"San Francisco in February 2003" San Francisco by Redlats

It has been 18 years since we last visited SF -- a long time ago. I only vaguely remember stuff like the seals at the water front, delicious sour dough bread, Alcatraz, the hills and the cable cars.

We are in the midst of our holiday now. I am not as ready for this holiday as we normally are. Our computer at home has been down for most of January, so we had little chance to research and read people's pages. We will plan our trip while we are here. Lucky we have a spot to stay - with my brother in SF. Last time we visited we had our 1 and 4 year old sons with us. This time we may even get to go to a museum! It will be interesting re-visiting tourist haunts and finding new ones we missed last time.

As my brother has internet access, I will post a bit of a travel diary in here.

Feb 1 - Arrival
We begin our adventure - two 2 1/2 hour flights one Winnipeg to Calgary, then on to SF. It seems that fewer and fewer airlines provide a meal. We took some cold pizza to eat for lunch while we waited in the Calgary airport
<p>When we reached SF we were aware of the VT meeting weekend and that the Babes on the bus was just leaving. We probably could have been dropped off downtown and made it there, but we decided to spend the evening with my brother and get to bed relatively early.
<p> Feb 2 - VT meeting 1!
We woke up pretty early, and decide to take the MUNI downtown. SF is different than Winnipeg. The whole city is downtown - no lawns for each house to maintain like our city. Small stores abound - boutiques, grocery, vegetable and clothing stores; flower stands, restaurants galore etc.

After wandering around, doing the typical tourist thing (walking with a map in hand), we found Union Square. As we had missed the Friday and Saturday event's of the VT party, we decided to arrive 10 minutes early. Nobody showed up until noon on the dot, and all of a sudden there were 12 of us (some more hung over than others from the previous night's revelry). We wandered down (or was it up?) to Chinatown, and found a restaurant. Dim Sum is new to me - hmmm, what's in this little bite?

It was interesting meeting VT members. We met Geisha_Girl, Yubert, Zarathustra, KiraS, Jim35 Bluefelt, Skye820, CJG1, Amannamedbrady. Even Tilman stumbled in late. We have been to one other such meeting, and it is interesting how easy it is to get along with other VT members. We have this interest in common, you see - where are you going next?

After the meeting we made our way back to my brother's. Later that evening we tried Thai food (The Thai House). I can see that eating out in SF is going to be an international activity - food from somewhere different each day.

<p> Feb 3 - Haight-Ashbury
We went for an all-day walk today. Boy are there a lot of hills in San Fran. I might be in some shape when we are done this vacation. We climbed to the top of Bueno Vista Park. Nice view of the Bay. Lots of dogs being walked.
<p>Then wandered up and down Haight Street. I remember a little about the hippies of SF - I was 17 in 1967, but other than there are a lot of stores selling drug paraphernalia and strange clothes, this is just another neighbourhood in SF now.
<p>We reached the outskirts of Golden Gate Park, drawn by the beating of bongo drums. I don't know if its an every-day occurence, but there was a whole community of young people, families, frisbee throwing, dancing - many of the group joining in the beat of the drumming with their own percussion instruments.
<p> Feb 4 - Downtown
Did the tourist thing downtown today. Took the SF cable car to Fisherman's Wharf, although we got distracted by Victorian park, and never made it onto any of the piers. We did eat lunch in the tourist complex (Mandarin Restaurant) at Ghirardelli Square and walked down Lombard Street - 'the crookedest street in the world'. In the evening we went to a play at A.C.T. (American Buffalo).
<p> Feb 5 - Legion of Honour
We toured by car today (with brother driving). Visited the top of Twin Peaks and a viewpoint in Muir Woods across the Golden Gate Bridge -- it was a great day for pictures. In between we spent a few hours at the Legion of Honour -- an interesting art gallery in northwest SF. The gallery has two floors of paintings including European paintings from the 1300's to the 1900's. I haven't seen this a good selection of styles etc, since visiting art museums in Europe.
<p> Feb 6 - VT meeting 2!
We took the underground downtown again and made our way down to the Bay's edge, checking out the sea lions (not seals) that seem to permanently inhabit Pier 39. We enjoyed an hour-long tour of the Bay - providing us with a total different view of the city, the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz.
<p>Later we drove my brother's car to Berekely to visit with Hasanhanks and Jessicadf. We spent a few hours discussing travelling and people we've met on VT. :) Don't get me started on driving in SF by the way.
<p> Feb 7 - VT meeting 3!
We recovered after getting lost on the freeway yesterday, and wandered downtown again, this time to meet with Topoftheworl and Reeka. We had lunch at in Little Italy (L'Osteria) and chatted about travel and VT again. We wandered through Chinatown (Happy New Year!).
<p>My wife and I spent the next few hours at the SFMOMA - the Mueseum of Modern Art. I guess I am not yet a connoisseur of modern art. There was one painting that was three canvases painted white. Someone got hoodwinked buying that piece of art. We did enjoy the photography of August Sander, who presented a huge series of photos on life in Germany in the 1920's to mid 40's (including a section "people who came to my door").
<p>This evening we enjoyed sushi (Hamano Restaurant).
<p> Feb 8 - Tourists
Saturday, we decided to go downtown figuring it would not be too busy as all San Franciscans would avoid downtown on the weekend. Wrongo! It is 'Crabfest'. There had to be many thousands of people in every nook and cranny of Fisherman's Wharf, the Cannery, Pier 39, and every establishment between them.
<p>Eventually the tourists wore us down, and we went home to recover.
<p> Feb 9 - Napa Valley
We drove to Napa Valley with Topp and Rika, visiting the V. Sattui and Sterling Vineyards. The Napa Valley is quite refreshing after spending a week in San Francisco. Of the hundreds of vineyards we passed, we chose V. Sattui because of the lunch fixings you could buy there, and Sterling because of the view and the gondola lift up to the vineyard.

<p> Feb 10 - California Academy of Sciences
Today we toured the California Academy of Sciences and the Steinhart Aquarium. We got there at 1pm, and at 5pm they shoo'ed us out. We still had only covered about 2/3's of the exhibits (the earthquake movie with the ground beneath you shaking was cool!). Tomorrow we'll get up earlier.
<p> Feb 11 - Sonoma Valley
We drove to another wine country valley, this time with my brother. We started out visiting the Sonoma State Historic Park, and finding out about General Vallejo, California's bear flag, and the Spanish missions along the Pacific coast -- interesting history lesson. Then we visited two wineries (Kenwood and Blackstone) before buying some wine for later this vacation.
<p> Feb 12 - Exploratorium
Lazy day today, and raining for the first time since we are here. At the Exploratorium, we found every sort of hands-on science experiment - including sound, motion, electricity, biology, etc. We ran out of time again at the museum.
<p> Feb 13 - Shopping
We went downtown again for lunch (Nanking Restaurant) and shopping. Time to buy the San Francisco souvenirs. Rika and Topp helped me pick my T-shirt -- a stark black shirt that just says San Francisco. We finished out day with dessert at The Cheesecake Factory (in Macy's at Union Square).
<p> Feb 14 - Valentine's Day
Our holiday is winding down. We meant to take our host out for dinner, but for some reason all the restaurants were booked this evening. We settled on taking him to a local seafood restaurant (Catch) for lunch.

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