Friday night - March 9
After landing at SFO, we picked up our rental car (bright banana yellow - it stands out in the crowd) and drove directly to the Daly City In-n-Out Burger for a fat-laden orgy of burgers, fries, and vanilla shakes. Stuffed and happy, we rolled into San Francisco and up to Twin Peaks for an amazing view of the city lights:
From Twin Peaks, at night. (click on the pictures to enlarge)
After enduring the chilly winds on top of Twin Peaks (it feels 20 degrees colder there) we jumped in our banana car and headed for our hotel - the Residence Inn at Oyster Point. The night was still young, but we aren't and we needed to rest up.
Saturday - March 10
After indulging in a free and fat-laden hotel breakfast, we headed straight for Coit Tower in the Telegraph Hill area. Miraculously, we found a parking spot on a nearby street and walked up the hill, avoiding the tiny parking lot and the accompanying wait when one drives all the way up. Besides, we had to work off that fatty breakfast somehow.
Offering impressive views, Coit Tower was even more stunning in the sunny and mild weather blanketing the city that weekend.
Peeking out at the Golden Gate Bridge and the city, from the base of Coit Tower.
I won't tell you what our nickname is for Coit Tower, but here it is.
Michael grabbed the camera and got all artsy.
One of many murals in Coit Tower.
Zooming in on Lombard Street.
Near our parking spot in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood.
After taking the tourist-cliche' drive down Lombard Street, we headed for the Marina district and the Palace of Fine Arts, where we snapped about a billion photos. Here are a few of the best:
Gorgeous.
Did I say this place was gorgeous?
From the waterfront in the Marina district.
The banana car. Even the homeless people commented on how yellow it was.
I think this is a gopher.
After walking back to our car, we decided to head over to Jackson Street in hopes of scoring a delicious meal at Kokkari but they were not open for lunch during the weekends. Hungry, we hoofed it back to the banana car and decided to eat at the little Italian hole-in-the-wall called Macaroni Scuie Scuie right next to where we parked.
We had a great time using our five words of Italian with the wait staff, and the pasta was perfectly al dente and not oversauced. Ah, memories of Italy! Michael enjoyed the Trenette al Pesto - a thin pasta with pesto, potatoes, and green beans, while I tucked into the Rigatoni con Salsiccia e Peperoni - pasta tubes with sausage, peppers, and tomato sauce. As usual, Michael was jealous of what I ordered so about 2/3 of the way through our meals, we switched plates.
Bellies full yet again, I negotiated a 40 minute visit to the H&M store near Union Square while Michael drove the banana car around the block a few times. The place was an absolute mob scene, with long lines for both the dressing room and cash wrap. Since I only had a very short time review the offerings of this two-level store, I quickly grabbed about 10 items that I liked and headed to a quiet corner to perform my detailed analysis, which went something like this:
Will it go with anything else in my closet? Y/N
Is it age appropriate? Y/N
Is in within the budget of the soon to be unemployed? Y/N
Does it look more expensive than it is? Y/N
Would Stacy and Clinton approve? Y/N
At the end of this in-depth analysis, three items made the cut - a red and white wrap dress, a pair of crop pants, and a cream colored purse.
I may not be much of an athlete, but my shopping skills are Olympic in caliber.
Afterwards, we drove up to Twin Peaks again to snap photos of the daytime views:
We made our way back down the hill and decided to drive through some of San Francisco's gorgeous neighborhoods - one that I was particularly impressed with was St. Francis Wood. Later, as the sun set, we drove along the Great Highway, parked the car, and strolled out to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. We were fortunate to catch this absolutely breathtaking sunset:
It was getting late and we were getting hungry, so we headed up Lincoln Way with the idea of finding a place to eat in the Haight. However, I spotted a promising looking Thai restaurant -- Sri Thai -- just a few blocks from the beach and we decided to give it a try. I had a delicious thai beef salad and Michael had Pad Himapan.
Last thing of the day - a stop to shoot some night-time photos of the Golden Gate bridge:
The Golden Gate at night - shot from a scary location. Oh, the headlines I was imagining ...
With the change to Daylight Savings time upon us, we fell into bed, happy and exhausted.
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Sunday - March 11
Sunday we awoke to an even more beautiful day than Saturday, and we just couldn't believe our luck. Since we had a concert to attend that night and were a bit tired from playing super tourists the day before, we decided to take it a bit easier and drive up Highway 1, through Marin County to a little town named Stinson Beach.
On the way though, we drove past the park formerly known as Candlestick, and the baseball stadium on the Embarcadero so Michael could snap some pictures:
Monster Park, formerly known as Candlestick Park. I'll always call it Candlestick.
Where the Giants play.
After we grabbed some Starbucks, we headed north over the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped and took some pictures at the viewpoint immediately north of the bridge.
It was even more incredible in person.
