Piers/Wharfs

Cemeteries, the Halifax Citadel, and Pier 21
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Cemeteries, the Halifax Citadel, and Pier 21

I was on my own since Julie had to go to work. Friend that she is, she left me the car. My favourite thing to visit on trips is cemeteries, followed by churches. I overdosed on the former on Monday and will not bore you with the couple hundred (!) photos I took. :-S

First stop was the Fairview Lawn Cemetery to view some of the Titanic graves.

I wonder how many people have visited this grave since 1997:


This person was identified at a later date, probably through DNA testing. Science never ceases to amaze me.


Next stop was the Old Burying Ground, Halifax’s oldest cemetery. This stone stood out:


And I thought she had a bad reputation…

After spending some time at this cemetery, I hiked to the bus terminal to inquire about transportation to the airport, which was a waste of time and I should have just called the Airporter shuttle service.

There was money left in the metre after this, so I walked up Spring Garden hoping to find some cute shops to explore. Unfortunately, a lot was closed since it was Remembrance Day Monday. But I did find a fantastic little bookshop on Queen Street. There, I chatted up the seller and he went off to his attic in search of some Wallis Budge for me. While he did that, I hurried back to the car as my metre was about to expire! When I came back, he looked relieved (and a tad dusty).

After much consideration, I only took three books as I had to keep in mind that my luggage was carry on! The first book was the Budge, called The Mummy, which is actually a really good primer on ancient Egyptian history, language, and customs as well as descriptions of funerary rites. The second book was about the move of the temple of Isis at Philae, and the last about how the Rosetta Stone cracked the hieroglyph code. I was thrilled with my haul!

Next stop were some antique shops on Agricola, but they were all closed, so I just had lunch, then I headed for the Citadel.

There, I took a couple of pics of the Clock Tower:


I then climbed all the way up the hill to look at the ruins:


Since none of the exhibits were open, access was free and I could have driven my car up to the lot there, but the hike was nice!

Coming back down, I served through an expanse of grass and just happened to find 1.85$. How odd is that?! LOL

I finished the day at Pier 21, Canada’s Immigration museum, which is the equivalent of Angel and Ellis Islands in the US. The movie alone was worth the experience; it featured some Oscar worthy performances! I won’t spoil it. 🙂

Julie and I went shopping after a fabulous dinner (made by her) of fresh Digby scallops (num, num) and I found a brass candlestick in the style I collect at a Value Village of all places!

Day 3
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Day 3

(I gave my camera a workout today, but Blogger is being a pain, so I’m only sharing a few at this time.)

I took full advantage of my MUNI pass today.

MUNI is, bar none, the best public transportation system I have ever encountered in terms of tourist use. For all I know, it sucks for commuters…. At any rate, it’s really easy to schedule a trip since every bus stop has a map of the transit system and every single stop is announced on the buses. Instead of sitting on the edge of my seat praying I wouldn’t miss my stops, I could sit back and relax.

My first order of business today was to visit my quintessential San Francisco landmark, that is the one thing that tells me that, yes, I’m definitely here. Then, I was going off to the De Young fine art museum. As it turns out, this was really simple and involved two buses, the first one catchable just two blocks from Neil’s. The landmark in question was on the same bus route as De Young, so I just had to hop off a bus, hike to the landmark, take a million pictures of it, then hike back to the bus stop to catch the next one.

Here is my quintessential San Francisco landmark. I’m sure that these gorgeous painted ladies require no introduction!
(squeals with glee at finally seeing them live!)

De Young is located in Golden Gate Park and features recent works of art plus some more contemporary exhibits like haute couture. There is a fantastic 360 degree view of SF from the observation tower.

I wandered a bit around GGP after and found the Japanese Tea Gardens. They were breathtakingly beautiful and the highlight was the Bell Bridge:


So much fun to climb up and down I did it twice!

I wandered around a bit more, discovered the Shakespeare gardens, then decided to head over to the Legion of Honor, accessible with my De Young ticket. I hadn’t planned on how to get there since I assumed that someone at De Young would be able to indicate the way. Nope. I went back to the bus stop where I’d been dropped off and easily mapped out a two transfer route that took me to the Legion of Honor’s front door.

