Tuesday March 4th 2013
It was another nice day in the Bay Area
for us to enjoy. Slower morning, somewhat average weather (not sunny
and not cloudy either). We purchased the City Pass via telephone from
Alcatraz Cruises company (the only way to get Alcatraz instead of
just Bay cruise), the only problem was that we had to pick it up
personally from their office in San Francisco. And yes, that meant
driving to the heart of the city. So we did. We left the house around
9.30 and took the longer 280 as the shorter 101 was still packed and
slower. And anyway, 280 is kind of nicer and more relaxing. The drive
was fine, maybe a bit too long. There was some traffic when we
entered the streets, but otherwise it was pretty nice. We drove along
Embarcadero till we got to the Pier 33. J. got off and I was going to
find some parking. Surprisingly, there was on street parking almost
next to the pier. Easy. (And it would be only 1.75 for hour.) J. was
back in couple minutes and we drove to Golden Gate Park through the
city. And again, it was surprisingly easy, there was not much traffic
and we did not get lost.
The park. There is free parking (not
easy to find a spot though). We had to drive around twice to find a
space to park. It was somewhat cold and cloudy. Short walk to the
California Academy of Science and enter with our City Passes (instead
of almost 30 dollars). I guess there could have been more people than
we encountered, but it was still noisy and there were too many
children. Withing the building there was big glass structure with
rainforest habitat. It had walkway around the walls going up (to see
different levels of forest). It was moist and pretty warm. There was
water on the bottom with fish, many trees with butterflies and birds.
They even had large colorful parrots sitting there (and tearing apart
paper or cloth). It was funny how one of them was holding a piece of
paper in the claw and biting it. In the cages or aquariums there were
snakes, lizards, frogs and fish. Some of the lizards were really
goofy and were just standing on the wall or the ceiling. It was
pretty incredible to see so many different creatures. From the top,
we took elevator to the basement where was the aquarium part with
smaller tunnel and actually pretty big area full of tanks with many
different sea creatures. And again, it was smaller than Monterey, but
it was still incredible.
We left the basement part with all the
sea creatures and got on the main floor. Many smaller exhibits, one
about the earthquakes (the simulator had so long line that we even
did not try to get in it). African exhibit (there were penguins) but
otherwise it was mostly the models of animals and it looked more
creepy than interesting. Human evolution was another exhibit on the
main floor, it was interesting but I guess it was too many
information at the same time. We saw white alligator. We walked up to
the green roof (interesting, but … ). There was kind of study area
with games, small cases of different things (like skulls, small
animals, bones etc.), actually I guess pretty nice place for kids to
hang out. I probably forgot something, but …. in a nutshell it was
great place to visit and we enjoyed it.
We walked to the car, J. eat something
and than we continued to the Conservatory of Flowers (still in Golden
Gate Park). It was still pretty cold and cloudy. As we wanted to pay
the entrance fee, we found a sign saying it was “Free day”,
apparently many places in the Bay area have “free days” once a
month or so. We walked through the “jungle” of plants and
blooming flowers. It was really beautiful. It was pretty small and
tide, but fortunately there were not too many people. J. was taking
hundreds of pictures (almost all the blooms) and just walking like a
turtle. There was some old tree/plant (about hundred year) that
survived when the storm damaged the building in 1990's. Impressive.
We entered the conservatory in the
middle, all the plants and flowers were on the right side and in the
middle. The left side continued with potted plants and orchids (again
so many pretty blooms). There was as well small (and as usual
overpriced gift shop). The last room was kind of noisy. For a while I
was annoyed by two goofy looking mothers with small children. They
were on the phones and talking together while children were poking at
the display and flowers. Oh well … what to say. But more noise was
coming from the speakers as a music, because the room contained model
train track built into really nice display of plants. It was really
nice looking toy. We even noticed that few of the buildings had roof
made from old computer parts. Cool. And … the end.
While we were driving to the city, J.
sent a text to her friend about possibly meeting her. When we left
the conservatory, we learned that she has to stay at work at least
till seven o'clock. I was not really for that, as I was planning to
get up at four in the morning to try to register for classes. We did
some thinking and decided to drive a bit around the city and than
trying to be on the freeway before the rush hour. We took wrong turn
few times, but otherwise it was pretty fine. As I was driving I did
not see very much of the city, but J. did (some). We drove through
“hippies” Castro neighborhood. We drove around Alamo Park, but
there was nowhere to park, so we just continue. I mean, it was
pretty, the houses were looking great, but trying to look and drive
and the same time was less than great.
It was probably around four o'clock and
some parts of the city were getting packed with the traffic. J. was
looking for less busy streets to get on 101. I guess it partly worked
even as we got somewhat lost trying to cross Market street at some
goofy intersection. The on ramp was just long line of cars slowly
getting onto the freeway. I guess that is part of the city too
(really bad traffic). At the end it was not too bad, when we got on
the road it was just fine and we just cruised home. Another nice day
...
