San Francisco

The evening we arrived in San Francisco, we stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge viewpoint before driving over it. It was a fantastic view of the city with the iconic bridge in front of it, plus Alcatraz Island and Oakland in the background. The next day, we did a free walking tour at first and listened to some interesting stories from the gold rush and so on. One woman had a bear as a pet once, walking him around like a dog to protect her from bandits. How crazy is that? And did you know that because another woman married a rich owner of a sugar farm and always said “My sugar daddy paid for that.”, the term “sugar daddy” sticked and lived on? Plus, San Franciso is the birthplace of the typical Chinatowns in America, and also has a beautiful one itself. But our personal highlight were the sea lions at Pier 39. We probably spent an hour or more just watching them. It’s funny how they’re all relaxing side by side on the packed platforms, until one tries to squeeze in. Not that there’s not enough space – plenty of the platforms were empty. But apparently they like (and dislike at the same time) being close to each other. Because when one of them tries to find a spot between the others, jumping onto the platform, the trouble begins. They start to growl and bark loudly, fight and shove each other into the water. The funniest thing is when one is jumping onto the full platform, but there’s no free space at all. Then, he’s jumping on top of the others, all across to the other end of the platform, obviously annoying everyone. On the other side, it looks so elegant when they’re swimming smoothly or playing in the water. At Fisherman’s Wharf, we treated ourselves with a typical San Franisco food – clam chowder in a sourdough bread and fish & chips, yummy.

Furthermore, we checked out the famous Lombard Street and the Painted Ladies, the beautiful architecture of the Palace of the Fine Arts, and the view of the Golden Gate Park from the de Young Museum. As it was Labour Day, we could even listen to some live music in the park. We took a stroll up to Strawberry Hill, where we didn’t find any strawberries but plenty of turtles in the lake beneath it. Their heads were sticking out of the water close to the shore. So cute! At the Bison Paddock, we could see one of these majestic animals near the fence, chomping some hay.

Click to watch the sea lions fool around