Picture yourself walking in a very important and considerably crowded street, say la calle Real de Jocotenango or la Bolivar, at 1:00 or 2:00 PM right when people are coming back to their buildings after lunch or are still eating at the restaurants or in tables outside them. Say that you just ate and feel dizzy from the weather and from walking a lot, and suddenly two guys are "protesting" completely naked and walk around like it's not a big deal. That's what I call cultural shock.
Call me crazy or bipolar (or if you are a woman you can call me: "Papi", "mi amor", "guapo", etc.), but I love both big cities and nature and so, this morning when I was getting ready my camera was the first object I had near me. When I was on my way, I realized that I wasn't carrying it and it was to late, the car was in the middle of the bay bridge. So Carmen's mother and I were just wandering around the small and beautiful San Francisco.
Those train-like buses that you see on the movies actually exist and they are not just for tourists. One of those cable cars took us to Russian Hill and then we walked to a cathedral. It was a catholic church at first glance, but it turned out to be episcopalian, "catholic in form, protestant in ideology" that is like saying "ni chicha ni limonada". It was interesting, though, to see how the have integrated catholic imagery to attract latin people. The Virgin of Guadalupe was painted in the wall, and I saw a lot of images of her in the cathedral's store, right in the basement. The building was build in different faces, starting after the earthquake/fire of 1906, and is quite pretty.
Walking down that street, and I mean, literally down the street, we find another church, this one was catholic and was right in the corner of the main street of China Town. I couldn't believe how big Mao is for them. Do they know how many people were killed because of him? They had statues of him doing something really close to the fascist salute. For a moment I felt back home with all this churches within a few blocks of distance. This Church was the only building that survived that tragedy of 1906.
In our way down I could please my eyes with all kinds of beauty from all over the United States and probably Europe. French, italians, germans, canadians, spanish... all of them tourists; all of them compulsively taking pictures, just like I would have been! Two girls caught my attention as I was looking at a cable car go. They were twins: same eyes, same bright hair, same friendly smile, same perfection, same dream. One of them looked at me and smile, and I did the same, and our eyes were connected until the light changed to green and the cable car continued it journey.
Then Market Street, the main street of San Francisco. "Yes, that's marijuana" said to my self as I past by a group of young people. This disgusting smell wasn't enough to prepare my self for the next scene. We were waiting for the "little dude walking " to appear so that we could cross the street and suddenly, right in front of us, two guys completely naked are walking like it is no big deal. I guess public full nudity is illegal and offensive for some people. I mean, how would you feel if you are eating, say a hot dog, and a naked guy walks right by were you are, that spot that you have chosen to have a quick meal and relax before going coming back to work? Who know, maybe I'm just another latino who came from a very conservative society, maybe I just need to open my mind (and close my eyes as hard as I can).
Berkeley and San Francisco are both beautiful and very tolerant cities. You can feel the culture in the air. Both are very different though. I was told that Telegraph is this sort of weird street and that many people don't like it. I think it would be premature to say that I don't like it because I've been there once, but it represents just how much tolerant the city can be. The most interesting thing I saw there: there's a music store name "Rasputin".
"How much is this chocolate?", "it's 4.99", "cool, very cheap! I'll have one". $4.99 * 8.
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