First there was Halloween, then the Giants won the World Series. Now it is election day and I just heard all this drumming and yelling so I went outside and the Day of the Dead Parade is passing by my house. Tomorrow the Giants will have a parade that winds its way around downtown. I wonder what Thursday has in store for us?
On Monday I was at my brother's house listening to game 5 of the World Series on the radio but I had to leave in the 6th inning to go to my meditation class. How distracting is that? In the middle of our trance we heard cheers coming in from outside. "A three run homer!" you could hear someone say outside on Valencia Street. It wasn't long after that the city burst. People were screaming and honking their horns. Pretty soon it was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think even though we weren't supposed to be thinking. When I left class I got on my bike and headed around the corner for a bar on 22nd and Mission where my friend the is the bartender. When I turned the corner all I saw was a mob crowding the intersection. I locked my bike outside the bar and walked into the middle of the madness. You couldn't tell how far in either direction the crowd extended. People were going nuts. They were dancing, drinking, yelling, and climbing buildings and street posts. There was an old woman capitalizing on the event by frantically trying to gather as many cans and bottles as she could. People were flattening their cans for her. I was standing there wishing I had a beer and, just then, these two men came up to me, one shook my hand and the other handed me a beer. Then they were gone into the see of orange. Every few minutes a car would work it's way into the intersection and peel out and excite and frighten the crowd. I imagine it is like this every day in Brazil. I ran into a friend and was talking to her when we both heard a noise and turned around. People were running full blast at us. Everyone ran to the sidewalks. Behind the fleeing crowd were the riot police making their way down the street. When they got to the corner they stopped. Immediately beer bottles started exploding around them. I tried to take a picture with my phone but I needed to get out of there so it came out blurry. I headed for the bar. Inside it was warm and cozy and there was a jazz band playing quietly. Outside was the crowd, sirens, and lights flashing. I was there for an hour before I decided to brave the streets. The riot police were still there but the crowd was much smaller. The intersection was between me and my house. As soon as I unlocked my bike the cop cars that were there went screaming off and I made my way through the glass to my home and my bed.
