August 2009 - San Francisco

When I stayed in Los Angeles in summer 2009 Laine and I took a short trip into the north of her state, to the beautiful San Francisco. We took the first morning flight with Virgin America, stayed the night and went home with the last flight of the following day. This is the story of these two days.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Flight Los Angeles - San Francisco

Since our flight departed at 6:30am and nobody wanted to take the 45-minute drive to the airport to drop us off that early in the morning we had ourselves dropped off late the night before. What we didn't know was how cold it would be. Not because of the weather but because of the horrible air conditioning in Terminal 3 making it almost impossible to sit on a bench only wearing a T-Shirt and shorts. And thus we spent the night cuddled up close to each other but not finding much sleep. At least we were among the first people to pass security control that morning. Since we didn't have bags to check in we could skip that step as well.

The flight was short and not very exciting, yet long enough for me to adore the airline. The tickets had been real bargains but purchased under conditions that made Ryanair look old. There was plenty of legroom, the seats were comfortable and even had an AVOD-system which even the much more expensive Lufthansa short distance flights still lack.

Downtown and motel

We had booked a room at Super 8 Motel San Bruno in a southern suburb of San Francisco, close to the airport. We couldn't check in until the afternoon and so we started with the necessary things: breakfast at the terminal and purchasing tourist passes for the public transport system. Unfortunately, those tickets were only valid in the city of San Francisco, rides with the BART train system serving the whole Bay Area had to be paid extra. To get into the city for now we took an express bus going right from the airport to the Transbay Terminal in downtown. From here we took a walk along the piers between the Ferry Building and Pier 39. This was our first destination, Laine showed me around the pier and we spent some time here.

Meanwhile it was time to get back to the motel and check into our room. We took the bus to Market Street and the BART train to the station closest to our hotel. We still had to walk about ten minutes from here to the motel. The room had been very cheap and like the flight it showed a very good price-performance ratio. It was big, clean and had a Jacuzzi. We stayed a while before we set off again heading back to the city.

An evening in San Francisco

Having had lunch at a Wendy's on the way to the train station we knew what post on our list we now wanted to check: a Cable Car ride. We took the BART to Market Street, had a closer look at the Transamerica Pyramid and walked Columbus Avenue down towards the harbor. On the foot of Hyde Street we got in line with many other tourists at the Cable Car turnaround. Even though it was a long line it happened to move pretty fast so we found ourselves on the back platform of a Cable Car in notime. It took us up Hide Street and all the way back to Market Street.
Being back in the city's mainstreet we took a stroll through the still busy district and went looking for the bus terminal which we only found after a profound search. It was too late already though, no more busses were leaving to our destination area so we once again had to rely on the BART. The station where we got off was located behind a mall which was already closed by this time of the day, which meant we had to find our way through the empty parking structures. Eventually we reached the motel and sank into our bed totally exhausted and fell asleep immediately.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Golden Gate Bridge

When I woke up the next morning I found a plate with fresh buns, marmelade and breakfast utensils. Laine had already eaten breakfast and decided to bring some to the room for me.

We didn't lose time and left right away. Laine insisted of taking the bus that ran along the street in which both our motel and the BART station were located. After getting off at the mall and on the BART we rode to Daly City, got off again and hopped on the bus which drove along beautiful streets and through gorgeous parks to the Golden Gate Bridge.

When I first saw the bridge I was stunned with amazement. Soon the fog cleared up revealing the huge pylons of the bridge. Of course we took a walk on the sidewalk hanging more than 70 meters above the water, which turned out to be more complicated than one might expect. Somebody once had the idea of renting bikes to tourists and this has spread like a disease, making it hard to walk the bridge. Every few steps a biker bumps into the pedestrian or pushes him aside. Nevertheless we caught some very niche views on San Francisco, the bay with Alcatraz and the bridge itself, which I never really had imagined to be that big.

Hyde St., Lombard St., Fisherman's Wharf

We took the bus to the corner of Hyde and Beach Street. Our next destination was Lombard Street, considered the world's crookedest street. It crosses Hyde Street, the previous evening we had already passed it with the Cable Car.
But first we needed to climb the highest point of Hyde Street, which turned out to be quite difficult due to the steep incline and the midday sun. When we finally reached the upper end of Lombard Street we had another gorgeous view before our eyes, a nice panorama of the city with the Coit Tower and the Bay Bridge.
On the lower end of the interesting part of Lombard Street we turned left to get back to the bayshore. The world famous mile Fisherman's Wharf is located there, and Laine had especially encouraged me to see the sourdough bakery there. And so it came that we looked around the area and had a good meal at the sourdough bakery.

Coit Tower, Flight San Francisco - Los Angeles

We got informed that right around the corner a bus line going all the way up to the Coit Tower stopped. Since we had enough time we decided to go there and look at the city from the top of Telegraph Hill.
To get on top of the tower we would have had to pay an extra admission fee, so we preferred staying down to earth. The position was high enough to overlook the city and the bay anyway.

After this short stopover we took the bus back to Union Square, changed to a line operating towards Market Street and got on the BART to the airport. We had already checked out of the motel when we left the morning, after having checked in for the flight online.
On the flight I had a nice talk with our seat neighbor, Peter. He could tell us a lot about San Francisco and Los Angeles, his two hometowns. As a Beatles fan he was excited when he heard I was from Hamburg. While talking the time passed quickly. Back in Los Angeles Laine's mom and sister came to pick us up and together we went home to their house.