This was my first day on the Metro (also known as the Muni), the subway system restricted to only the San Francisco side of the bay. The whole thing was still really confusing to me and I couldn't help but think of how lost I would be if had to do it all by myself. Needless to say, I was really grateful to be doing all of this with Trevor. The Metro was a little more populated than the BART had been the night before, but it still wasn't bad. I was beginning to think those crowded Hollywood scenes from the movie were just embellishments, but Trevor reminded me it was only 8:30 in the morning and that I would get the true subway experience a little later in the afternoon.
We rode the Metro to the end of the line at the Embarcadero Station to start our morning at the Farmer's Market. They hold it in and around the Ferry Building - the old docks and clock tower for the ferries that used to be used as a means of transportation, but are now used mainly as a tourist attraction. The inside of the ferry building has been turned into a bunch of little shops - cafes, chocolate shops, book stores, novelty stores and the like. There were SO many people - I later remarked that I felt like I saw more people every ten minutes than I typically saw in a whole day. There were all kinds of fruits and vegetables and products, some that I'd never even heard of...it was definitely the kind of place I could see myself shopping if I lived there. Lots of exotic things and a wide variety of people too.
In the building we stopped at this kitchen store (I know its not uniquely San Francisco) called Sur la Table; I'd never been in one before. I've never been big on cooking or baking on my own because I've never had the kitchen space or the time to do so - but lately I've been looking forward to learning how to cook for myself, especially knowing I will have a kitchen in dorm life next year. This store made me more excited than ever to have my own place with my own kitchen with my own plates and dishes and pots and pans and utensils...everywhere I looked I found something unique that I would love to have as a part of my future kitchen. A little on the expensive side sometimes, but still.
Forgive me if some of the rest of this day is out of order - we did a lot and its hard to remember the order that we went in. I might skip out on some smaller details too because this post would just be too gigantic to exist if I included every little thing that I thought. :)
We walked from the Ferry Building to Chinatown which was freaking HUGE. There were so many people and so many stores selling the oddest things - apparently the Chinese like a lot of things in ball form and a lot of things freeze dried (shrimp, sea cucumber, seaweed, etc.) All the shops and stuff kind of reminded me of some of the places on Olvera Street. Trevor told me you have to be careful what you buy down there though because a lot of it can be products of underground shady businesses. But it was a good cultural experience, since I won't actually be going to China anytime soon.
After China town we did some crazy hilly walking up to Coit Tower to get one of the best views of the whole city. There were a lot of tourists up there, taking all the typical San Francisco touristy pictures. The hills and stairs we had to take to get up there were insane, but the view was worth it. Apparently you can go to the top of the tower too, but it costs five bucks, I figured the extra couple hundred yards up in the air wasn't going to make that big of a difference on the view so I was content with just staying at the base of the tower.
Walking back down all the hills was quite a bit easier than going up, but I could still tell my legs were going to be paying for this the next day! After walking down that huge hill, we approached another even bigger hill to walk up to see Lombard Street - the crookedest street in San Francisco. If you walk up it you have a TON of shallow stairs to climb up to get to the top, but it was pretty neat to watch all the cars driving down this maze like road.
We walked down another steep hill to get to Ghirardelli Square, another little plaza that was centered around the Ghirardelli chocolate and ice cream shops. I was able to resist the temptation to buy anything for myself, but I did buy some chocolate for my parents. When I go back, I'll definitely be stopping to get myself some ice cream. :)
We went to North Beach, which is like the Italian section of the city - little Italian flags painted on the light posts, Italian named stores, pizzerias. We weren't in here for very long, kind of just a quick walk through, but we did stop at Washington Square (I think that's where we were), a great little park in the middle of an otherwise packed area of the city. There weren't really that many people there when we got there, just a few with their dogs and others just sitting on benches enjoying the nice weather.
Then we went down to Fisherman's Wharf. I really liked this part of the day because we were by the water and there was just so much history and things to be looked at and read about. We walked down the pier and read about the histories of some of the different boats that were docked there - huge boats and little boats that played important parts in history. There were people walking around dressed as if they were in 1901, answering questions and talking about what the city was like back then. We walked into this place called Musee Mecanique that had hundreds of old arcade games and mechanically operated puppets and music boxes. The oldest thing there was this flip-book and mirror type machine from 1889! And it still works! Those are the kind of things that people would do for entertainment back then - no TVs, no computers. It was fascinating. We put a quarter in one called "The French Execution" and watched the curtain raise up and a priest stand over a man in a guillotine as his head got chopped off! Outside of this building was a little submarine museum with the USS Pampanito from WWII on display. They also had a memorial to all the men in the Navy and the Marines who disappeared in submarines during the war, the numbers were unbelievable.
