violent crime's another matter. I balked when my cousin in San Francisco informed me that only 30% of their city's murder cases get closed, compared to the national average of 61% in 2007 (figures from here).

As an aside, this pic sums up my views on the Haight-Ashbury area:

I left the Bay Area for Portland, OR at 10:00pm on Tuesday March 30th, but that's a story for my next post.