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| We received an email from American Airlines on Wednesday morning with their last minute
Internet deals and noticed that they had airfares from Dallas to San Francisco. We logged
on to check the availability and they did have a flight leaving the Friday evening. The
next thing we had to do is phone Nico and ask him if is OK if we come and visit him. Since
San Francisco is 2 hours behind us, we had to wait until at least 10 AM our time, before
Nico would be at work. When we did finally got hold of him to confirm our visit, we logged
back onto the Internet to book the tickets. To our surprise we found that the only
available flights now were at 2 PM on Saturday! We went ahead and booked those tickets,
but afterwards phoned their reservation office to ask whether this truly was the first
flight available. They confirmed, but told us that we could phone back on Friday to see if
there were any flights that we could go on standby. On
Friday they told us that there is one flight early Saturday morning that looks for going
on standby, but none after that, except for the flight that we had. To cut a long story
short, we left for Dallas/Fort Worth International
Airport early Saturday morning and did manage to get seats on that flight, which meant
that we now had more vacation time. After Nico picked us up from the airport, we went to
his apartment in Lafayette to drop off our luggage! It had been raining in San Francisco
when we arrived and with the low clouds in the area, sightseeing was not a good idea.
| We ended up exploring Nico's neighborhood of
Lafayette and Walnut Creek. It was so much different from Dallas in terms of the amount of
people and traffic. The next morning was a beautiful
day. The clouds and rain were gone and apparently it was the best weather they had in
weeks. It was the perfect weather to explore the Bay area and our first stop would be the Golden Gate Bridge. Nico first took us around the
Bay to Sausalito. This is a beautiful neighborhood just north of the city. It has some
great views of the city skyline and the Bay Bridge. |
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After spending some time there taking
pictures, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge
and stopped on the south side. We managed to get parking (which was a small wonder) and
took a walk halfway across the bridge. It really is an impressive structure and if you
think that the bridge was completed in 1937, it's even more amazing. We then went south down the coastline until we got to a pub on the
beach. We had a beer or two in the pub, which had a beautiful view over the sea. Nico then
took us to downtown San Francisco, first showing us the corner of Hate and Ashbury
streets. Apparently it's where hippie revolution began (or something like that, I'll do
some investigation). The older parts of the city is really beautiful, the houses are
painted different colors which gives the area a distinctive culture (you don't see it
anywhere else in the States). |
| The next stop was the Fisherman's Wharf, but
Nico had a little surprise for us. He took as via Lombard Street, "The crookedest
street in the world," which makes eight sharp turn in one block. The picture of
Lombard Street (to the right) probably doesn't look as good as the postcard does, but at
least we took it. |
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We spent the rest of the afternoon and
evening at the Fisherman's Wharf. It reminded as of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town,
just bigger. There are plenty of shops and restaurants. We ended up having dinner in a
restaurant of which the name escapes me, but it definitely was seafood. |
| We spent the rest of the evening wandering
around Fisherman's Wharf. There is an area where seals lay on floating devices and it is
really funny watching them as they fight for possession of these floats. To the right are
Nico and myself. This picture was taken during sunset and makes for a beautiful view over
the Bay area. |
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And what would a photo album be without a
picture of Alcatraz? We didn't have time to take a trip out to the island and I think that
by the time we got there, it was closed anyway. It doesn't look as if it was that hard to
escape from the island and at first glance it looks like any person with a reasonable
fitness level could swim to shore, but apparently the currents are very strong and that is
what makes it impossible. |
| The Monday was a working day for Nico, so we
had to spend the day without his help. We decided to spend another day in the downtown
area. We took the B.A.R.T (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into
town early that morning to make the most of our day. Our first stop was at a tourist
information center to find places that was worth while to see. The downtown area is
beautiful with unique buildings. It quickly became apparent that there were more homeless
people in SF than any place we've lived before, but that didn't spoil our day at all (it's
nothing to what you experience in SA). |
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After we wondered around the city for some
time, we headed for China Town. It was really strange walking around China Town; it
doesn't look like any other part of the city we've visited. To the left,
that's me at the
entrance to China Town. |
| I was quite nervous at first walking around
(probably been watching too much TV and movies), but as soon as you realize that it only
looks different, it's quite a lot of fun walking around and browsing all the little shops. |
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This was an interesting sight: Here you can
see some prepared food in the window. The meat on the left was easy to guess, it's
chicken, but we couldn't figure out was the meat on the right was. |
| Our next stop was the cable car; it's a
definite must for any visitor. Well, that's what all the other visitors to San Francisco
also had in mind! When we got there, there was a 3-hour wait to get on the cable car and
that was only one way. You had to get off at the other end of the ride and they couldn't
tell us what the wait was there. So we decided to give it a miss. Even if we waited for a
one-way ride, we would've missed our flight anyway. |
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So we used the extra time to visit Union
Square and it's where we took the picture on the left of the Statue of Victory. When the time arrived, we caught the next B.A.R.T train from the Embarcadero station back to Walnut
Creek. There we met Nico at work where he arranged for a shuttle to take us back to the San Francisco International Airport.
We enjoyed our stay in San Francisco, although it was very
short. It is a beautiful city and it's no wonder why it is a mayor tourist attraction and
for us it felt like the closest thing we'll get to Cape Town. It was also good to see Nico
again. We always have a good time when he's present and this weekend was no exception |
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