We navigated our way through crowds of people to find the best place to get a bowl of clam chowder and ended up at a place over looking the harbor called Tarantino's. We had a super nice waitress with a cute accent - she had to have been from like Minnesota or Wisconsin. It was very quite and nice and we had fantastic bread bowls filled with clam chowder while we watched people walk by outside and watched the boats in the harbor. It was the first time we'd really sat all day too, which was a reward in itself!
From here I believe we took a bus (first time on a city bus) to the Civic Center to see the Saint Patrick's Day parade. At the bus stop I sat next to these two funny older ladies who were ranting about the time change and how inconsistent the buses were. The parade was quite the scene - a bunch of families with little munchkins all dressed in green, or a lot a lot of drunk people haha. People just walked around with beers and flasks and drank to their hearts' content. The parade itself was pretty cute and funny, but I'm not sure how many people were there to actually watch as opposed to having a great reason to get really drunk in public. It tied in pretty well with my reading of Frank McCourt's 'Tis too...about how when it comes down to it, everyone says they have a little Irish in them. :)
After some great people watching at the parade, we decided we should head back towards Trevor's house, but not without a stop at the Castro Station. He informed me that the Castro District was pretty much the most heavily gay and lesbian district of San Fran. We walked out of the subway to a vision of rainbow flags everywhere, couples of every shape and size, homosexual and heterosexual. We walked by drag queen stores where a man in full women's clothing was hanging up a sign outside of his shop. We went into this place called Hot Cookie (home of the famous penis shaped cookie, haha) to get some cookies that we ate on a corner as we people watched. I'd have to honestly say that was probably one of my favorite parts; I could have sat on that corner for hours. So many people from so many different walks of life walked by that street and it was so intriguing. We saw gay couples, a man walking a cat on a leash, two men who had pet cockatoos riding on their shoulders, a man walking down the street butt naked...and all of this was normal for this area. It was absolutely great, nobody really seemed to be second guessing what anyone else was doing, everyone was pretty cheerful and pretty polite and happy. Definitely a place I will return to when I go again.
We took the subway back to Trevor's and took a little break before we got in the car to drive up to Two Peaks to get another great view of the city. Two Peaks, if you remember, is what you can see from Trevor's window, and you can also see Trevor's house once you get up to Two Peaks. You can hike up the peaks also, and weather permitting I think that would be another great adventure; but after all the walking we'd done that day...I was perfectly okay with driving up!
After Two Peaks we took on the number one tourist attraction of San Francisco - The Golden Gate Bridge. On our way there we drove through the Golden Gate Park, mainly to see the buffalo (!!!), but Trevor also pointed out other features to me as we drove through, like the community track, parks, and conservatories. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and then parked on the other side so we could go walk on it. To say it was massive would be an understatement. So crazy that human's could build something that HUGE and make it that stable and reliable. We walked all the way to the center of the bridge before we stopped to enjoy the view. Trevor spit water off the side and I timed how long it took for it to hit the ocean water - 10 seconds! A 10 second fall! That was an even crazier thought considering the article we'd just read about a high schooler jumping off the bridge and surviving. After causing our necks to be sufficiently sore from all the looking straight up at the massive structure, we headed back across the bridge so we could get back to Trevor's before dinner.
We met Justin, Leah, and his mom, who had just flown in, at Justin's before heading out to this Vietnamese restaurant on the other side of the bay. Now, if you know me you know that I am not a very adventurous foody, and this would be the second night in a row that I was trying something outside the norm. It was at this point that I abandoned my skepticism of unfamiliar foods and decided I would continue trying new things for the remainder of the weekend. I had pho and other meat and shrimp dishes cooked with a mixture of spices and cooked vegetables - you'll be happy to know that I enjoyed it all and was very satisfied after. I'm still pretty proud of myself!
Exhausted, we headed back to Trevor's pretty early, showered and then went to bed pretty early. We had a whole other day coming that we needed to be rested for!
No comments:
Post a Comment