There are a Million Stories in the Big City

San Francisco, with a good pair of walking shoes, is fabulous in so many ways...the views, the food, people watching, shops and museums.  St Patrick's Day weekend makes it all the more interesting!  Ever heard of the Brides of March?  THAT was something I wasn't prepared for!  Dozens of men and women in some form of wedding gown-type attire marching through San Francisco...accompanied by a 5' tall pope...I'm sorry to say no pics of any of those festivities, but a tall gentleman wearing a white tulle skirt with nothing underneath and a bustier thanked us for coming to his wedding....what could we say besides thanks for inviting us!
The bar next to the fabulously funky hotel where we stayed (Hotel Triton) had 160 kegs of Guinness delivered the day before.  Hundreds of green painted revelers, an old fashioned fire truck filled with fire fighters in their dress uniforms and a couple of cops made it a pretty festive Saturday night until whatever time the noise ordinance kicked in...then it was amazingly quiet.
We had great food everywhere we went, from dining alfresco in North Beach to a little cafe in Belden Alley.  We saw the Bay Bridge and all of the city in lights from a place atop a Marriott called "The View"...beautiful!  We had a drink at the Fairmont to see how the other half lives.  And on Sunday, we went to Sausalito for more fabulous views and a wonderful visit with family, whom I haven't seen in almost 15 years!
The part of San Francisco that I didn't like is the part people either really don't see, pretend they don't see, or look away from so they won't see...but it is out in the open in your face if you look:  the people sleeping in doorways, the men who clearly haven't bathed or had medical care in many months, the lady talking very animatedly to her invisible friend.  The dirty, the grimy, the wild-eyed and the passed out.  There were panhandlers who seemed to me to be con artists; there were those who appeared to have been on the streets a long time but were still good natured.  There were some pretty scary looking people and then there were those who truly looked "lost", dirty and vacant-eyed, as they asked for spare change.  It's hard to look them in the eye, but when you do...it's hard to look away.