We’re back from our trip, but I still want to jot down thoughts and experiences from our trip to San Francisco. It was a great trip but after two and half days of holding on to cable cars, hiking, walking and walking some more I decided it would be better to get some sleep than to attempt to log the days events. My hope was to get things down as they were fresh in my head but the entries I started looked much more like something from a war journal or ‘Se7en’ than ‘The Notebook’.
Sunday was our most planned out day, earlier this year I suprised Jamie on our anniversary with tickets to ‘Wicked’ when I had gotten word that it would be ok for her to come with on my work trip, but that was in the evening and we wanted a daytime activity. My friends that had been to San Francisco had told me to make sure to get Alcatraz tickets early to make sure I got the ferry departure time that I wanted. They were spot on with that advice because we still settled for the late morning ferry after trying to get the “early bird” trip a week ahead of time.
The trip out was fun but windy and quite cold on the water. I’m sure the locals never get sick of watching tourists being caught in the “breeze” and shivering all the way to the nearest sweatshirt vendor. Alcatraz seemed much closer and much bigger from the wharf but as we got closer and finally docked it seemed much further away from shore and seemed much smaller than I pictured from what I have seen on TV and movies. The audio tour, narrated by former guards and prisoners was excellent and I would recommend it to anyone. After we got our fill of pictures, exploring and souvenirs we took the next ferry back (you can stay as long as you want once you get there [until dark])
"Looks natural to me."
We wandered down the Embarcadero towards the wharf where Jamie got scared (the first time) by a guy hiding behind a bush that he had made out of brush. I was trying to figure out where I had seen this before and we found out later (after the second time he scared Jamie) that he has been on David Letterman and enjoys some local celebrity status (from his bush).
Another thing we did Sunday was purchase a week pass for the “Muni” and Cable cars so we could get around the city without much hassle, which was much cheaper than paying for every trip with cash. This definately made our stay cheaper albeit with a little more waiting in line but we never felt bad about wanting to run down to the wharf or Chinatown just to see what was there.
That evening we took a short walk to Market Street to the Orpheum Theatre to the show. I know Jamie was excited and it was fun to see how happy she was sitting in her seat waiting for the show to start. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the theatre so I wasn’t able to get any pics. The show was excellent and well worth the cost. It was definately the best stage performance that I’ve seen.
The only downer for the day was on our way back to the hotel when I came to the realization that I actually had to go do work stuff the next day…
Picture upload coming soon!