Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Saipan Tribune
First of a two-part series
From nostalgic train rides to exploring Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces, reuniting with family and friends, learning history through art and architecture, visiting and revisiting city highlights, or riding a taxicab on the way to the airport with an Egyptian-American driver doubling as a love therapist, there’s always something to love about California.
Taking a 7:16 a.m. train ride was not easy when you’ve just traversed a few time zones the past days and still adjusting to Mountain View’s time zone and temperature. When my cousin and I left the house, my nieces were still asleep but I thought I was also sleepwalking.
She helped me buy a one-way ticket to San Francisco in one of those vending machines at a CalTrain station nearest Stanford University where she works. When my cousin left, it didn’t take long for the train to arrive at the Palo Alto station.
I opted for the upper deck, since I already tried the lower decks two years back. Feeling the rumbling under my feet and wondering about the mechanical processes and the sciences that went with it was just the beginning of almost an hour journey.
Do you remember those movie scenes wherein a person looks out a moving train’s window with a smile in his face? I had that smile, too, but mostly of wonderment, against a backdrop of urban jungles, residential areas, giant billboards, graffiti on concrete surfaces, cars, people going about their ways, and greenery every now and then.
The train ride was a mix of speed thrill and nostalgia, bringing back childhood memories of riding a provincial train headed for Manila. But the comfortable ride aboard CalTrain was too much of a luxury when compared to a particular childhood ride in a humid, crammed, and old box-like train car that humans shared with chickens, piglets, sacks of fresh bananas, coconuts, and other luggage. That childhood train ride seemed like eternity, despite the sensory overload of green rice fields, hills and mountains, barrios, towns, and desolate roads.
Snapping in and out of my nostalgia aboard CalTrain, the names of the places where we made stops were no longer strange to my ear every time the driver announces it — San Carlos, Hillsdale, San Mateo, Burlingame, and San Bruno.
Had I not chosen the limited-stop service, we would have also stopped at eight other stations — Menlo Park, Redwood City, Belmont, Hayward Park, Millbrae, South San Francisco, Bayshore, and 22nd Street — before reaching the final destination of San Francisco.
A ticket inspector was making his rounds. The thought of not being able to show a valid ticket, being fined or embarrassed sent me almost frantically searching for it.
In between sightseeing, I was also glancing at the people around me. Each of them had a story to tell without uttering a word. They reminded me of case studies riding Manila’s MRTs. Back on the CalTrain, one was busy with his Blackberry, while another was working on his laptop as if it were his office. Friends were having conversations in hushed tones, with occasional laughs and shrills, while others were reading either a newspaper or a book. I wasn’t sleepy after all.
In less than an hour, the train was at its last stop at the San Francisco station. The train arrived earlier than I expected, so I started reading a free newspaper while waiting for my friend to pick me up. The headline in the San Francisco Examiner was about a police chief defending his men’s actions during a shootout that left one man dead.
Before long, the rush hour crowd disappeared. A man sat beside me and asked what perfume I was wearing because he said it reminded him of a woman he used to know. I told him I wasn’t wearing any, which he and I knew was a lie. They say one could sometimes be more honest and open to strangers than the people he knows, but not at that moment in the train station. I didn’t really want to strike a conversation with a stranger who is sniffing me. I turned to page 5.
A text message came in. “I’m here.”
It’s great to see a dear friend again. Two years ago, he told me he could never drive in the city but as soon as we both settled in his gray car, everything was revealed and we had lots of catching up to do. The stories and questions kept on coming — what have you been up to the past two years? How’s Saipan these days? How is San Francisco treating you? Nothing beats the power of personal interaction when it comes to catching up with friends, despite the wonders of text messages, phone calls, emails, and Facebook.
We missed our turns a few times while navigating San Francisco’s historic districts. I was happy that he’s happy with the city. And who wouldn’t be happy in San Francisco?
