In Which Jaime Finally Posts Things She Wrote a While Ago

So where did I leave you all last time? Saturday night, I believe it was.

Reasonably soon after I got here I used my extensive knowledge of the internet to google "San Francisco Folk Club" and see if there was anything much happening about these parts in the way of a folk scene. It's been a fairly decent part of my life back home, so I figured it would be neat to see what it's like over here. I found a little website, and discovered that they were having a little campout thingamy over Labour Weekend (we just had Labour Weekend here). So I sent off an inquiring email and ended up going down for the Saturday night.

Due to the football taking forever, and my own disorganisation with packing, cooking, finding maps, getting distracted and the like, I set off a little later than anticipated. It was at a boy scout camp, way out near the end of a very long, hilly, windy road that I enjoyed driving down a little too much. It was a very pretty place, and I wish I had taken more photos, but alas, it got dark too quickly, and I ended up not staying until it was light again.

I was a bit too late for the potluck dinner that they were just cleaning up from, but I found someone to give me a general rundown on what was happening, where I could put my things and all that, then found a perch to eat some of the quiche I'd made. There were a few big scout tents with cots (American for wooden bedframe with a mattress on it) that were largely unoccupied, so instead of bothering to put up the tent I'd brought with me, I chose an empty one with not too many cobwebs and dumped my stuff in there before heading down to the open mic they had set up for the evening.

It was somewhat similar to the folkie things I'm used to in New Zealand, but distinctly different, too. Less Traditional English stuff, and more American songs. And of course, the distinct lack of New Zealand songs, but that's all to be expected, really. I don't think I recognised any of the songs at the open mic (although I think I might have once heard the rather lovely one about Arnold the armadillo, who falls in love with a concertina) but afterwards I found a lovely little jam session around a campfire, and I knew about half of those songs.

It didn't take too long for them to figure out that I was a visitor from New Zealand, and start trying to coax me into singing some kiwi songs. As I'm sure most of you are aware, I do not sing in public. Ever. Many have tried, and to that point, none have succeeded. But they were persuasive, and wanted to hear New Zealand songs for interests' sake, as they genuinely did not know any Kiwi songs. I caved, and sang The Chocolate Song (because if you do silly songs, people pay more attention to the words, and less attention to how badly you are singing them) and Pokarekare Ana (you know you're a long way from home when you sing that song and nobody knows it). I am ashamed to say that I am a terrible Kiwi, and could not provide a translation of the Maori, other than "Something to do with sailing away?" Shocking, I know.

By the time the jam session died down it was about 1:30 in the morning, and upon wandering back to my tent, I decided that I would sleep a lot better back at home, and would thus not need to wake up and drive back quite so early the next morning. By the time I'd packed up all my things, sorted everything out (and been distracted by another song or two) and managed to drive home (Without looking at a map or getting lost!) it was nearly 3am, and I was very grateful for my decision, as the next morning we were headed out to Sausalito Art and Wine Festival!

It was a lovely festival, too! Sausalito is just north of San Francisco, so it took us a little while to make it out there, but we had a lot of fun wandering around, looking at all the art stalls, eating some of the food, and listening to some of the live music. We spent well over an hour lying on the grass in the sun, listening to some very lovely live music in the smaller marquee. It very much made me feel like I was lying outside, listening to some music at a folk festival back home. I also grumbled a little about America and its silly drinking age, as I was surrounded by tents with wine, beer and cider, and on an afternoon like that it would have been just the thing. Much sadness.

I also got my first look at the Golden Gate Bridge, as we drove over it in both directions to get out and back. Very pretty bridge (I do love my pretty architecture), although it is sad that there is so very much traffic going over it. Although that is its primary purpose (looking pretty comes second, sadly), it would be much nicer without all the cars. Practical, I am. It takes a year to paint the whole bridge, and they paint it every year, so a never complete painting job. I don't think I'd fancy having that as a job.

In Which Observations on American Football are Made.

So, the past week. The week part of it was pretty much just daily routines and more settling in stuff. Drove some more, applied to be socially secure, continued getting more orientated with my surroundings and things. I may have some general America observations for you all at some point, but for now, we'll go with specifics of my weekend, which was much more interesting than the mundane routines of my everyday life. I can talk about them any day, most likely when I run out of other stuff to say.

