Marching to the beat of the Beats in Little Italy.

When people think of North Beach two things come to mind. 1. Little Italy 2. The Beats.

In the late 1800s thousands of Italians came to North Beach due largely to the proximity of the docks and fishing wharves and in the 1950s North Beach became the center of the Beat movement.

Just like most every other part in San Francisco, parking in North Beach is terrible and worse of all it's expensive! Getting over my fear of public transportation is definitely on my to-do list this semester. On Friday night I parked in the North Beach Parking Garage, which is unique in that there is a fortune in every stall. My fortune read, "Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned," which I of course nterpreted as journalism.

As my friend and I made our way to the Beat Museum, I noticed that for the most part people seemed rather friendly. The Beat Museum is a bit small, but very interesting and full of photos and literature that helped shape the Beat generation. The price was also reasonable, costing $4 for students which included a small theater that showed a documentary about Jack Kerouac.

The Beat Museum is located on Broadway, which is also home to a variety of strip clubs. Promoters tried persuading us to go in by offering my entrance to be free of charged, but we passed and instead headed over to City Lights Bookstore on Columbus.

City Lights is a fantastic bookstore that has two floors. The first floor has a variety of topics ranging from feminism to fiction, history, art, etc. and the second floor has poetry. There I found myself reading Marquis de Sade and taking notes of upcoming events, such as readings and poetry nights.

When I went back to North Beach on Tuesday, the atmosphere was completely different than from that of Friday night. A lot more local residents were seen chit-chatting inside coffee shops and browsing the stores. I went inside the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi, where I engulfed all of its elegance and beauty and even (to my surprise) prayed. Later, when I walked back down to my now favorite bookstore, City Lights, an older Italian man called me his girlfriend and gave me lovely compliments. It reminded me of the old classic movies I used to watch with my mom that took place in Italy. Back in the day, it seemed that Italian men would compliment women like there was no tomorrow. I won't lie, it was a nice ego booster.

All-in-all North Beach is a great neighborhood, filled with culture, diversity and best of all poetry and art!