10:49 am Thursday, 2 August, 2007
Aug. 2, 1873: San Francisco’s First Cable Car Conquers Nob Hill
This caught my eye as one of Wired’s headlines this morning. The cable cars were easily one of my highlights of San Francisco if not the entire US.
Archive for the 'San Francisco' Category
San Francisco
6:30 pm Friday, 16 March, 2007
It has been snowing or raining without pause all day. It’s cold outside and I have the heating on (low, but still on). So it’s odd to have been sitting on my couch using some skin cream on sunburn.
So to cover the past week in short, San Francisco is a great place. I’m not sure what I was expecting from it but it really did impress me. It had a character that I just hadn’t seen in any city I had been to before. It’s clean, it’s pretty, it’s laid back and it’s just so easy to get around. I must admit I had a slightly different approach to it than the last few places in that while I had things there I wanted to see and do, I had actually extra time rather than the rushed must do everything of NYC. Also getting work out of the way early and knowing what was happening with me took some stress away.
So anyway I did a ton of walking on the Saturday. I took the cable cars (so awesome) down to Fisherman’s wharf and then set out towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Everytime I’m back by the sea with a beach I remember how much I love ‘em and how much I’d love to live near the sea again. So it was a nice walk, an absolutely beautiful day and tons of photos along the way. When I got to Fort Point directly under the bridge I spent a most enjoyable couple of hours sat down taking photos of the surfers, chatting with people passing by and just enjoying the lovely day that it was. The soundtrack to the walk was U2’s beautiful day and sitting there, it was one of those moments where the line What you don’t have you don’t need it now simply says it all.
Then up, across the bridge and to a couple of the viewing points and then back across the bridge. As you can imagine there were hundreds of photos during this part alone. I remember reading a rather excellent article that I think Burge linked to sometime in the pat few years about how it wasn’t rare to have a seconds thought about throwing yourself in front of a tube train as you heard the approach. I was expecting something like that while crossing the bridge. There were suicide hopeline signs and phones on many of the pillars across the bridge but never a thought of I wonder what that would be like passed through my mind as I walked. Then again, I imagine it’s a pretty easy way to do it. Anyway a most enjoyable day out walking, every so slightly tiring.
That night was off down the mission district for drinks with local Vites Jason and Dave Robson. The latter of whom tried to poison with some awful shot that lead to an oh my god the world is spinning moment around 1am. Still a good night out in a decent bar and fun was had. Sunday was more walking around, nothing too major lots of cable car riding and a couple of the transport museums with a late evening showing of the glorious 300 because I wasn’t in the mood to hit the hotel bar.
Monday morning I went off early to Alcatraz. It was somewhat disappointing I must say. Because of the bird sanctuary a whole lot of the island is closed off and there is very little to walk around. Sure there was the cell blocks and that was good but there wasn’t as much space to wander and see everything which was annoying. I’m glad I did it but I guess there has to be a balance between the tourist attraction and the wildlife preservation.
After that I took a bay cruise and this time took lots more photos of the Golden Gate Bridge from underneath and then more along the waterfront and other such things. All fun.
That evening, I met up with Dave Robson again for dinner in a small local diner and then into the Castro theatre to see The Rules Of The Game and experience an old American movie house complete with organist pre showing. The movie was way more enjoyable than I expected and so twas a decent night out. I took the long route back to my hotel riding the cable and street cars and generally checking out the city’s night lights.
So onto Tuesday. A little mixed, Chinatown followed by the Financial district and then up to Coit Tower for views over the city. This was particularly nice. Annoyingly all glassed in but clean glass for the most part so most photos came out ok (most still to be posted). Being fairly tired from all the walking at this stage I decided to take one of the hop on/off bus tours. It was…okay. Nothing great and I had seen a chunk of the sights but the driver was a Dubliner and we spent a while chatting and he pointed me towards a few places to check out. So not so bad at all.
Finally Wednesday following several people’s advice I took a ferry across to Sausalito which despite being a short hop across the bay was pretty much a small country town. A nice lunch, followed by a nice couple of pints of Guinness while chatting to the barman and it was just quiet. Back across to the city to realise that I had about 2 hours to kill before heading to hotel to collect my bags and onto the airport. So there was nothing else for it but to sit on the beach and read. I’m not a beach holiday person but there are times when just sitting and reading for a little while works well.
An overnight flight back…well I still need to catch up on my sleep. Tons more photos to be posted, I hadn’t actually sat down to write about SF but that’s what seemed to happen.