Despite the hundreds of miles we had to walk to get to Stoli's, we still arrived early, so we explored the famed Castro on our own. Both of us had been here previously, but not together. It's quite an impressive strip of gayness, although in the morning it loses some of its impact since all good gays are still in bed. There are about thirty cities that I've been to that claim to be gay meccas, with the world's biggest this and that. I think some cities, like New York, have bigger gay areas, but they're more spread out and infiltrated by straights. So completely anecdotally I'd have to say that San Francisco wins for the biggest gay ghetto. Of course I'm excluding Bangkok, which technically should win since it's the opposite of San Francisco, a little straight ghetto around the tourist strip joints of Patpong, surrounded by a huge gay city.