Christmas 2009 finds us in San Francisco, CA…a much better place than we were Christmas 2008, which was home with the flu. Here are some highlights of our trip so far:
Day 1 – Flying In
Thanks to some generous friends (who are also watching our menagerie of pets), we were able to get to the Fly Away and head off on our awesome adventure to S.F. As always, we couldn’t just stay in our hotel room once we got there, so we set out to explore the city and discovered a fun little coffee shop along the way. It provided great coffee, a place to rest our feet, and Scrabble to stimulate our minds.
We walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf to explore a bit and visited the fascinating Musee Mecanique. After playing with the contraptions, we headed back up to Union Square where Macy’s had the largest display of wreaths we had ever seen…and a beautiful Christmas tree and ice rink, too!
Day 2 – Exploratorium, etc.
One of the things we love about San Francisco is its public transportation system. You can get anywhere here by just hopping on a cable car, bus, trolley, or underground train. Of course, it helps to have a pass. Day 2 found us meandering down to the Palace of Fine Arts where the Exploratorium is located in a beautiful park.
Thanks to our City Passes, which we recommend everyone get if you come here, we get free admission to five different museums/places here in S.F. – the Exploratorium being one of them.
We spent the majority of the day competing with 7-10-year-olds for control of the different gadgets, learning strange things about electricity, sound, sight, etc. It has become somewhat of a tradition for us to visit any science-center-type place we come across in the cities we visit. Sure, museums and famous attractions are great, but science centers are just freaking awesome. Oh, and don’t forget to bring hand-sanitizer with you lest you catch something from one of the little critters.
After the excitement of the Exploratorium, we headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf to catch some lunch and the free Bay Cruise that came with our City Passes (told you they were amazing). The Bay Cruise was probably the coldest thing we’ve experienced here yet. Needless to say, we were grateful that we brought along our heavy coats instead of our light jackets for the cruise!
For about an hour, the boat goes all around the Bay, hitting highlights such as Alcatraz, the Presidio, various boats, the islands, and – of course – going under the Golden Gate Bridge. So…amazing! And so cold.
Our brief sail around Alcatraz has us really excited to go explore on it tomorrow night. Yes, we got the night-time Alcatraz tour…spooky! It looks so abandoned and ripe for adventure. The tour guides probably won’t let us wander too far off the designated paths and areas, but it’ll still be fun!
Day 3 – California Academy of Sciences
Can we say again how amazing San Francisco’s public transportation system is? Cable cars have been our favorite way to get around, and here you see us with one of the cars we take almost everyday to get down to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Since we managed to sleep in on Day 3 (a big surprise for us), we decided to grab brunch down at the wharf, and what better brunch is there than…CRAB!!! Crab everything! You can get crab for around $7 from these awesome stalls lining the streets. So delicious! With all the walking and exploring we’re doing here, one crab is not enough. Actually, regardless of what you’re doing, one crab is never enough. Crab meat – aside from salvation and coffee – was one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind.
The California Academy of Sciences was pretty cool with all its animals and exhibits. The aquariums are based on the Philippine coral reefs, and it was fun to see familiar fish and flora. The academy even has a rainforest replica inside their building, complete with humidity and free-roaming birds and frogs. Thankfully, they don’t allow the large snakes and bugs to roam free.
One of the most fun animals we found was the albino alligator. Poor guy just sat on his log most of the time, but he did swish his tail occasionally. Yes, he’s real even though he looks more like a plaster model.
Guess what? San Francisco has penguins!!! That was a treat! While you can’t get as close to them as you can at Sea World, it was fun to see the little guys waddling around and being penguin-ish in general. San Francisco just keeps getting better and better…
We walked around some more, poked around in cool gardens, and finally took our awesome transportation home.
One thing we haven’t really mentioned yet is the food, which is just amazing. Maybe we’ll post some pictures of that later.
We’ve also been loving Corinne’s new T-Mobile MyTouch 3G with Google Maps and Navigation. In addition to providing us with amazing maps, it pulls up bus schedules and tracks our location, so we can get directions from right where we’re standing to anywhere. It’s definitely been a life and time saver while we’re here.
Well, it’s Christmas Day, and we’re off to continue the annual Thomas family tradition of watching a movie before noon and then exploring the city.
Have a wonderful day celebrating! Or sleeping in…whatever your traditions may be. :)
Cheers,
Mike and Corinne
