Days Four and Five - San Francisco

We forgot to post yesterday, so we are combining two days. Monday started with another trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the morning. We got a better view of the otters being fed, and walked through the jellyfish exhibit again. They are so beautiful and ethereal that we couldn't resist seeing them again, and taking photos this time.



We did the 17 mile drive through Carmel, starting at the Pacific Grove gate. There was a lot of incredible scenery, and we stopped often to walk around on the rocks and take pictures of the trees and the coastline. Among the rocks near one of the beaches, we saw the fattest squirrels ever. Just before we left, one of them came up to us and begged for food, so I guess we know how they got so chubby. A little more than half of the drive was along the coast, and the rest was inland through trees and houses (less interesting to us than the dramatic beach views.) We saw some deer eating grass in a field, which was exciting to us city dwellers.

After driving through Pebble Beach, we headed to San Francisco, where we met up with our friend Jeff and his housemates. Jeff was kind enough to give up his bedroom so we could sleep there, which was so thoughtful. We walked about six blocks to an south Indian restaurant in the Mission district for some dinner, then walked back to Jeff's to call it a night.

Tuesday we woke up in San Francisco, and did the tourist thing after having breakfast at an ice cream parlor and diner called St Francis. We took a Muni bus to Union Square, where we caught a cable car down to Hyde Street Pier. The cable car ride was great fun, up and down the steep hilly streets. We had interesting views at several point, and talked to some people from England who were sitting next to us. Shannon really wanted to ring the bell, and probably would have been allowed to if she had asked. She didn't bother asking, but rang it anyway as we hurried off the car at the end of the line.


We checked out the old boats on the Hyde Street Pier, then we walked up a serious hill to Ghiradelli Square (who can skip the chocolate?) From there we trekked all the way down to Pier 39 to see the throngs of sea lions. That was very amusing, as some were trying to sleep while others were barking and climbing all over the sleepers. There was some fighting, and we saw a couple of little babies as well as some enormous and ornery old males. After a quick lunch, we caught the F Market streetcar around the Embarcadero to the BART station, which we took back to Jeff's place in the Mission. We found that San Francisco public transit is incredibly convenient, with buses running every few minutes. It can also be quite economical, as we were able to use the transfers we got in the morning all day long.

In the late afternoon, we checked into the Queen Anne Hotel, a lovely bed and breakfast that used to be a girls' finishing school in the late 1800's. It been restored with beautiful antiques and reproductions to look roughly like it did back then, and our room had the highest ceiling of any room I've ever stayed in. We went to visit Bill's friend from high school, Rani, and met her husband Andrew. We had excellent pizza for dinner from a place around the corner from their house. We were exhausted from a very long day with a lot of walking, and went to bed early. Our room had a wood-burning fireplace, which we used before bed.