Rainbow Bright

Monday 7/10/2015.

We spent the morning in The Castro – San Francisco’s gay area in the Eureka Valley. We knew we were getting close when we saw the rainbow flags. The Castro’s really cool and one of our favourite areas, along with the Fisherman’s Wharf. On the crossroads, instead of zebra crossings, they have rainbow crossings. We insisted on crossing all of them. They also have the rainbow honour walk, where in 2014, they installed large golden plaques of gay celebrities, or people who fought for LGBTQ rights, along with their picture and what they did. There were also small plaques detailing the history of The Castro. The Castro was one of the first gay districts in America and was named after Jose Castro, a Californian leader of Mexican opposition.

Harvey’s

Harvey Milk, the gay politician who was assassinated, lived in The Castro. His house is still there with a painting of him in a window. He moved to The Castro in 1973 and opened a camera shop, Castro Camera. His murderer was only convicted of manslaughter, so riots broke out in anger. In retaliation, the police raided a bar, The Elephant Walk, smashed the windows, damaged the property, and beat up the people inside. It later burned down. When the bar reopened, it was named Harvey’s. We had lunch there. They had vegan fries and a lot of vegan choices. We also had a drink made from raspberry vodka and raspberry liquor, which was delicious. Sadly Harvey’s closed in January 2023 after 27 years in business. The beautiful Castro Theatre was built in 1922 and is still in use. It became San Francisco Historic Landmark #100 in 1976.

Case Load

We returned to our apartment to collect our luggage then lugged them down to the BART station. We were originally going to get a tram, but some people told us the station was only three blocks away. Three blocks is a long way when you’re dragging heavy cases. The suitcase is a pain because it constantly falls over, and when you’re going downhill, the weight makes it fast, so you have to hold the handle, so you feel the full weight. The 10 kg rucksack was hurting Cat’s trapped nerve so we switched. The BART train was in the subway, so we had to haul our cases down several flights of stairs. It was not easy. The machines wouldn’t accept Lynx’s travel card or debit card, so we had to ask a guy for help. He eventually managed to find a machine that takes debit cards.

Train Spotters

We then had to take our suitcases down the escalator. Lynx nearly fell with her two, so we sent the briefcase trolley down by itself while she got the other one. Cat just managed to fit the large suitcase on one step. We asked a woman if we were on the right train, and she said we were. When we were on board, she came up to us and told us we actually had to transfer at San Bruno – she’d looked it up for us. It was so lovely and helpful of her. The American people we met on our trip made us feel so welcome and accepted.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, but security took so long that we only had half an hour before boarding the plane. Our films for the way back were Ant-Man (brilliant) Jurassic World (fantastic) and a horror, Maggie (boring.)

Read Day 3.

Read Day 5.