Valma "collects" houses, she can't afford to buy tham straight out so
instead she claims that they are hers but she allows the people living
in them to stay there.  So everybody is happy.  In San Francisco we
collected more houses than in the rest of the known world.
                              The area in
which Matthew Tepper lives (and where we stayed) is chock full to
overflowing with attractive and interesting houses, so much so that in
the end Valma had to collect whole blocks.
                                  We didn't see many of the
fans in the city, we spent most of our time just looking at things.  On
the Saturday we took ourselves and a map of the city ripped out of the
telephone book into the city and started walking.  We didn't know what
we would see when we began but as the afternoon wore on we saw a lot of
the interesting things and most of them by accident.  We got off the
tram because a woman told us that a new store was being opened, and
though we were amazed that stores open on Saturday afternoons we went to
see it but didn't stay long.  Prom there Union Square is just around the
corner and from there Chinatown is no distance at all.
                                 Chinatown gets
to be a bit dull after a time, a long street stuffed with shops all
selling the same things so we headed off in another direction which led
us up a steep hill which (on looking at the map) might have been
Russian Hill.  It was steep enough that there were steps in the
footpath.  Odd observation:  as we walked up the steps a man came down
towards us.  We qere walking up the left hand side as Australians
normally do and the man would not allow something like that which
violated his natural instincts so he got off the steps and crossed over
in front of os  so  that he could pass us on his left.  Why would he
want to do a thing like that?
               From the top of the hill we had an
excellent view of the city and the bay but over a distance we saw   
another hill with what seemed to be a water tower on the top.  We  
decided to walk over to it but on the way we stopped in a big park in
front of a church and watched a bit of street theatre.  The hill turned
out to be Telegraph Hill.  The view was even better and we amused
ourselves watching a woman who was too short to use the coin-in-the-slot
telescope and wondered why; all she could see was the sky.  Even more
interesting than the two hills were the houses around them, coming down
the steps from Russian Hill we passed a nice house which had a little
door with the sign "tradesman's entrance". Coming down from Telegraph
on another steep path we passed through some beautiful areas of wild
garden and houses which must be worth a mint.  Charlie & Dena told us
that the person who'd owned their place before them had moved to
Telegraph Hill.  It was the only explanation I would have accepted for
anybody moving from that house.
               We met Matthew at the opera house (when
we found it) and stood through a performance of "Salome" - standing
room tickets for the opera is something I hadn't known about before
and straight after a day of walking we didn't want to know about it.
The opera was alright but late because a couple of the main performers
got themselves stranded in a traffic jam on the Golden Gate bridge -
along with all those people going to see them no doubt.

72