Bioneers is over. Time for backpacking around San Francisco!

So Bioneers is over, technically. The point is that, in our heads, it isn´t. We have to carry the message on and live it and spread it and change the world.
On Sunday night, we had a last communal dinner, all five of us. We boiled a rich soup with lentils and potatoes and lots of kale. We cleaned up and we packed. The next morning, Danielle, Nadine, Charlene and I got on the ferry to the city. Vanessa didn´t come with us; she decided to stay at her sister´s house for a few more days. Charlene, on the other hand, continued on towards Berkeley. So suddenly it was me, Nadine and Danielle, the three of us in San Francisco, trying to figure out the public transportation system. Three girls with backpacks alone in this great West Coast city for three days.
We decided to stay at the cheapest hostel in town and to walk around and explore the parks and the museums and the streets.
We’ve begun to see everything from an environmentalist perspective. The first thing that we took a picture of in San Fran was a compost bin.
They have compost bins here! We had to do serious work to install a couple of those in the Retreat at Vassar, and it was a big deal, whereas here people compost everything possible, everywhere. Also, the transportation system. It works! You can get anywhere in SF by means of a trolley bus that says zero emissions vehicle on the side. Some of those also display ‘save nature’ messages in English and Spanish. An ad on the outside of one bus encouraged people to only do laundry when they have a full load.
Anyway, Nadine and Danielle and I took our meager luggage and got on a bus and traveled from the corporate part of town, through the hip part of town, all the way to an overlooked Latin neighborhood. We entered the dubious El Capitan hostel, allegedly an old 1906 theater building. It costs about 17 bucks a night, and looks dingy and worn-down. It’s just what we wanted - a place to crash for non-pretentious gals like us. Plus, there are good, cheap Mexican restaurants and thrift stores in the area.
We left our stuff in the room and we decided to walk. San Francisco is such a walkable city. Palms line the streets and, since it´s very hilly, you get great vistas of the parks and the architecture below and above you. On every corner, there are tiny cafes and grocery stores that sell things like freshly blended cranberry-pear juice. A McDonald´s is harder to find than local, organic produce. People here know how to live. One special place that lights up the entire city is the Castro - a neighborhood famous as the center of LGBT culture. Rainbow flags line the streets there, and the people look fabulous.
It´s fascinating how much and how good street art there is in this city. We saw a huge mural of funky flying houses – a dream city where you can slide down along a pipe to your friends’ place. We were also fascinated by a women´s center whose entire exterior walls were covered in flourishing images of diverse women and girls embracing each other, and of suns, and flowers…
It seems that, in San Fran, civil society – that wonderful concept many of the speakers at Bioneers talked about - is happening. People here talk to each other while they wait for the bus; they unite with their neighbors and paint images of a better world on their walls, and they compost, and they want to progress together. As we learned at Bioneers, to live better, we have to work together. It´s all about grassroots political engagement. Ah, this is the kind of city I want to live in. A sunny, bright city of mural artists and community organizers and hipsters who sell organic fruit smoothies during the day and gather to campaign against ocean pollution in the evening. You may say I’m a dreamer, but, man, I’m not the only one. Here, in San Francisco, you can feel some of that 60s vibe down the block.