What About Bob?

You remember the movie with Bill Murray. Imagine requesting a Golden Gate Greeter through your hotel, a native to show you their city like only they can. Now the twist. His name was Bob. What about Bob? He is a thin framed, bespectacled Jewish man in his fifties who has always lived in large cities. He walks almost as fast as he talks, even faster than me, which is how we managed to see so much of San Francisco on foot in less than three hours.

Due to conflicts in our scheduling, the first time we could meet was on Thursday, May 10 at 5:30 p.m. By this time, we had walked or been transported across a large part of San Francisco but had yet to head south and west. So we hoped that Bob would show us the sights of the Mission District, Hayes Valley, the Castro, Haight-Ashbury etc.

We were one of the last visitors through City Hall that night as they were setting up for a red carpet gala in the rotunda, we popped into Citizen Cake for a brief glimpse of Elizabeth Falkner and Bob did not even stop to sample one of her artful creations, we skirted the Tenderloin, cruised the edge of the Castro and got hip in a Haight sake shop. To slow him down, we offered to buy Bob some food and ended up at Pancho Villa for burritos with half of the Mission residents. The line wound out the door, a guitarist serenaded customers, children danced among the tables and the food was authentic and fantastically filling.