Day Five: To Market, to Castro (Jen again)

We started off our Saturday morning feeling out the aches and pains from all our steps and stairs the day before. Once we felt human enough, we made our way to the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. The outer ring was a series of artisan stalls with artwork, jewelry, and the likes. Behind that and surrounding the Ferry Plaza were the farmers, food stalls, and baked goods. Adorably, they have a free "Veggie Valet" where you can temporarily check your bags of goodies if you have to much to carry around with you. Despite the many sings indicating dogs were not welcome, there were many furry friends afoot. At one point Trish let out a squeal - I initially mistook it for her potentially being hurt,  but in actuality it was a rather round corgi (who promptly waddled over to receive pets). Trish and I enjoyed some market empanadas for brunch, and some Humphry Slocombe icecream for brunch dessert. It's a thing. Trish ordered the Hong Kong Milk Tea, and I opted for the Harvey Milk + Honey Graham.

Up next was a good old fashioned trolly ride in San Francisco. Trish and I have had many discussions attempting to distinguish between the trolly, the tram, the streetcar, the cable car, gondolas, buses, subways, sky trains, and rail. Please don't ask us about it, we're done. If it moves and we can use our transit pass, we'll get on it. Anyways, off we went on the trolly, which delightfully uses the middle of intersections as stops, forcing cars in all directions to wait. 

We didn't end up exactly where we meant to, but hopped a bus and found ourselves in the Castro District in no time. Known as one of the first gay neighbourhoods in the United States, the streets and stores were decked out in many rainbow flags. 

I'm sure everyone will be shocked to hear we quickly found ourselves inside a bookstore, Fabulous Books, with an impressive selection of LGBTQ books and beyond. 

We made our way to visit the GLBT Historical Society Museum - the first stand-alone LGBTQ museum in the US, which celebrates San Francisco's queer past. The first exhibit was "Matchmaking in the Archives", a project where 25 living members of the SF LGBTQ community were matched with individual whose lives were emerged in the Historical Society's archives. Each participant leaned about their match, and created responses to them. The goal was to help keep past generations from getting lost or buried.

The main exhibit was Queer Past Becomes Present, with photos, document and artifacts telling the stories from the community. It included the clothing that Harvey Milk, activist and the first openly gay elected official in California, was wearing when he was assassinated. The museum had an audio clip from a recording that Harvey had made ten days before his death, specifically to be played in the event of his assassination. It included the line "All I ask is for the movement to continue, and if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." Part of his last message, it echoed his earlier calls for members of the LGBTQ community to come out: "Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all."

In the centre of this exhibit was a piece of one of the two original rainbow flags first raised on June 25, 1978 at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. The flags were made by Gilbert Baker, who had been asked by Harvey Milk and other local activists to create a new symbol for the LGBTQ community for the event. It's the only known remaining piece of the two inaugural rainbow flags. 

When we left the museum, a gentleman standing outside asked us what we had thought. As we chatted, he shared that more historical items, including personal belongings of Harvey Milk could  be accessed at the local library upon request. He had been there recently to see Harvey's day planner, as he had been trying to confirm the date in June 1978 when the two of them had a meeting. The gentleman, Arthur Corbin, shared personal stories around his activism as part of the LGBTQ community, along with food and sightseeing recommendations as we spoke. It was a wonderful encounter, difficult to capture here, and we were so fortunate that he took the time to speak with us. 

We decided our next few destinations would be around Arthur's recommendations. Spike's Coffee and Teas was our first stop for always needed caffeine, and then on to Cliff's Variety (a family-run hardware/homegoods/etc stores established in 1936 and considered a legacy business in the Castro District). We then headed out of the neighbourhood and made our way to one of Arthur's dining recommendations, Mamahuhu (it was delicious). We may have passed another bookstore along the way, Folio Books, where Trish made another purchase (Book count total: 10 books, somehow Trish has bought more books than me, but she's confident I can bounce back). 

Back at the hotel, we had vague notions of going out for a bit more wandering, but our tired feet and books waiting to be read kept us cozy and relaxed for the evening.