13 things about San Francisco.: seanan

13 things about San Francisco.

We are now thirteen days from the release of Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and to celebrate, here are thirteen things about San Francisco!

13. Yes, parking is as difficult to find as I make it out to be in the Toby books. In fact, it's usually slightly worse; because Toby has magic (and narrative flow), she usually manages to find street parking after only a paragraph or two of driving around. The rest of us usually wind up paying for our parking. Lucky Toby.

12. In areas like Valencia, you can walk for miles without seeing a Starbucks, although you will encounter dozens of small, independent coffee shops and cafes. In areas like North Beach and the Financial District, you can find a Starbucks every two blocks. It's like the city has a median average to maintain, and has decided to dump them all in the same place.

11. Many San Francisco natives rarely, if ever, visit the rest of the Bay Area, and are surprised when interesting things happen in the East Bay. (Not 100% true, but definitely supported by my personal experience.)

10. San Francisco is a city which never met a hill it didn't think "hey, I could put houses there, and people will totally figure out how to park at an eighty-seven degree angle." And because parking is at such a premium, people do.

9. It may be apocryphal that Mark Twain once said the coldest summer he ever spent was in San Francisco, but there's a reason so many people believe it. Thanks to the marine layer, we often have heat waves in December, and cold snaps in July.

8. Despite the hills and the messed-up weather, we still have joggers. Joggers are insane.

7. San Francisco's pigeon population is fairly epic, and most of them are pretty healthy, because there's so much food dropped by the tourist trade. Also, they eat their own sick. It's disturbing and fascinating, like an avian recreation of The Lottery.

6. Cable cars, not really worth it. No, seriously. They're not.

5. Ghirardeli Square sells a sundae called "The Earthquake" which costs around twenty dollars and needs at least five people to eat it. It's a towering monument to gluttony, and all visitors to our fair city should treat it as a mandatory undertaking. Unless you're lactose intolerant or diabetic.

4. San Francisco proper covers a span of 46.7 square miles. That's why we have South San Francisco, San Bruno, and Colma. Because otherwise, we'd run out of space really, really fast.

3. A team of fae without human disguises on could probably run the Bay to Breakers without anyone saying anything but "cool costumes, man."

2. The Ferry Building Farmer's Market is one of the best in the state. It's huge, diverse, and a little bit scary, since who really needs an heirloom tomato the size of a human head? Me, that's who. Now gimme.

1. I do an incredible amount of geographic research when introducing a new location in the Toby books. Half of it gets thrown out the window in the interests of not turning into a guidebook, but I do it. And this city is really weird. That's what makes it so great.

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seanan_mcguire

February 17 2011, 05:59:31 UTC 6 years ago

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Neat!

lisa_marli

February 16 2011, 21:20:02 UTC 6 years ago

*sigh* Glad my first car in SF was an Automatic. But the Second Car was a Manual Stick!
"You get up to the top of the hill and look to your right and see the Stop Sign" "We caught another one Martha."
May your parking brake always hold.
My exMiL, who I loved, even though her son drove me nuts (Jennie's dad), lived next to the cable car barn. I loved taking the cable car to go and visit. Then again, I had a monthly pass and didn't have to pay the Tourist Fee.
But I did love living there, and miss it whenever I go back home to San Jose, at least a little bit.

February 18 2011, 16:19:53 UTC 6 years ago

And lo, I do not drive for lo these reasons.

saruby

February 16 2011, 22:04:15 UTC 6 years ago

I LOVE the Ferry Building (with or without the Farmer's Market)! Totally cool and really expensive stuff. In fact, I love the City altogether. Only place I ever considered living in with more gray days than sunshine. My partner won't live there. She's from the East Bay and sort of reverse snobbish about it. But if it weren't impossibly expensive, I would do it. Do you live in the City or someplace more reasonably priced. I know this is a relative term. We couldn't buy a studio apartment for what we paid for a 4 bedroom house in Colorado. I guess that's why we live here and not in CA.

February 18 2011, 16:20:22 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah, that's why I'm looking thoughtfully at the Pacific Northwest. Of course, what I save on rent, I'll spend on produce...

beeker121

February 16 2011, 22:07:29 UTC 6 years ago

re# 3 No one would flinch. If anything the fae might look a bit plain compared to the getups some of the other runners would have put together.

This year being the 100th B2B I have a feeling the bar is going to be set high.

February 18 2011, 16:20:31 UTC 6 years ago

I know, right?!

ryuutchi

February 16 2011, 23:16:42 UTC 6 years ago

11 sounds like me until I was forced to move to Santa Rosa. "Stuff happens in places that aren't SF? Wut?"

