I'm in San Francisco this week on business, and the Americans are saying it's the first good weather they've had in weeks. It's been raining for forty-five days and mud and houses have been sliding off the hills. One guy died. In a mudslide, after a rainstorm, in California no less. That's not something I ever really expected to hear.
But now that I think of it, last time I was here it was raining like a mofo as well. We were enroute from Auckland to Vancouver and had a day off, so we took the BART from the airport to... somewhere downtown (Market Street maybe) and a streetcar from there to Fisherman's Wharf. Top of the list for tourist traps in this town, it was utterly deserted - no tumbleweeds, but there were flying newspapers. It was generally a nasty day, one I've tried to forget. The rain and wind made everything miserable. Trying to get back to the airport we were forced to stand outside in driving rain in the park while a clutch of antique tram operators, huddled inside with their coffees, waited for schedule to tick over before allowing the launch of another tram.
Imagine the irony then of cracking the blinds in my hotel room this morning and looking out on a perfect day - a view of the Bay with the Golden Gate in the distance, and in the foreground the accursed little park and tram turnaround where we stood this time a year ago in the bitchiest weather imaginable and cursed the Rain God and his miserable prodigy to the ends of hell and back, all for the want of a single umbrella or a small break in the weather.
But damn, it looks nice out there today. There's a social confidence inherent in San Francisco which is almost completely vacant in Vancouver, ever the petulant younger sibling of Toronto. Maybe we should move here. Maybe, maybe.
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