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.