I used to works at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market! Which may be why my first reaction was "It's not THAT great, is it?" I never got to see much more of it than my little patch of land where I was shilling grapes. On the other hand, I made a lot of awesome friends there! (In case you're wondering, I worked for Alfieri-- the guy who gives out samples of almond brittle. NOM NOM NOM)

February 18 2011, 16:20:47 UTC 6 years ago

The market is, in fact, that great. Scary but true.

6 years ago

azurelunatic

February 20 2011, 11:24:29 UTC 6 years ago

Also, if you're working there, I suspect it would become standard-sized, and then others might seem rather trivial in comparison.

Before my schedule changed, my aunt and I always shopped at the Daly City Serramonte market on Thursdays, and it's appreciably smaller, but large enough that some of the other ones seem positively microscopic.

trialia

February 16 2011, 23:49:45 UTC 6 years ago

*clings* Funnily enough, I was reading An Artificial Night this afternoon. DO WANT MORE :D

February 18 2011, 16:20:52 UTC 6 years ago

YAY!

xanath

February 16 2011, 23:56:29 UTC 6 years ago

And to think the manuscript I'm working on has, for part of the book, a mostly-destroyed San Francisco as its setting. I can see I'll have to pick some brains in order to make it real.

February 18 2011, 16:20:58 UTC 6 years ago

Awesome!

gorgeousgary

February 17 2011, 00:54:03 UTC 6 years ago

Technically, I can say have managed to find parking easily in San Francisco. Granted, on most of those occasions I've been pulling my rental car into the driveway of my uncle's rowhouse. Which I suppose is cheating (*grin*). But the few times I actually parked on the street I didn't have too much trouble.

February 18 2011, 16:21:08 UTC 6 years ago

Yes, dear. That's cheating.

denelian

February 17 2011, 06:04:59 UTC 6 years ago

oh, this makes me laugh with glee!!!

see, i'm from Redding [even if i live in Ohio now] and i cannot count the times i've had to go to SF. two memorable occasions:

i was 14ish, we were LOSTLOSTLOST. there was a street closed, and about a dozen cop cars. my mom pulled behind a cop car [facing the same was as the car] to try and ask for directions. there were NO signs.
of COURSE she turned right onto a one-way-the-other-way street. the cop ticketed her, then drew her a map. clearly marking every one way street and every single bit of construction. it was TOTALLY worth the $200 ticket - we'd been driving, LOST IN SF, for over 3 hours

some years later, i'm driving my mother to a DR appt in SF. we are on the Golden gate bridge, and i'm in the right lane because that's the exit i need. my mom had been reading - for whatever reason, she looked up, saw nothing but air and water, and freaked. she grabbed me and jerked me towards her, causing us to hit the guardrail.
that is the LAST time i drove my mom ANYWHERE.

but, WITHOUT my mom, i lovelovelove visiting. i wish i could more! [but i am now in a wheelchair. and some of those hills have STEPS because otherwise you aren't getting up them]

February 18 2011, 16:21:30 UTC 6 years ago

I so approve of the ticket being worth it for the directions!

dragoness_e

February 18 2011, 15:38:51 UTC 6 years ago

I had an 8-month contract programming job in San Jose a few years ago. Wonderful time; I really love the Bay Area and wish I could afford to live there. Unfortunately, your housing prices are insane.

I have a ton of photos posted in my LJ from that time, though, and still more to put up. I really should post all those pictures of koi in the Japanese Tea Garden.

The fae could wander around downtown Atlanta during Dragon*Con and not get anything more than "cool costume, may I take your picture?"

Also, your cross-country bikers are as crazy as your joggers. They do rallies in the coastal mountain roads on weekends.

February 18 2011, 16:21:56 UTC 6 years ago

Yeah, housing here is nuts. There's a reason I live in the deep East Bay.

(And in re: DragonCon...some of them do.)

Re:5. Ghiradeli Square sells a sundae called "The Earthquake" which costs around twenty dollars and

phoenixrave

February 19 2011, 02:07:58 UTC 6 years ago

Having discovered you, my dear, shortly before moving from The Bay Area, and reading, in this very journal, about you and friends adventure with "The Earthquake," I decided to invite my friends to sample the beast for my going away feast...
Wouldn't you know it? The logistics of Ghiradeli's ordering system had half of the guests ordering their own treats. The other half were either on diets or not that hungry...I LITERALLY ate the WHOLE thing...minus 4 bites! I'm not complaining. Sure, I felt bloated for about a week, but I like to suffer for my artists!