Boudi and Mouse in San Francisco, Part 3

Sea lions!

After we finished stuffing our faces with awesome seafood, we headed down to Pier 39 to see some sea lions. Pier 39 is the touristy one and kind of ridiculous to skate in, since it's made up of boardwalk boards and full of people (with children in prams--and one rude bitch rammed her pram into the back of my legs so I would get out of her way and she could park her child in front of the sea lions, and she kept yelling at me in Spanish. WTF, really). We walked around that one, and then geared up for our Embarcadero skate! (However, the sea lions were pretty neat too.)

The Embarcadero is the waterfront road/pier area in San Francisco, and it pretty much goes from just before Pier 39 down to near AT&T Park (where they play baseball). It is about 5.8 miles all up, but quite flat (since it's all waterfront). It's got tourists galore though, and also cyclists and those weird bicycle-rickshaw cart things. Plus there aren't any barriers to stop us going onto the road or into the water. However, it's considerably wider than the Golden Gate Bridge, so we weren't at risk of running over sock-and-sandaled feet. It's also not consistently paved, so some bits were much smoother to skate on than others which felt like we were getting a nonstop foot massage on a massage machine that was having a seizure.

This is something to look at when you're skating the Embarcadero.

There isn't much really to look at when you're skating the Embarcadero, building-wise. We passed the Alcatraz ferry launch and also a building that was Pier 29 1/2 (where the "/" in the 1/2 was a lightning bolt like in Harry Potter). The busiest part was around Pier 1 and the San Francisco Ferry Terminal where people were actually using the ferries and being tourists and whatnot. However, because the footpath was really wide, it wasn't a problem getting around them. I found familes with gaggles of children a little bit annoying to get around (because they would walk like five abreast or something, and also unpredictably stop or change direction) but even then it wasn't too tricky to manouver.

At the Bay Bridge.

Our endpoint at AT&T Park.

Again, people were really nice and supportive of the fact we were skating. At one bit I had to slalom around a whole bunch of metal grating and some random guy was like "Nice moves!" and another time we skated past this guy that was like "faster faster faster faster YEAHHHHH" which was a bit weird but he was all smiley so, yeah. We also passed lots of people who saw us skating and were really happy and smiley, and of course we smiled back. We stopped briefly at Rincon Park to take photos of us at the Bay Bridge, and then continued onwards to AT&T Park. As we were heading towards AT&T Park, we started having to slow down for clumps of baseball fans (some of which were carrying or towing coolers) and the footpath narrowed a whole bunch and got mega bumpy. I ran out of water, and I had to go into a cafe (which included walking up stairs on my toe stops) to buy more, which I think was amusing and somewhat confusing for the people eating in there. But I didn't stack, so hooray.

I think our skate overall turned out to be over 8 miles, since we looped back.

We skated back to the Ferry Building/Pier 1, and geared down outside. It was pretty sunny so we sat there for a bit and aired out our gear (that is, maybe the blazing sun and the breeze from the bay will make our wristguards non-stinky). Then, a quick walk through the Ferry Building and around the Embarcadero Center Market (where they have specific "no roller skating" signs), and then on a streetcar to The Castro! (I'm not sure what the difference between a streetcar, tram and trolley is, but it is apparently different to a cable car, which is the touristy thing you hold onto.)

Anyway, we took the streetcar down to the Castro area, which is seriously one of my favorite areas of San Francisco. It's the gay district, and everyone there is happy and shiny and there are really cool shops and stores with names that bring out your inner twelve-year-old boy (a nail salon called "Hand Jobs"? Titter.) There's also a good cookie store called Hot Cookie that sells delicious baked goods and underpants/hotpants that say HOT COOKIE right on the crotch. Hee. Anyway, our first stop as we got to The Castro was the Creme Brulee Cart! It's not really a cart; it's a food truck. I love food trucks, but that is another story.

The Tupac. California knows how to party.

Our new friend. Also, he made his own shirt.
We didn't even get his name, so he will be
forever known as Glitter Spats Guy.