Friday night I got my first opportunity to venture into San Francisco! Judy (my host mum) was going in for a baseball match, so I got a ride in with her and had a few hours to wander about the place before heading back up to the ball park. I didn't really get up to all that much of excitement, essentially just wandered down to Fisherman's Wharf, saw/ate/bought some things, and wandered back, but it was still fun to make it into the city and get a bit of a look around. If you want more details on my adventures that night, check the photos I will be putting up on facebook shortly, or email/skype/whatever me, and ask questions! Actually, you should all email/skype/write/etc. me anyways, because I love to hear from you! And am fairly decent with getting prompt responses out, for the most part.

Saturday a bunch of us au pairs went along to a college football game. Stanford vs San Jose State University. Made myself some awesome new friends (I now have some buddies to watch the World Cup with), got a bit sunburnt, and tried some more overpriced American game food. Not sure what to say about the actual football. It is a completely ridiculous sport, I have decided. Largely because it takes them forever to actually do anything. The first time they stopped the clock was five seconds into the game. And then again about ten seconds later (after the minute or so of getting everyone re-organised). And again another few seconds after that. And I'm not even exaggerating. They honestly play pretty much the entire game like that. I have no idea how it has such a huge fanbase, as watching it is not really all that fun, if you're paying attention to the game.

My impression of the game itself, is a bit like rugby, in that you've got guys running after a ball, and trying to either get it to the line at the other end of the field, or kick it over some sticks in the ground (I'm sure someone is going to be upset at my description of sports, here). There were about three key differences, as far as I could tell.

Firstly, in American football, anyone can tackle anyone, so it's not just the bloke with the ball who's going to get rammed into the ground, but anyone on the same team as the guy who has the misfortune to be holding the ball. Or, in fact, anyone from the opposite team, who looks like he's going to tackle the guy with the ball, or anyone else. Or anyone who is just standing idly by, because clearly he's up to something. This means it takes a lot longer for anything to happen, because there is a lot less passing of the ball, and a lot more dodging people who are trying to kill you in an attempt to give the poor sod with the ball somebody to pass to before he himself gets flattened. It also means that the time the ball is in play at any one time is greatly limited, because of our second thing...

Every time the dude with the ball falls over (generally because about five other dudes have flung themselves at him in desperation to stop him from passing the ball off to one of his friends) the game stops for a bit, while everyone stands back up again and meanders back to where they were standing a few seconds ago. The clock also stops while everyone collects their wits and stand back up again, leading to that whole problem of it taking forever for anything to happen. The entire game seemed to go this way, although we did only stay until half time, so perhaps the second half was better. I doubt it, though.

Can't remember what the third key difference was. They can pass the ball forwards. If, for some reason, someone actually manages to make it ahead of the guy with the ball, without being flattened by some guy from the other team. The scoring system is different, and there are a whole bunch of other things up on the scoreboard which I failed to understand. They have quarters, instead of halves. They don't have beer. Much to the despair of several of our group, as it's a huge sports game in the scorching sun, surely nice cold beer would help with this. (I, of course, am still underage in this country, and would never even dream of drinking any of that terrible alcohol stuff until such a time as I reach an appropriate age.)

Actually, difference three can be the fans. The fanbase is absolutely incredible, and while I certainly didn't find the game itself especially awe inspiring, the experience as a whole was kind of neat, even if I did spend the whole time in the scorching sun, eating not very nice, overpriced food, and watching a game that I don't really see the point of. This was a college game, not even a professional league game, and it was at a stadium that is part of the university, and can seat 50,000 people. And the stadium was reasonably full, too! The fans are all dressed up in their colours, and people camp out for days to be there for this thing. There are team mascots, marching bands, and yes, cheerleaders in very short skirts, too. It's absolutely massive. Even the football teams seem to have way, way more players than they need. I swear each team had at least fifty people, even though about ten of them were ever on the field at a time. Maybe people get knocked out so frequently that each person needs an extra four reserves? I do not know.

It's definitely an experience, at any rate, and I met some nice people, and got bits of it explained to me as we went, via various means. Tried to convince the guys sitting in front of us that rugby was better. Not entirely sure if I was completely successful, but they did agree that it takes forever for anything to happen. Apparently it's better in the south, but still just as slow. I think I'll take their word for it.


It is now past midnight, because I am easily distracted by wonderful people, so I will leave you with that for now. Tomorrow I will hopefully share tales of the rest of my weekend, including a night at a San Francisco Folk Club Labour weekend camp, and a trip to an arts festival.