It wasn’t foggy and cold as it was when I first visited the city in 2009. Anyone visiting San Francisco should not miss the majestic Golden Gate Bridge, the city skyline, the Victorian and Edwardian houses, the Fisherman’s Wharf and the view of Alcatraz, the Coit Tower and Lombard Street, among other city highlights.
I still remember the roadside parking, the red bricks and the spiral staircase to two of my friends’ lovely apartment in the heart of the city. The wooden floors, the skylight in the dining area, my friend’s paintings that, to me, have always been a celebration of colors, forms and emotions, the electronic gadgets, and the guest bedroom reserved for me! They were always a gracious host, just as they were back on Saipan.
We were then off to Louis Café for late breakfast, overlooking a windswept shoreline, the ruins of Sutro Baths, and Land’s End, which I partly explored two years earlier. But the café/restaurant was closed for renovation. We weren’t about to waste the view so we took turns taking photos.
A man who just parked his car offered to take our photos together. He suggested checking out the nearby Cliff House which, as its name suggests, also has a spectacular view of the sea besides offering hearty meals. It turned out that the man who took our photos was a manager at the restaurant. We got a free serving of their specialty pastry! You never know.
While waiting for another friend to join us, we had a relaxing walk at the Golden Gate Park, touted as “the ultimate haven away from urban chaos.” Golden Gate Park’s beautiful Stow Lake was an experience in itself. Being the largest of the man-made lakes in the park, it is a popular spot for leisure boating, strolling, and picnicking.
Stow Lake, which serves as the park’s reservoir, is a 12-acre doughnut-shaped lake that surrounds Strawberry Hill Island. We walked the trail that follows the lake’s perimeter, passing the 110-foot artificial Huntington Falls, a Chinese pagoda and the Stone Bridge before receiving the call we were waiting for.
The three of us were off to the de Young Fine Arts Museum where Pablo Picasso’s masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso in Paris were on exhibit.
The over 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints were drawn from Picasso’s personal collection, representing every phase of his extraordinary life and in essence, shaped his artistic legacy.
The Picasso exhibit runs from June 11 to Oct. 9.
As an art history buff, exploring Picasso’s world was one of the highlights of revisiting San Francisco. You could just imagine my excitement that day, finally seeing Picasso’s work in a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit without setting foot on Europe-or at least not yet. “We all know that art is not truth,” Picasso once said. “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”
Art exploration at the de Young Fine Arts Museum was made more meaningful by sharing that experience with a dear friend-an artist whose own artwork is no stranger to exhibits in and outside California. The other person who went with us to the museum set out his own journey.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) is widely acknowledged as the most compelling and groundbreaking artist of the 20th century. This Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and ceramist instilled in our collective consciousness the world of Cubism and Surrealism, the Blue Period and the Rose Period. He produced works addressing history, sexuality and mortality “filled with allegorical and autobiographical associations.”
Picasso startled the world with “Les Demoiselles d’Auvignon,” which experts say has been the first truly 20th century painting with its synchronicity of different perspectives. His defiance of convention in this painting, decried as being “aggressively erotic,” set off shock waves.
If you look at the “Les Demoiselles d’Auvignon,” the figures looked as if they were hewn with an axe and the hollowed-eyed faces became mask-like. One of the figures in the painting was presented from no fixed perspective but was showing her simultaneously from different sides. Contemporaries construed it as the artist’s homage to the shrill world of deformation, deconstructed myth, and “a general attack on the ideals of European art.”
My friend and I were sharing our thoughts about the paintings and the other artwork imposing their presence on us. We were moved by the vitality and fearlessness with which the artist presented his masterpieces for the world to see.
And while most people were focused on the images in the paintings, my friend and I were also looking at the discoloration of the canvass on the sides of the painting and the nails used.
“Excuse me, Ma’am, Sir, please don’t stay close to the painting. You might set off the alarm,” one of the exhibit galleries’ guards told us.
(To be continued)