Anyway, so we got some really delicious creme brulee (mine was called "The Tupac", heh) and we're just sitting at the streetcar terminus in the garden eating our little tubs of creme brulee and this guy skates past us with the shiniest skates I have EVER seen in my life. Of course, then we had to chase after him and talk to him, but we were still stuffing our faces with creme brulee and he looked like he had disappeared down Castro Street, which was very sad.

But then we saw him come out of the Hot Cookie store, and he was skating towards us! Of course we stopped him and told him he was awesome, and how did he get his fantastic skates and whatever. He actually stopped and talked to us for like ten minutes about how he made his "glitter spats" for his skates--they were velcroed on skate covers over his Riedells, with little pockets so he could put his wallet and cigarettes in them. Then he told us where we could buy glitter spats fabric in the Castro, haha. We told him we did the Bridge and the Embarcadero that day and he was like "Oh, that's so awesome! I love skating in this city!" and then we talked a bunch about the skate culture in San Francisco and also suggested a bunch of skating places too. Whee!

Close up of GSG's glitter spats. They have a velcro
piece on the side and elastic strap up under the trucks, and
under the spats are little pockets over his laces for
holding stuff in.

We walked through the Castro for a bit and came to Harvey Milk's camera store, which is now a human rights centre. By that time, we were pretty wiped from being out skating all day, so we hopped on a bus to get home. Well, we had to take two buses. On the first bus, the guy sitting across from Boudi randomly started talking to us about how he wants to give some girl who was his best friend relationship advice or something, and that almost started a fight on the bus.

He sounded pretty camp, and there was a lady who was sitting in front of him and she was listening to our conversation and mumbling some apparently homophobic stuff and first we were trying to ignore what she said but then the conversation went something like this:

Guy across from Boudi: So anyway, what should I tell her, because she's my best friend and I love her to death but she just can't find a man--
Old lady: Well, maybe you should be with a woman.
GAFB: Nobody's asking you, bitch.
OL: What did you call me?!
GAFB: You're a bitch.
OL: (jumps out of her seat and goes and stands next to him) What did you say motherfucker! I'M GONNA FUCK YOU UP!!

Double runner ice skates.

And all this time everyone's like sitting in their seats thinking, "Whoa, what the fuck!" and this old lady's jumping out of her seat while the bus is going and yelling at this guy and telling him to step outside and she will fuck him up and the bus is still driving and she's threatening to hit him and everything and then finally the guy sitting across from me is all like "hey, sit down" and stuff and eventually she calmed down and sat down again, and the bus driver actually had to turn around and ask if we were all okay. Wow. But then GAFB started talking to us again, but then almost missed his stop and had to run off the bus and OL was all like "YEAH, THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT." when he got off the bus, and the guy sitting across from me had to engage her in conversation to get her to shut up and whatever.

Anyway, there is a skatey point to this story. To defuse the sitaution, the guy sitting across from me saw that we had skates and then started talking to us about roller skating and how he used to ice skate a whole bunch like 10 years when San Francisco had a bunch of ice skating rinks, and we said roller skates are different to ice skates because ice skates just have one blade and on quads your weight distribution is different and then he started talking about these crazy ice skates with two blades that we could use because the weight distribution would be the same and then asked me where I got my Antiks and I told him that I got them at Cruz, and he was all like "yeah I know where that is; those people there are awesome" and stuff. So yes, look at that, it's the power of skating coming to make people less grumpy and more happy and awesome! Whoo! And then he wished us a good day when we got off the bus.

Chantilly Mace (aka Skater 26). OMG I JUST REALISED
I HAVE WORN THAT JAMMER PANTY AT BAD TRAINING.

So, we were all like WTF WAS THAT when we got off the bus, and then we had to transfer to another bus. It's not like any more random conversations can happen, right? Oh ha. And then on the second bus, the guy sitting across from Boudi there basically saw us and was all like "Do you guys do roller derby??" and then we had a pleasant conversation with him about Skater 26 and how he knew the people that made it until he got to his stop, and he also wished us a good day. How nice.

Then Ze Boyfriend bought us Puerto Rican food for dinner because by that time we were exhausted and starving. And then we watched Die Hard 4 which is an awful movie, but that doesn't matter. And then I discovered I had a mega reverse farmer's tan from my shoulder getting sunburnt and my arms not getting any sun from being in my elbow pads. Also, my chest is really red.