We had intended to take Hwy 1 all the way up to Stinson Beach, but the highway was closed so we had to take a detour on Muir Woods Road and the Panoramic Highway, winding and winding through Mt. Tamalpais State Park.
We drove for what seemed like hours along the twisty road (although in reality it wasn't that long) and all of a sudden, the town of Stinson Beach appeared below us.
Stinson Beach from above.
After grabbing some chips and beverages from the local market, we headed down to the actual beach. I got so excited, I kicked off my flip flops and headed straight for the water:
Holy crap that's cold!
I didn't want to leave, but hunger was getting the best of us and we headed back up Hwy 1 for awhile, then cut over on Sir Francis Drake Blvd. so we could get back to Hwy 101.
We stopped in the little town of Fairfax for lunch, at a brewpub called Iron Springs Pub. We sat outside enjoying some delicious brews and spoke briefly with some Brazilian guy sitting next to us. Back in the car again, we headed back to the hotel for some R&R before the concert.
After enjoying dinner at In-n-Out Burger one last time, we headed into the city for the Blackfield concert at the Great American Music Hall. As is usually the case with most shows that I've attended that are even somewhat related to the progressive rock genre, there were "prog snobs" in attendance and of course, they were in front of us in line and would not keep their mouths shut. The doors could not open soon enough for me!
After an opening set by John Wesley (a solo artist who tours with Steven Wilson's main band, Porcupine Tree), Blackfield took the stage and performed a a tight set - they sounded at the top of their game. Afterwards we stopped at the Golden Gate viewpoint once again and snapped a couple more night photos of the bridge and the city lights:
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Monday - March 12
We were up early to catch our 10am flight back to Portland. Riding the "air train" between the rental car lot and the terminal, I drank in the view of the surrounding hills and reflected on the best weekend I've had in a long, long time.
San Francisco, I miss you already.
### ¶ 10:32 AM 0 comments
¶ 7:53 PM 0 comments
So ... hope you enjoyed the blogging, I know I enjoyed reading comments and emails from people back home. I'll be sure and sent out another email once I have the photos uploaded - we've taken some great ones of Amsterdam!
Til later,
C & M ¶ 6:48 AM 0 comments
Hi all,
We’re still trying to work out a solution for getting pictures uploaded, so far no luck with using USB cables in our local internet café to post the pictures. I may need to wait until we get home to add pictures to these last couple of entries.
Now on with the updates.
Monday, September 11
We woke up even before our 5:45am wakeup call, not wanting to miss our flight out of Gatwick. Our hired car picked us up promptly at 6:30am, and whisked us to Victoria Station, where we caught the Gatwick Express without incident. We got to Gatwick Airport very early – about 3 hours before our flight was to take off, and thank goodness we did! We endured the longest security lines I’ve ever been in, and carryon was very restricted – I couldn’t even take my lip balm! I also got a full pat down and extra thorough bag search – the woman who searched my bag was really checking out my half sack of Italian Roast ground coffee – I guess she thought maybe I had some drugs stashed in there or something.
Finally we made it through security and into the slowest line ever for breakfast at McDonald’s. Normally I turn my nose up at that stuff, but when you haven’t had anything to eat and no prospects of eating for several hours, a Sausage McMuffin sounds pretty damn good.
We were flying EasyJet to Amsterdam, and that meant that they boarded in “boarding groups”. Since we had gotten there so early, we were in the A boarding group and thus would have our pick of seats. Or so we thought. They wound up just opening the gate doors and everyone boarded at once, no order to it whatsoever. Fortunately, we reacted quickly and were able to snag two window seats near the front of the plane , me sitting just behind Michael. As the plane continued to board we were both happy that we had the middle seat free. However, at the very last minute, four very loud and very sweaty men got on the plane and guess where two of them decided to sit? Oh yes ... right next to Michael and I. Seems they just made the flight by the skin of their teeth. Lucky us.
During the 50 minute flight to Amsterdam these jerks never shut up. Not only did the dude next to me keep talking to the dude next to Michael, from time to time one of them would yell to another one of their mates sitting further back. But the icing on the cake was they spoke what we think was Gaelic, which was about the most grating language we’ve ever heard - except for maybe German.
After 50 minutes of hell, we landed at Schipol airport, made our way through Passport Control, and collected our luggage. We purchased our tickets for Amsterdam Centraal Station and got on board. Ahhhhhhh … Amsterdam and a canal-side meal were less than an hour away!
About 30 minutes into the train ride, we really started to get worried. Things just weren’t looking right, even though the monitor clearly stated Platform 2 for Amsterdam – which is where we boarded the train. I found a conductor and told him we were worried we were on the wrong train and he confirmed our fears – I had missed the “fine print” saying that the Amsterdam train on Platform 2 did not stop at Amsterdam Centraal! We were bound for the country – a town called Amersfoort to be exact! He told us that there were several others on the train that made the same mistake, and that we just needed to go to Platform 7 once we reached Amersfoort and it would take us back to Amsterdam.
