It was early when I jumped off the #14. Not by my watch (it was about 10am), but the streets were still waking up. The homeless were still asleep, the fruit and vegetable store workers were unpacking deliveries and many of the cafes were still closed. A little bit unnerved by some of the characters on Mission St, I headed one block up to Valencia and noticed a change straight away. Instead of taco shops there were trendy coffee houses and so-called gourmet burger joints. One of the attractions in The Mission is the murals. Some of them are commissioned art projects, but many alleys are covered in what some people would call graffiti, but are pretty incredible pieces of art. I got talking to a couple who were walking through the alley. The guy was a bit wary of my camera as he was tagging some of the murals. He saw me taking a photo of a colourful mural reading "Capitalism is Over" and told me that "they don't like that kind of thing". "That's why they've hacked it already." Apparently the piece is pretty fresh but already has a few tags over it (has been "hacked") because people don't like it. The guy pointed to a piece next to it, which didn't have any political message, and said most people preferred that kind of stuff and therefore left it alone.
A little before noon I headed back into the city to catch my bus to Sacramento. This time I skipped the bus but caught the BART. Partly because I love that San Francisco's subway system is called BART and also because it was a quicker way to get to the Greyhound station. On my North American Bucket List is seeing an NBA game. The season hadn't started when I was in New York last year and it will be finished by the time I'm next in Toronto. As Seattle and Vancouver don't have teams, I figured this might be the only time I have to catch a game. The nearest team to SF is the Golden State Warriors, based in Oakland, except they don't have a game while I'm here. But the Sacramento Kings do so I booked a ticket to the game, one for the bus, and found a Couchsurfing host.
I was a little disorganised when I arrived. I thought the Greyhound station was more in the city centre but found myself near a freeway and no idea how to get anywhere. Luckily when I rang Aimee, my host for the night, she wasn't doing anything so came to pick me up. I usually wouldn't Couchsurf when I'm only in a town for one night and especially when I had plans (the basketball game) for most of the time I'm here, but when I had a quick browse through the profiles out of curiousity I came across Aimee's and she looked pretty damn cool. And she was. We headed straight to her work, which happens to be an Irish pub, and grabbed some late lunch and a drink before heading back to her place for a few hours.
I hadn't realised Sacramento was the capital of California. It just seemed like an such an unremarkable city compared to some of the others in the State such as LA and San Francisco. But perhaps that makes it a perfect choice. The Downtown area is apparently pretty boring, and I certainly got that impression as we drove through - a lot of important-looking buildings and very bad landscaping in a failed attempt to improve the city's appearance and atmosphere. Aimee lives in Midtown, an area full of homes built in the 1920s, cool shops, cafes, bars etc. Aimee's house even has the drop down ironing board and dining table in her kitchen. Unfortunately the owner has removed a lot of the other original fixtures.
Aimee is studying Environmental Toxicology, part time, as she is also working and raising her four-year-old son Mason, who is pretty damn cute. Very friendly, obviously used to having lots of new faces around, and very smart. I spent the afternoon chatting to Aimee and learning about dinosaurs from Mason.
At 7pm it was time to head to the game.
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