San Francisco Stopover 2006

On my way home from BrainShare in Utah, I had an overnight stop in "The City on the Bay", San Francisco. I was determined to do all the tourist traps I had seen on TV and movies over the years. I arrived early on Saturday morning during some grotty weather. Luckily for me the showers soon cleared and I was able to enjoy the city in sunshine. I took a bus tour which purported to show the "City Highlights". The double decker bus was crowded but the views were good. The main reason for choosing this tour is that it crossed the Golden Gate Bridge.

This view is looking back across the bridge towards the city of San Francisco. The image was kindly snapped by a couple from Connecticut I met up with (I swapped seats with the wife so that they could sit together) who were very familiar with New Zealand as they travelled regularly to visit friends in Akaroa. The bus driver was an amateur poet and writer named "Welvin" who regaled us with his poems and pitched us to buy his book about San Francisco (US$19.95 with autograph included free - I didn't buy one). If you go to San Francisco, go to the hills called "Twin Peaks". You get great views of the city from there. Unfortunately, my photos just show a hazy blob of city in the background.

The other big tourist destination in S.F. is Alcatraz, so I booked a tour for the Sunday morning. The day dawned fine and cool. perfect weather for a boat cruise to a prison (which is now just a tourist attraction run by the National Park Service). Getting out on the Bay was well worth it. Got to see the cells of Al Capone and "The Birdman". They were just cells, no biggie. The self-guided audio tour was well worth it though, telling the story of Alcatraz up until it was closed. It was quite neat seeing everyone looking in the same directions and knowing what part of the tour they were up to.

NB. You'll notice a fair few photos in my blog featuring my ugly mug extra large in the forground. As a solo traveller I developed a one handed self-protrait mode of photography so that I wasn't constantly bugging strangers to take photos for me. I need longer arms to get more scene and less me.

Other places I visited were "Fisherman's Wharf" where a colony of sea lions hang out at Pier 39 (just behind all the restaurants). I suspect that even though it is illegal to feed the sea-lions, the restaurants do it anyway to keep the sea-lions there (and attract the hungry crowds who come to watch these pinnipeds at play... mostly sleeping actually). You can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background if you look closely. I recommend the "Seafood Chowder served in a Sourdough Loaf" speciality dish at Fisherman's Wharf. Yum.

I spent most of Saturday night trying to catch up with some other Kiwi BrainShare attendees who were also staying in SF for a few days, but had no luck. They didn't get my messages left at their hotel until Sunday. So I ended up dining alone (sob..)

A trip to S.F. wouldn't be complete without a ride on the cable-cars. (Ding!-Ding!). The streets of San Francisco (a Quinn Martin production) were layed out in a square grid regardless of the terrain. Therefore there are a lot of long, steep, straight streets. In NZ we would just build roads to the contours of the terrain (e.g. Wellington). To navigate these streets they had to invent systems like the cable-cars. I walked from Fisherman's Wharf back to Union Square once just to show how tough I was. I was knackered at the top of the hill and kind of staggered down the other side. After that one time, I stuck to the public transport.

Another well known feature of SF is Lombard St. This is a street with one section near the top of the hill being so steep that they had to build switchbacks to allow horse-carts to negotiate it. I don't think it is quite as steep as Baldwin Street in Dunedin, but it would be close. On Sunday, it seemed to be a very popular pastime to drive down the twisty section of Lombard St.

After finishing up my touristy adventures, I shuttled out to the airport allowing 3 hours to get organised for my flight. The airport was pretty much deserted and I was through the check-in and security procedures in 30 minutes. Wow! I will never travel through LAX again if SFO is an option. It was just so much better than the zoo that was LA. I also met up with yet another group of Kiwi BrainShare attendees who had also chosen to travel home via SF. This gave me someone to talk to for the next 2 hours before boarding the Air NZ 777 fo the trip home. I had a row of three seats all to myself so I actually got some sleep and arrived home at 5:30am in good old NZ. Cleared baggage, customs and immigration in 20 minutes. Excellent. Welcome Home.