Reaching Platform 7 meant dragging our bags up a flight of stairs, over the tracks, and down another set, but we made the train with minutes to spare.
Arriving in Amsterdam an hour late, we purchased our tram passes and waited for one of three tram lines to take us to Spui – except the trams never came. There was a lot of construction, and I think the trams were getting backed up in the mess. After about 10 minutes of standing around with no tram in sight (and a huge backlog of people increasing by the minute) we hailed a taxi to take us home. It was the best 10 Euros we ever spent. After checking in and showering up, we had a bite to eat and then explored for awhile. Later that night, we had some fantastic pannekoeken , at our favourite pannekoeken place from prior visits, and then walked home and stared out our window, marvelling at our view. We turned in fairly early, exhausted from the stress of travel and the constant heat.
Next up: a Segway tour of Amsterdam, and Amsterdam on foot
So we're now in Amsterdam, but I have to catch you up on London. I don't have any pictures just yet, as we need to find an Internet cafe' where we can upload from our USB drive. But I''ll just get this post written for now and try to fill in with the photos later.
Day 3 in London - Saturday, September 9th
After sleeping in (we've been doing that lately, feels great - more like vacation and less like work) we decided to go over to the Trafalgar Square area AKA Tourist Central, take some pictures, and watch people. We enjoyed a simple but delicious lunch in a little pub on Charing Cross Road - I had cream of tomato soup and a beer, and Michael had some kind of pasta dish with a beer. The bartender was really friendly, and knew about Portland and our microbrew scene:
Garrick Arms - a suprisingly convivial pub in an overly touristed area
Steps in front of the National Gallery, at Trafalgar Square. Look closely, you may spot a familiar face.
After lunch and Trafalgar, we hopped on the Tube to Knightsbridge - one of several snobby shopping areas in London, to hit the super pricey but oh so out-of-this-world Harrod's. We skipped right by the $3,000 handbags and $20,000 necklaces and headed straight for the food halls, where mere mortals can indulge in a reasonable splurge. There was an ice cream counter in the center and the two free stools were just begging us to sit down, and so we bellied up to the bar and ordered an 8 GBP strawberry sundae, which is about $15 USD! A $15 sundae!!! But, it was out of this world - it was more of an art exhibit than any sundae I had ever seen, but fortunately it was exquisitely delicious too. Shopped around a bit and picked up a few souvenirs and then decided we had ENOUGH of humans and headed back to our apartment to relax.
After a couple of hours, we got cleaned up and walked quite a long ways (not planned, but it worked out that way) to the Baker Street Station to catch the Bakerloo line to Maida Vale - an area not too far from St. John's Wood which is where Michael's former boss, Phil, lives. We met Phil at a Thai restaurant called Street Hawkers and the food wasn't bad, although not as delicious as the Thai restaurants in Portland. After dinner, Phil took us to a traditional English pub near his flat and we shared a beer and lots of secondhand smoke. Coughing, we walked out into the night and caught the Tube back home.
Day 4 - The Absolute Bliss of Doing Nothing
We finally left the apartment around 11:30am - it seems we are less ambitious with every passing day. But, we planned the trip that way by design - visit Paris (brand new to us) with fresh nerves and legs, then visit an old favorite (London) while we were still semi-fresh but waning, and finally, visit Amsterdam when we've just had enough and want to take it really slow. I think it's been brilliant and boy am I ready to chill out in Amsterdam!
But I digress. So we left the apartment at 11:30 and caught the #24 bus up to Hampstead Heath - a huge nature park about 20 minutes from our apartment. I had heard it was really beautiful with some good views of the city, and I was dying to get out into nature and away from the mobs of annoying humans for awhile. We got off the bus and found our way into the heath, where we walked around and explored for a couple of hours. It was very beautiful and relaxing, and from what I could tell we were the only tourists there.
For some reason, this sign was responsible for lots of giggling
Natural beauty at Hampstead Heath
Afterwards, we were famished and walked back down the hill and enjoyed a delicious lunch at Hamburger Union - where I enjoyed a spectacular chicken sandwich and M chowed down on a burger. Sated, we caught the bus back to our neighborhood where we shopped at Waterstone's book store, stopped for groceries at Tesco, and then went home and DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the rest of the afternoon. I finished The Devil Wears Prada and Michael got started reading yet another science fiction novel. Towards the evening, it occurred to me that I "should" go for a stroll and say a proper goodbye to London, but I was too lazy. Went to bed early, because our 5:45am wakeup call was going to come very very early ...
London - love you lots, see you again soon!
Next: have I ever mentioned how much I HATE flying, taking the WRONG train, and ahhhh ... Amsterdam! ¶ 7:57 AM 0 comments
