A week ago, when we booked the b&b Willows Inn in San Francisco, we were wondering how to deal with the shared bathrooms after the luxurious living in Vegas. There was nothing to worry about. This place is great.

When we arrived yesterday, tired after the flight from Vegas (we actually missed our first flight, own fault…), our host Alan carried the bags up, gave each a bottle of beer (”it’s happy hour”) and invited us to sit down in the cosy living room. We sat and discussed life, politics, Norwegians and Swedes, the lovely colour of Miss H’s new Spade bag and other important topics with Alan and his colleague Jamie. We felt like home.


The best thing was this morning: after a long night in Castro, we woke up after 11 a.m. Too late for breakfast. Soon after that Jamie knocked on the door and brought us a tray with tea, pastries and strawberries ”because I saw you girls missed breakfast”. Fantastic service!

Like Parker Guest House, this place is located in Castro and is gay-friendly. We love it. You can see transvestites strolling the streets and there are mostly male couples in the restaurants.

The question that we’ve received is, why we straight girls always end up in gay districts, gay bars and gay ’you-name-it’s. We discussed it today at dinner. So – why opt for gay?

”I don’t even think about that. It’s more about going to a place where people have the same way of life: enjoy life, good food, great style, bars… and no kids.”
”And they like Madonna and ABBA, too!”
”Gay men are handsome and it’s easy to have fun with them, since you don’t have to worry about them trying to hit on you.”
”They seem to lack that ’macho gene’ that most straight men have.”
”This is like exploring a new culture. A minority. Hmm… actually, we are the minority here.”
”People here are not so judgemental. We can be loud annd dramatic if we like and the most just think it’s funny.”
”Like this guy I spoke with at the bar. I was theatrical and so was he — we laughed so much! And we had only met!”

Talking about free love: We were shopping and enjoying the sun in Haight-Ashbury today.
That’s the birth place of the hippie movement, and you can still feel some of that spirit.

The hilarious — yet obvious — thing is that many people over here think that we’re more into women than men. This morning, Jamie gave Orvokki a brochure about a local ladies’ evening. Orvokki was near to ask what the point was, since there would probably be no good-looking guys. But then she realised:
”Of course they think we are gay. When Jamie brought the breakfast, she saw that you and Miss H share the bed”, Orvokki said.
”And we both have white gold wedding rings”, we laughed.

So Miss H and I better get used to be considered as a couple.

Or all of us as some strange love triangle. 😀

But I guess nobody minds. This is Castro, San Francisco. Free-minded, as I heard from the guy on the bar seat beside me today.

– laura

P.S. Jamie had just left us the bill and a note: ”Have a memorable last night in San Francisco”. We did. It was mostly about eating, again… I’ll make a separate post about it!