The tram. overcrowded, bumpy and hot.
OKAY, I know it is obvious, but, blimey the hills are steep here. Therefore i seem to be taking the tram/bus/underground everywhere and doing as little walking as possible. The hotel is good, although we only just managed to park Jimmy in there underground car park, Si 'dodgy eyes' had to guide me in, it was a bit like 'its a knockout' !!
The next day we headed down hill ( I made sure of that) to the tram terminus, when in Rome and all that. The que was huge, it took us at least half an hour to get on a tram, and to be honest you couldn't see much, it was very cramped and very bumpy ! We ended up in Fishermans wharf, which is about a mile long stretch along the docks with various piers with lots of things to do and see, and loads of 'tat and crap' shops !! We managed to stal out of these.
SEA LIONS !! Thousands of em !!
I had my first meal of clam chowder, it was gert lush, I would advise anyone to try it (except Daniel unless you want him to throw up and collapse in a heap, which could actually be amusing) . The main pier, No.39, was the main shopping and resturaunt area, we carried on past these to the end of the pier to see the infamous sea lions of pier 39. There were so manyy of them, the whole jetty had been given over to them, it was great to watch them, some sleeping in the sun, but quite a lot of them fighting like blokes tend to in order to impress the ladys. caz loved it and we had to drag her away, although she asked Si for a sea lion for Christmas !!
We found another real treat in another pier, this had no advertising or anything so we were lucky to find it.
'Reuter shoots and scores' !!
A wharehouse with mechanical and electronic games from the 1800's like the 'what the butler saw' machines, and 1980's arcade games. It was so cool, and so cheap. We found a mechanical game of football, myself and Caz got very competative as you can see as the one team were in blue and the other in red knitted jumpers !!! I won of course. We were in there for ages.
We didn't get back till late and decided to do food in the hotel as our rooms had a sink, fridge, cutlery and a microwave. And agian that night we had an early night, bed before 11pm !! Load of lightweights we are.
Saturday was one of those days for me that are what travelling is all about. Random, unplanned and surreal.
We decided to seperate for the day, I headed into town and went to a small park with an arts centre next to it.
There are some men playing drums there somewhere.
When i got to the park there was a stage and seating set up and people on stage tuning up. there was to be a free outdoor 'Latino Cuban Jazz' concert that afternoon for a couple of hours. So I stayed and watched this, although I loved the music, especially the Cuban drums, what made it so good was that there were about 4-500 people in the park enjoying it too, young and old, familys, kids playing games and just general everyday community life going on.
Once this finished, I decided to visit an old mission 'the mission delores'. I took the metro there and found it easy enough. I often like to visit cathedrals and churches on my travels, they are very historical and are good for reflecting on things in the quite solitude of them. It was especially piognant to me as the 1st of September is Sallys birthday, and also with MUm not being around anymore (I have sometimes found myself thinking 'I cannot waut to tell R Mu about this).
The happy couple, somewhere.
However, as i entered the church I could hear a service going on, at first I thought 'no problem I'll just sit at the back quietly and reflect', but as i got further in I realised it was a wedding service !! So I did stay, and sat at the back, had bit of think on things, and then the service ended. All the people were leaving in there very smart clothes and there was me in my Bristol City shirt !!! I got some very strange looks until one bloke came up and asked me who I knew, the bride or groom, he laughed when I told neither. I got chatting to him and a couple of the others with him, it was really funny and quite surreal, I told them a little about Pauls and Carols wedding and what that was like. Then I said goodbye and ventured back to the hotel.
Today we are kicking back and chilling, tomorrow we head north along the coast to Fort Bragg, we have decided to not go to Washington state or Seattle as we do not have the time, it would mean rushing everything else. I will try to blog again soon, depending on internet access. cheers folks. Madsimon. x
