San Francisco - Hills and Bridges
Golden Gate Bridge, originally uploaded by q-rai.
My first impression of California was "Wow, warm and sunny!". My flight landed about 20 minutes late. Immigration was pleasantly quick and easy. So was customs - when I was asked how much cash I'm carrying and told the guy 60-70$ he just laughed and sent me to the luggage pick-up. (If you keep in mind the horror stories I had been told about San Francisco immigration, this was a very pleasant surprise!)
Less than 30 minutes later, I was outside where Mathias (who arrived exactly the same time) picked me up.
As it was only 2 p.m., we decided to go see the Golden Gate Park and check in to our motel later. We managed to find free parking for two hours, so we took a nice long walk there. Afterwards, we drove down most of Pacific Avenue, till we arrived at the motel. The road itself was quite representative of a San Francisco road: steep hills with pretty, colourful houses and amazing views over the bay area!
The motel was very nice. Since we were certain we would stay there, we managed to get a king size room for the price of a normal one - so on top of being in a very central area (about 15 minutes walk to Chinatown), we also had a very good place to stay.
After some research about restaurants in the area (free wifi!!) and relaxing a little, we took a walk around Chinatown before walking back and having Mexican near the motel. Afterwards I just dropped down onto the bed and fell asleep.
The next morning, we woke up rather early. After breakfast, we walked to the cable car museum to have a look at the machinery, a bit of the city's history and some old cars. Afterwards, we walked around Chinatown and had a nice lunch before walking up to Fisherman's Wharf. At Pier 39, we saw nice sea lion and crab statues, live sea lions and, of course, Alcatraz. The view from the pier was very nice!
After walking around for a bit, we wanted to take a photo of ourselves in front of the sea lion statue. A young woman who walked by offered to take it for us, so I gave her my camera...but we both fumbled and it fell - right on its lens :( Poor thing!! The lens didn't move any more...
I couldn't really be angry at the woman because she just wanted to be nice. But I really needed a visit to Starbucks. (There was a Ben&Jerry's right around the corner but I only saw it afterwards.
The coffee wasn't enough to raise my spirits, but we went on to the cable car station anyway and watched how the cars were turned- We then went down to Pacific Ave with the Hyde line. It was a very awesome ride and I wish I could show you nice photos but I only had my mobile phone at that point.
Back at the motel, we picked up our car (they actually let us leave it there for free!!!) and Mathias lent me his SLR. That brightened my mood a bit ;) We decided to drive up to Twin Peaks, a place our hotel keeper had recommended for its beautiful views. And he was absolutely right about it! The views were amazing and I must say, I really like all the parks in San Francisco (or Edinburgh.
We decided to go back to Davis via the coast and Golden Gate Bridge. The Pacific Ocean was amazing! We saw a lot of kite surfers there :) On the way to the bridge, we came across something nice: All over San Francisco, there were traffic signs saying "Right lane must turn right - except Muni" (Municipal Transportation Agency). Now, the smudge on that one changed the meaning very slightly.
On both sides of the bridge, there are parking lots. We decided to visit both. On the South side, we only stayed a very short time but on the North Side there was free parking, so we walked a bit on the bridge and enjoyed the amazing view of San Francisco's skyline!
The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. But we had a bathroom break at Vacaville, so I decided to see if I can find a nice pair of Levis. I went in, got asked by the shop girl what I wanted, told her my preference and (German) size and she gave me a pair of jeans which fit just perfectly. :D I ended up buying two pairs - for less money than you pay for one pair in Germany!
Also, I uploaded a whole bunch of photos to my flickr account. :D