Self had such a good time on Sunday. First of all, the actors and actresses and the scripts were high-octane. And it was so good to see Stella, Tina, Jay, Kerry, and Penny. Penny flew in all the way from New York! Afterwards, we went to the Ferry Building. The day was gorgeous, just gorgeous! We walked around the wharf, and a Dutch woman was kind enough to take our picture. We chatted with her and her boyfriend for a bit. They came from the city of Utrecht. The man had a thick guidebook that said USA on the cover. They were at the start of a three-week vacation. Self told them they must not leave California without driving south on the Coast Highway.
Inside the Ferry Building, there was a gala fundraiser so, disappointingly, all the shops (except for Book Passage) were closed. We tried to get into The Slanted Door and were told it would be impossible to get in without a reservation. We ended up at the building next door, Pier 1, where there was a new Peruvian restaurant, La Mer.
The decor was chrome and blue glass. People were huddled around coffee tables in the lobby, sampling drinks and appetizers. Penny and self tried the cebiche sampler, and Peruvian beer (mellower than San Miguel), and a beef dish that the young Asian couple at the next table assured us was a very authentically Peruvian dish, and afterwards we tried the creme brulee sampler (four different kinds: vanilla, chocolate, mocha, hazelnut).
Self was going to drop Penny off at her hotel on Nob Hill, but at the sight of a series of ascending hills, her courage quite failed her. No worries, Penny said, and hopped out. Last self saw of her, she was energetically hailing a cab, which pulled over immediately. There’s no one who can hail a cab like a real New Yorker. Even when self is in New York and there are gazillions of cabs zooming by on the street, none of them stop for self.
Then, self turned right and found herself in Chinatown. It’s a different place from the Chinatown she’s used to seeing: the daytown Chinatown of crowds and smells and produce spilling over onto the sidewalk. Now, everything was tucked neatly inside the storefronts, the streets were empty of traffic, and self was so tempted to park and just nose around a bit. But the thought of her classes prevailed, and she found Fourth Street and headed home.