I’ve decided to start riding buses in numerical order. Amazingly enough, the 1 was first on my new list.

It’s called the 1 California, although that name is slightly misleading as it begins on Geary for about a block. Admittedly, I began four stops in where free parking is plentiful at 30th and California.

I always thought that the outer Richmond would be a boring neighborhood to live in and automatically passed the apartment listings in this area. It turns out that there are a lot of restaurants and other business mingled with the adorable houses in the area. I will definitely consider this neighborhood during my next move.

One of my pet peeves riding the bus are inaccurate nextmuni signs. The most frustrating ones are those that count down, five minutes, 3 minutes, 1 minute, arriving, and end with no bus in sight, only to repeat the cycle. On Halloween last year the sign was doing that for the M line (a light rail located in the median on a busy street), and we only figured out after about half an hour that they were running buses in its place, which picked up from another location. This time the sign was just malfunctioning.

Eventually the bus did come, and four stops in there were already ten people, two of whom managed to find time to lay out their whole Chinese food spread and start chowing down. On one hand, it smelled delicious. On the other hand, were those tentacles? I was happy to find that my transfer was good for more than three hours so that I wouldn’t have to buy another ticket back.

We zoomed down California, disregarding traffic laws like pedestrian right-of-way, literally blowing through crosswalks with pedestrians in them and WAY too close to the bus. But we were making good time!

The bus got more and more crowded as we got closer to Chinatown. One brilliant rider had the right idea:

How many times have I wished that I didn’t have to hold the nasty pole on the bus but not been able to avoid it. Duh? What an obvious solution to a common problem!

As we made our way down California through Laurel Heights the houses started turning spectacular. There were Victorian and Edwardian masterpieces that made me drool. We zig-zagged northeast until we ended up on Clay, traveling downhill. I slid forward on my seat as we traveled further down. A rider got on and stumbled to the back of the bus; the hill was so steep she had trouble climbing up the aisle.

The neighborhood changed from Pacific Heights to Nob Hill to Chinatown. One of my favorite things about San Francisco is that there are so many unique neighborhoods tucked so closely together. The character changes in an instant. On one block the spas and boutiques dominate. Three blocks later the signs are in a totally different language.

A side story:

A year or two ago I was with my boyfriend and a friend at Fisherman’s Wharf to see an art gallery. We drove to near the Embarcadero station to pick up a fourth person we were meeting for dinner. As we arrived she told us that we had to park because there were wild parrots all over the place. They were the famed wild parrots of Telegraph Hill. We pulled over and parked and walked across the street to a small park. It was dusk and there were parrots everywhere. Hundreds of them, it seemed, hanging from tree branches, rolling around on the ground playing with each other, squawking like crazy. I held out my arms and, in the single best moment I have experienced in San Francisco, a parrot landed on my shoulder. It was a magical day and I could never located exactly where that park was again.

Now, back to the bus ride (I hope you can see what’s coming):

From a block away I could hear a sound so magnificent I didn’t allow myself to believe it. There was a squawking so loud it filled the entire bus and my entire brain. I wondered, with disbelief, if this bus route I didn’t research very well but picked because it was #1 was going to take me to what I’ve thought about so many times. I got off the bus at the end of the line with half a dozen other people and followed my ears.

I saw pigeons flying around and another small bird. I didn’t see any parrots. Disappointed, I still approached to see what kind of bird could be SO loud. Just then a pair of bright green parrots swooped down in front of my eyes as people around me pointed. There were parrots. There were dozens and dozens of wild parrots. It was a dream come true.

Unfortunately, my camera is in Israel with my boyfriend, who is abroad for a few months. All I had was my iphone without a zoom and some very tall trees filled with parrots. I tried to get a shot, but it didn’t quite work. This tree is full of black dots. In reality those dots are bright green birds with crimson heads, most more talkative than I am (and that’s saying something).

If you want to catch the magic, I recommend going to the corner of Clay and Drumm at dusk.

I sat under a purple tree trying to get a better shot of the green in contrast. I tried very hard to ignore the homeless couple arguing nearby, praying they would ignore the lone woman with her iphone out at dusk in a park. I pushed my luck too long and the woman started to approach me. “Martha! Martha! Martha! Martha!” the man yelled after her, and she ignored him, walking straight towards me. I walked away calmly, realizing at that moment that I left my pepper spray in my other purse. She gave up pursing me after 500 feet, walking back to her partner. Thank God.

I walked around the corner to the beginning of the route and boarded along with 50 other people. I got the second to last seat on the bus, next to a fellow carrying a duffel bag and a backpack full of sharp, hard edges. I discovered that because, contrary to standard practice, he put his backpack on the back of my seat (on second thought, I guess that is standard practice on Muni). I leaned forward, which worked for about four blocks, before we started an ascent up one of the steepest streets in San Francisco. I pulled myself forward, struggling to keep the  stabbing pain out of my back. My butt slid back and I hunched forward, breathing down the necks of the people in front of me. Sorry about that, random strangers!

He got off none too soon. And before I knew it, so did I.