Greetings from San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

Anticipated and eagerly awaited, but first had to wait in line for 70 minutes at the immigration officers, the stay in San Francisco was really characterized by beautiful moments.

The QE2 docked very close to Fisherman's Wharf at the pier and you could really go ashore late in the evening and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of this city in one of the many nice little restaurants. Thanks to the great location at Pier 35, I had breakfast with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge in the Lido restaurant of the ship, that alone was worth the trip. But the longer Bay Bridge also offered a wonderful view during my visit, especially in the evening, as the bridge has been equipped with an LED lighting system for a year now, which conjures up new motifs with "running light chains".

Unfortunately, the weather was only moderate on the first day, with "only 13 degrees" and occasional heavy showers, of course, exactly when I was photographing the "Golden Gate Bridge" at the viewpoint. But then a few misty patches also appeared, which had its charm. The weather got better the next day and the sun was shining from noon onwards and it became a warm spring day (tulips and daffodils are already blooming here).

Fisherman's Wharf, originally founded by fishermen from Sicily and Genoa at the end of the 19th century for the emerging fishing industry, nowadays is more of a colorful district with many snack bars and restaurants of all price ranges, as well as many shops and entertainment options, especially at Pier 39. At the end of this pier, there are many sea lions on wooden pontoons, but they are not zoo animals, but wild and free-living. They come here in January (so it was just the right time for my visit) and stay until May, and then they migrate south for mating. They are mostly male animals, and as peaceful as it looks at first glance, with all of them dozing off, some of them are quite aggressive and scream terribly or bite or push another until he falls into the water more or less voluntarily. Those are funny scenes. The animals like it here, so that a small part of them is too lazy to swim away in the summer, however, the sailors who have their ships moored here in the harbor are not very happy about these guests.

At the end of Fisherman's Wharf is also the turning point of the famous cable cars, which everyone associates with San Francisco and of course I took a ride on them, as walking on the steep streets is quite exhausting. I wouldn't want to drive a car here, starting or stopping on a hill raises your blood pressure. But there are many beautiful old Victorian houses along the steep streets, which are now preferred residential areas, and each house appears more beautiful than the other. The lower part of San Francisco is not very high-rise due to the risk of earthquakes, mostly with 3 floors, only the financial district has a few skyscrapers, the tallest one, with 260m, is the "Transamerica Pyramid", constructed earthquake-proof in 1972 with reinforced beams and cavities for fluctuations. After all, the last earthquake here in the city was in 1989, which also claimed some victims. So it is beautiful, but also dangerous.

Many well-kept parks, high-quality museums of modern art (e.g. a Gerhard Richter), a representative city hall, and a little bit of the flair of the hippie and flower power movement of the 60s in Haight Ashbury show a diverse picture. But as in all cities worldwide, gentrification is progressing here as well, housing within a city is becoming more expensive and changing. By the way, the jeans company Levis has its headquarters here (because jeans were invented and produced here). I also saw the first double-decker "Google bus" here: these are buses from companies that transport their employees from their homes to the company and back. They are equipped with the internet, so that the employees can work in the bus while they are still/on the way. Many companies here on the West Coast do that now, but since Google was the first, the buses are called that. That would be a tip for Mr. Deutschmann, then you could do your lesson preparation on the bus and wouldn't have to worry about parking problems!

So there was a lot to discover here, so my schedule was well filled. I also visited the former maximum security prison Alcatraz, which is located on an island in the bay in front of the city and almost every escape attempt was impossible. Somehow it's already a small city in itself. Terribly small cells, but I was surprised to see that the inmates were really given good food and also had a library, which was heavily used. Robert Kennedy as Attorney General wanted to close the prison because he thought the costs would be just as high as if the prisoners had been accommodated at the "Waldorf Astoria" hotel. In 1963 it was actually closed.

A visit to Chinatown was also interesting, the largest community of Chinese people abroad, larger than the one in New York. With Chinese-style street lamps and many red and colorful decorations as well as Chinese characters on shops and restaurants, you enter a completely different world. In a fortune cookie shop, a pure small family business, I saw that they also had a variety specifically for adults (x-rated). You have to be careful not to grab the wrong bag and possibly give it away!

Mostly Cantonese people live in Chinatown, especially supported by Taiwan, but I also saw some flags from the People's Republic of China. In the whole district, the Chinese New Year's festival was celebrated for 10 days, there was a lot of noise and wild drumming to keep the spirits of the Year of the Rooster away.

On the second day, I drove out of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalitos, a beautifully situated small town, which has become known for its artists and galleries and antique shops, but also for its beautiful houses on the hillside and houseboats.

So overall, many different and above all unique impressions that invite you to come back. There is much more to see here.

Meanwhile, we are back at sea, quite rough sea even, because the route to Hawaii is considered relatively unsafe due to the weather conditions. 5m high waves are normal again now, and the temperature is still only 18 degrees. It is a quite long stretch of a total of 4 sea days to drive to Honolulu, but I'm very happy about it because there are many impressions to process, photos to sort and save, and also to reorganize the closets and drawers for the upcoming South Pacific stretch. So it won't be boring.

Greetings to everyone in a little while! Eva