Work Tales, Part II

Clare has been jetsetting, as usual... San Francisco one week, Limerick the next! Tonight she's called me from Gatwick Airport, where her Ryanair plane seems to be blocked from the runway by an Aer Lingus plane (the Ryanair pilot would take delight in telling you that, I'm sure!) Such is life in the world of seafood training, etc, etc. So here's a little trip report that Clare sent to me from San Francisco (and I found rather amusing)...
"Had some problems getting onto the net, user issues as you would say! The weather was pouring rain last night - I thought I was in Dublin. Both flights (to San Fran) were empty and I had 3 seats all the way. I did MBA work, read magazines and didn’t get toxins at Newark (this refers to Joe's little food poisoning incident at Newark Airport last October, please don't ask!) The conference oragnisers had sent emails warning about not to walk around here at night and I thought they were being paranoid Americans but they were right. I'm sure I saw 2 homeless people in the lobby at 9pm and a woman straight out of ‘Pretty Woman’ in the lobby and again later in the hall near my room. Hispanic, large, high heels, loads of makeup and very short skirt. Almost laughable really. The hotel is very ‘LA Confidential’. I thought its best days were probably around 1951 or so but I read the hotel blurb and its heyday was around the 1890’s. One of the few buildings to survive the earthquake intact and became the City Hall for a few years after 1906 or whenever the big earthquake was. Whilst eating ‘breakfast’ at Starbucks, in the hotel lobby, I watched the homeless go thru the bins at 10am this morning. The hotel blurb in the rooms has 2 pages on security, 1 page on fire safety and 2 pages on earthquake safety - during and after...
I caught the BART to Sunita’s place (ex flat mate from Brisbane). It was the train to ‘Dublin’, would you believe? Sunita lives in a ‘transition’ neighbourhood in Oakland - loads of Central American families going to Mass, artists taking over factories and making real loft apartments - not a developers version of loft apartments... mosaics where graffiti used to be. Her husband was the architect on the apartment block where they live, so they got it cheaper. But the mortage on one wage is still tough, so Sunita was back at work 3 weeks ago and her Aussie mother-in-law is here for 9 months looking after their baby son. But they'll make a fortune in a few years when the neighbourhood turns white and professional. That said, M-I-L, Chris, says the drug deals regularly go down at the train station. We had breakfast - all healthy and no eggs benedict. Chris says I have a hint of an Irish accent. Hmmm, I doubt it! Chris lived in Cork for a while 4 years ago. So we swapped Irish stories...
Sunita says that San Fran & Manhattan are the only 2 places in the USA that don’t expect a recession and house prices are not collapsing. But her husbands company (architects) sacked a bunch of people last Friday and he's working Sunday and regularly doing 90 hour weeks. The TV here has ads for 1000 houses being auctioned next week in Modesto/Fresno, etc. (well outside San Fran), and all those places behind LA that are repo houses...
Reading the papers - there is more support here for Obama than Hillary. No one cares about the Republicans, but this is San Fran! It's Tet today, the Vietnamese New Year. So I'm off to find some Pho in a few minutes. I could go to a Superbowl party with the fish types, but I can’t miss Tet when it's about 2 blocks from the hotel. Bugger the homeless. etc...

And later...

I found the Law & Order channel on TV. This area is definitely the homeless epicenter. They're everywhere - lying on all the streets, sitting everywhere and there is diversity there as well. Men, women, black, white & Asian. Can you believe homeless Asian women? I don’t think I've ever seen that before. And I can now see why people thought I was homeless in 1999 - the homeless here have backpacks and sleeping bags and when you see them from a distance they do look like a group of backpackers. Some are quite young...
Tet was very interesting - very few food stalls. Only those weird jelly things, a few red bean buns and one Hawaiian kebab stall. Mostly stalls selling: dodgy Viet DVDs, plastic & glass things from a plastics factory in the Mekong delta, Viet charities, Uni scholarship programs, newspapers, nail places and florists. There was a big concert of some Viet band that was fairly huge. But the weirdest thing was the audience was 99 % Viet. A few hispanics and a few white men with their Viet girlfriends/wives. Only saw 2 other white women. And around the corner was a big YHA hostel. But it would seem no one from the YHA went to Tet ????? Found the Pho shops. Little Saigon is about as big as Darra - that’s all. I popped into a couple of shops - one selling loads of weird jellies and other meat products - not in refrigeration! Gave them a miss. Then to the little supermarket on the corner. Found a rack of Kettle Chips. Loads of different flavours. Bought 3 types of chilli chips - Spicy Thai, Island Jerk & Buffalo Bleu. Found a farmers market on the way back...
On Monday night we saw the Deadheads For Obama - the Grateful Dead got back together for a concert for Obama and all their supporters were walking around with signs, etc. No stickers for sale though :( Bill was down at the seafront in a building doing a live telecast to Hillary - in another state - for supporters to have a chat. We went to a fish factory for drinks & crab, then off in a cable car to Chinatown with the conference organiser, who grew up there. Nice enough dinner of Cantonese & Szechuan cuisine. Most others thought it was exotic...
Tuesday arvo I escaped and did tourist stuff - seals, aquarium and Fisherman's Wharf. That night was the conference dinner - okay food, terrible speaker. A few of us went to the bar and told our own after dinner auditor stories. Up again at 4am to go to the ‘seafood markets’ that didn’t exist. I did see some trawlers, seals, giant seagulls & rats. Then did my talk and dashed for the airport...
(Sorry, no photos from San Fran, didn't take the camera)