Before this trip I always spelled San Francisco wrong, and now I'm pretty sure that I'll never spell it wrong again. Speaking of San Francisco...today was a whirlwind day! We got up early again hoping to get tickets for Alcatraz and even arrived at the pier half an hour before the first tour. Unfortunately upon our arrival we discovered that tickets were sold out until Thursday!! That was disappointing, but it did mean that we had even more time to do other things in the city.
After walking around Fisherman's Wharf for a while and finding Ghirardelli Square (I did it for you Momo), we made our way to Alamo Square. We saw the famous row of Painted Lady Victorian Houses with the San Francisco skyline in the background. You can see the row of houses in the opening credits of Full House and a number movies.
Next, I navigated my way to Golden Gate Park to visit the Japanese Tea Garden. The maps are not drawn to scale for this part of the city and it looked a lot closer than it really was! The Garden has koi ponds, Japanese maples, and bonsai. There's even a bronze Buddha, a Shinto wooden pagoda, a Zen Garden, and an outdoor teahouse. The pictures I saw of it before hand looked really pretty and I'm glad that I found it!
Then I made my way to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood to meet up with Ilona again. While I was standing on the street corner waiting for Ilona I ran into someone that I went to high school with. That was certainly unexpected! For those of you unfamiliar with "the Haight," it the center of hippie culture in the 60s. Our guidebook says, "During the 1967 'Summer of Love,' thousands of young people flooded Haight-Ashbury in search of free love, drugs, and music." You can still find a lot of interesting people and shops in the neighborhood today. Ilona and I found the former residence of the Grateful Dead. I really enjoyed this neighborhood!
Then we made our way back down to Fisherman's Wharf to take a tour of the Boudin Sourdough Bakery (my mom's request). It was a very well spent $3 for the self-guided tour and free samples. I liked watching them mix the dough and section it off for loafs. I got some really cool pictures of the animal shapes they make out of the bread, for example alligators, teddy bears, crabs, and turtles.
The last thing we did today was taking the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to visit with Ilona's aunt and uncle. We went out to dinner and it was a lovely visit.
Tomorrow it's time to hit the road again. I wish that I could spend more time in San Francisco. There are definitely more things that I'd like to see and do. Oh well, tomorrow we're off down the Pacific Coast Highway to LA.
2 comments:
MMMMM....chocolate and sourdough...the perfect day!! I'll bet you were surprised to run into a HS mate? Too bad about Alcatraz, like I said, you swim well enough to be the first person to ever break IN to Alcatraz!
"Back in the day", the Haight was full of filthy, trashy, creepy people; a place you probably wouldn't have liked too much. I get a kick on how they like to wax poetic about it now.
The "summer of love" was actually in Monterrey. Poetic license I guess.
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