Opening

San Francisco.

Home of steep rolling hills, the golden gate bridge and Alcatraz, homeless people, gays, queers and Mr Harvey Milk, trustafarians and The Grateful Dead.

With earthquakes, continuous fog and a wide array of different and fluctuating climates, this is one amazing and diverse city. Home of the Beats and birthplace of the Hippies, its still considered the liberal bastion of the US. My new friend Dalia lives two doors down from where Janis Joplin used to live and on their steps is a small spray-painted sign that reads: Janis Joplin threw up here. How cool is that.

This city has blown my mind. It's the most liberal place I've ever been. Anything goes. You can be anyone, do anything. I have this amazing sense of expansion in my chest, and everyday it opens a little more. The people I've met here have been the kindest I've ever encountered. Even the homeless people in this city are treated with respect and kindness and it's not uncommon to see someone engaged in a lengthy debate with a homeless person on the corner of the street. These people don't just give you directions, they take you there personally, give you their phone number, invite you for dinner and introduce you to the family. It makes me feel bad because I know that if they were in SA I definitely wouldn't be as kind. As a South African I'm suspicious of pretty much everyone I meet that's a stranger, and I'm not particularly proud of it.

Today was spent with Arthur Pearley, who is a friend of a friend of a guy that I met in NY. As in: I met a guy in upstate New York, who lived on a shared piece of land. On that piece of land was another house that is sometimes housesat by a guy from New York, a guy I never met but spoke to on the phone after Guy 1 thought we should meet. This housesitter had a friend in SF called Arthur who owns a wine shop and had gone to Burn the Man in the past, and so he thought I should go and meet with him . Which I did. Arthur offered to take me wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma, and I didn't fight back.

We spent the day cruising through small wine towns and stopping in at a couple of them to taste. By sheer luck we arrived at a famous winefarm just as the aged owner made a guest appearance. Arthur was totally taken aback when Mr. Grgich himself walked in whilst we were wine tasting. This guy is the father of wine-making in the States and has solid rockstar status over here. I had no clue who he was but he had the most profound air of humility and happiness about him. Later in the day we met another wine maker who had the air of royalty about him, like he was living the most profoundly beautiful existence and his life couldn't possibly get any better. Joy and playfulness just radiated out of this guy.

All and all it was a perfect day. A stranger took me on an adventurous trip to a place I'd never been before, to taste wine and meet the happy locals. It doesn't get much better than this.