The single older woman traveller departs nervously [S.O.W.T.]

So here I am. A single middle-aged female, about to be let loose on the world.

A Baby Boomer,  frantically keeping up, with my generation Y children and so many changes. Goodness, wouldn’t life have been different if I had an iPad in the 60’s and 70’s!!! Think of all those rendezvous I could have had, instead of hanging out in the hippy hovels of Adelaide waiting for another stoned hippy to get on his (or her) bike and maybe find their way to your bluestone villa… How many bluestone villas have I turned up to and everyone was out, trying to visit you! Now if only, we all had iPads then!

But, no-one had money then as we revelled in our poverty, brown rice and lentils adorned in tie dyed flowing robes – actually they were old nighties from the op shop! No coffee society in dear old Adelaide then!

But I digress, now life has sped ahead 40 years –and here I am divorced and about to take my first trip overseas on my own. This is not my first trip overseas – but is most definitely the first one on my own.  And YES I am shit scared. This old hippy-liberated independent female of a certain age, definitely does not want to travel on her own.

So, how do I find myself in this position? It started a year ago, while I was lying in my hospital bed recovering from a very painful and unpleasant bilateral knee transplant. It was a small country hospital with no sound insulation.  I was forced to overhear loud, “bogan” mobile telephone conversations – I think the whole town was deaf, especially when the extended inbred family and the footy teams turned up to cheer up dear old dad or mum and thought it would be a good idea to scream loudly in the corridors, guffaw and let their horrible children run into your room! It was a bit like the front bar of the local pub. What happened to the good old 70’s when hippies were hippies and  hospitals were quiet? Anyway it was during one of these moments when I decided in a lightbulb moment, this time next year my new knees and I are going to…America.

And off we go… to San Francisco.

San Francisco… not the summer of love, but the spring of biting cold winds.  I knew there was a reason for packing winter clothes, which was hard to justify in Hawaii and the other islands on the way. In fact my luggage is so heavy I am almost embarrassed.

Of course Haight Ashbury in the centre of San Fran town, was the first point of call, because I just love crazies and crackheads. The conversation in a shop with the assistant went like this:

Me – It is hard to see the sizes on these socks ( they were tie dyed)
A – There are no sizes.
Me – Yes there is – on the back it says, small, medium and large…
A long pregnant pause
A – But that is because the small ones stretch…
Our eyes locked…..and no further business occurred….huh, did I miss something?

I felt intimidated on my own in this city, especially when I was hassled by the homeless, and quite shocked at the extent of the destitution.  But you will be relieved to know I managed to buy the most fantastic socks in bright hippy colours with spots and stripes…Yay!

Have you ever been to San Francisco?  Did you feel comfortable as a single older female traveller traversing the streets?