If you’re going to San Francisco…

Bring good walking shoes

And an umbrella

Oh, and be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…

We’ve spent the last 2 days traipsing this beautiful city. I love places like this that have real character. Over 10 years ago, Rocky and I bought a little car in New York for $1000 - a Ford Tempo from a dealer who told us “There are no guarantees in life. But I guarantee this car will get you to California”. And it did. We covered a lot of ground on that trip, driving down the east coast, through the Deep South, spending a lot of time in the amazing national parks of the Four Corner States (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado), then across to the West Coast and all the way up to Vancouver. For the most part, the cities we visited were fairly homogenous, with a few exceptions like New York, New Orleans and San Francisco, which we loved.

There’s so many distinct influences here from the fishing industry at Fisherman’s Wharf to Little Italy in North Beach to the hippy free love history of Haight-Ashbury to bustling Chinatown and San Francisco’s long history as the gay capital of the US. There’s real identity to the people and the setting is so gorgeous. Plus there’s something very reassuring about being near the water again.

Our first day dawned with the welcome message that our missing bag had been delivered so thankfully we didn’t have to subject our fellow breakfast patrons to our traveler’s stink. We’ve been indulging in the good ol’ American breakfast while we’ve been here - eggs anyway you like it, pancakes and waffles. They really know how to do breakfast in this country. I should have fried eggs tomorrow just so I can order them sunny side up or over easy. They are such descriptive terms!

We’ve been promising Guerita that when we go to SF we’d go on a tram (or cable car) so that was the first order of the day. She loved sitting on the outside trundling along the impossibly steep streets and watching the driver pull the levers to control it. Chiq was not so impressed at the noise, but she seems to have adjusted to it now. Our departure point was Ghirardelli Square, which was formerly a chocolate factory (how sad that it isn’t one still). From there you get a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge (which Guerita described as the Sydney Harbour Bridge upside down)

Alcatraz

and other delights of the bay

The tram took us downtown past Lombard Street - a street so steep it is all switchbacks and a staircase replaces the footpath.

Downtown held the delights of shopping, of which we indulged in (a little) and finished off the day with a seafood dinner at Fisherman’s wharf (along with all the other tourists).

Today dawned rainy and cold, so we’ve been pursuing indoor activities like the Aquarium, Pier 39 and Chinese Food (not from Chinatown but great nonetheless. Oh how I have missed Asian food).

A school of fish in the Aquarium

And some Moon Jellyfish

Pier 39 is home to a large number of sea lions who come to feed, sleep and haul out onto the platforms there for them. It’s quite comical the way they bark and play and fight. There was a huge collection of them today, winter being the good months for them apparently.

Tomorrow, we’ll try and hit a few more sites (if the weather improves) before hopping on the plane in the evening. Can’t wait…for the flight to be over!

I’ll leave you with Scott McKenzie’s San Francisco anthem, because we haven’t stopped singing it since we got here.