What do Crabhats, Golden Gate, Chinatown, and Alcatraz have in common? The answer my friends is not blowin' in the wind as the song goes (or maybe it is!) - the answer is three crustaceans and an old crab have landed in San Francisco. Daughter Jennifer, daughter-in-law Janet and good friend Kathy and I are terrorizing the town. And what fun we are having doing the terrorizing!
Lets start at the beginning....if I can remember it. We arrived Saturday at noon and immediately took a shuttle ride to our hotel for the first night. The ride from the airport was nothing less than absolute fear...the driver was crazy and several times I thought we weren't going to be alive to tell the story or even see the city! However, we survived the ride, dumped our bags at the hotel and started off for Fisherman's Wharf, which was a few short blocks away. But first things first, we were all starved. We found a great pub for lunch....Fiddler's Green. We couldn't make up our minds what we wanted to eat so we shared...Banger's and Mash; and Irish hamburger and Irish stew. YUM!
Now we were ready to go see what kind of trouble we could cook up at Fisherman's Wharf. We walked down the street until we got to Pier 39 which is really a tourist trap, but we are tourists, so we strolled through it. We kept loosing each other in the crowd. It was getting frustrating and we needed a way to spot each other...so we came up with an idea. We bought and wore crab hats! Yes, sober and all, the four of us wore crab hats.
Yes, we were sober! And yes, we were able to spot each other in a crowd! And yes, we did attract a little bit of attention. Strangers asked where we got the hats; took our pictures and made comment on "how cute" it was. They were probably thinking we were real idiots, but we didn't care and we were having fun. And we laughed...oh how hard can we laugh!
We had dinner at Aliotto's that night...I insisted! And boy was it ever good! WOW! And we are such party animals that we were crashed at 9:00 p.m. -- done for the day!
SUNDAY
We were up and off for our first tour. We purchased a two day tour from the "hop off-hop on" bus. Our first tour was the city loop. SF is such an interesting, diverse city. We started in Fisherman's Wharf, then through the Embarcadaro, Financial District, the Tenderloin (where we were advised to not walk alone), Union Square and Chinatown, North Beach and finally back to where we started. However, Kathy and I hopped off at Chinatown and had Dim Sum for lunch and wandered the streets there for a while; the other two went on to take the tour of the Golden Gate.
We all met up later in the afternoon as we had to change hotels. But before we did that, we had to go to Ghiradelli Square which was just down the street from our hotel for some chocolate. We had hot fudge sundaes and did a little Chocolate shopping.
I had booked our timeshare for Sun-Fri; then all of us decided we wanted to come in a day earlier, so I just booked a day at another timeshare. At any rate, we loaded our luggage up into a town car (no more shuttles for us and the cost was the same) and we took off for Inn at the Opera which is located right next to the Opera house and Civic Center. However, our driver did take us down Lombard street...the crookedest street in SF. What a street....I have always wanted to drive down it! After getting settled in the hotel we walked a few blocks to an Italian Restaurant where locals go and boy it was good. YUM again.
Up early on Monday (I thought we were on vacation?) and off to pickup our tickets for our Alcatraz tour later that day. Kathy and I took the Golden Gate tour and Jennifer and Janet took the Chinatown trip. The day before when they took the Golden Gate tour they were so cold (we are on the top of double decker open air buses) so Kathy and I prepared and wore several layers of clothing. However, we had a beautiful, sunny, warm, clear day and we were shedding layers of clothing before too long. This tour took us over the bridge; through the Presidio; Pacific Heights, Cow Hollow and Russian Hill. The Presidio is now owned by the National Parks and they are converting many of the dwellings into houses...albeit, very expensive houses. We ended our tour and met the other two for lunch at Fog City Diner. Then it was off to Alcatraz.
Very interesting tour. Having never been in a jail before (any of us) it was all very interesting and we all decided we didn't ever want to reside in one of these. Many prisoners tried to escape "the rock" and only 3 ever succeeded...however, it isn't known if they actually succeeded, or drown trying to swim the icy waters of SF Bay. Alcatraz was a prison for 29 years before it just became to expensive to use. Since everything, including water had to be transported over, the government closed it down in an attempt to cut costs. (and we all know how the government can cut costs!!) After it closed as a prison, Native Indians took it over as their own for a while before they were forced off the island. Now it is owned by the US Parks service.
After our tour there, we were back to catch a "city lights" night tour of SF. It basically took us over most of what the city tour did, except we did go by the "Painted Ladies". The Painted Ladies are a set of seven Victorian Houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915 and many were painted in bright colors. This is also known as "Post Card Row" as many postcards are pictures of these houses. Also the TV Show "Full House" was set here. Very pretty.
By the time we were done with this busy day we crashed. We are certainly doing a lot of walking and trying to see everything we can in the few days we are here.
Tuesday
Our day to ride cable cars! You can't come to SF and not ride cable cars! We started on the Powell Mason and rode it from end to end, then walked a few blocks to the Powell Hyde car, which takes you up "Rice-a-Roni" hill (made famous by the commercial for Rice a Roni). We stopped at the cable car museum, then on to the California Cable Car line, from end to end. Cable cars are so fascinating. Then we hopped on the street car (different from Cable car) and went out to Castro district and then on to the bus back to the Painted Ladies and Victorian House area. Finally back to the hotel....I was done for! My back was hurting, so I begged off dinner and just layed low last night. It was a fun day tho!
Today we are heading for an In N Out Burger (what? you didn't think I would let that slip by) and then to the North Beach area. The girls are out right now touring the city hall/library area. I opted to stay home and blog! More later.
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