The Legion of Honor was my favourite museum thus far (not counting aquariums). It’s another fine arts museum, but with much older art, including ancient Egyptian sculpture, Estruscan pottery, medieval illuminations, 16th to 18th century furniture (including one of Marie-Antoinette’s sofas), impressionist paintings, and a whole gallery devoted to Rodin. I went through twice! I think my favourite piece was a truly hysterical frieze of Adam and Eve being scolded by god in the garden of Eden. The details were fantastic–the pair holding onto their fig leaves for dear life and god pointing his finger in a way that makes me think he was probably shaking it at them. Here’s one of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’:
I bussed home after and decided that I really needed to spend a couple of hours off my feet. So, I grabbed Neil’s bike and went for a ride along the bay. This was interesting since he has a man’s style bike with the bar across it and the bike is set about an inch too high for me. So, getting on and off in my skirt was quiiiiite the challenge! The ride really did the trick and it was just so nice to use different muscles. I took a lot of pictures of palm trees today, but this is my favourite one and was taken on my bike ride:I also took a lot of pictures of the bay:

I came back to Fisherman’s Wharf after several miles, locked the bike, and went off in search of the most gluttonous seafood meal I could find involving calamari and shrimp. So, I was quite pleased to stumble on huge calmari body parts (???) stuffed with tiny bay shrimps in a creamy sauce. I think I got about two-thirds of the way through my plate before I had to capitulate. 🙂

Thus ends what will most likely be my last full day in San Francisco. Neil and I are visiting Alcatraz tomorrow, then picking up my rental car so we can go search for nuclear wessels and light houses across the bay. Depending on how late we get back, I’ll most likely be leaving for Vegas tomorrow night. I’d like to get a couple of hours (and miles) under my belt so that I won’t be completely wiped upon arriving there Sunday night.

I could be happy living in this city.

Day 2
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Day 2

My feet tell me that I definitely over-extended myself today…. 🙂

Unfortunately, I’m still not used to the whole picture thing, so I have tons of pics (and movies) from my morning, but that’s it. I’ll get them on Flickr… eventually.

Here are the day’s highlights, and only highlights because if I put down everything I saw and did, no one will believe that I actually did and saw all of that. It’s been that sort of day. You try to see San Francisco in only two full free days there!

So…

From Neil’s, conveniently located in Russian Hill, near Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, I trekked to:

1) the famous Lombard Street, touted as the crookedest in SF. Apparently, the locals know that’s not true, but the real crookedest street is in an unsavoury part of town…. At any rate, the crooked part of Lombard is beautiful, paved with bricks and immaculately landscaped. I have no idea how residents of this part of the street manage to navigate in and out of their driveways. I’m no photographer, but I think this pic is pretty good!
2) Pier 39. There, I used my CityPass to visit the Aquarium of the Bay. I got a stamp on my hand that would have given me in and out privileges for the day, but I saw everything in one visit and didn’t return later for shows. Highlights included a tunnel surrounded by water in which we could see sea stars, leopard sharks, bat rays, skates, big sea bass, and much more. Very cool. I walked through twice. A highlight of this walk was a display where there was an open skate pouch (‘mermaid’s purse’) with a live developing embryo in it. Followed an awesome touch pool where I got to feel leopard sharks, skates, sea cucumbers, sea stars, urchins, etc. I have to say that except for the sharks, I could have been at a similar establishment on the east coast, the species are that similar.

3) After the aquarium, I had time to catch the 10:45 Bay Cruise, also courtesy of my CityPass. When I got on, I thought it was going to be a bit hokey, but no. We got an awesome tour of the bay, going all the way under the Golden Gate Bridge and then circling Alcatraz (which I’ll be visiting on Saturday with Neil). I took some awesome pictures of the bridge from many angles and most of Alcatraz. The weather was beyond cold and I was so glad I’d brought a sweater. One lady had just a tank top and I swear she was turning blue, until a gentleman took pity on her and handed her his jacket. Some people are just silly. A highlight of the tour was seeing the sea lions of Pier 39 who used to be chased away but are now a tourist attraction (as is just about everything in SF!). The narration (by Jules Verne’s character Captain Nemo, believe it or not) was pretty funny and very informative.

Here is the underside of the Golden Gate Bridge (choosing that one because it’s not a view you often see of this bridge!):
and here is Alcatraz (I can’t wait to be able to remove the people in the foreground from all my Alcatraz pics!):

I was surprised by how beautiful and lush the island is. Saturday’s visit can’t come soon enough!

4) It was noon when we got back and I had just one more stop to make at Pier 39. My CityPass had a bonus ticket for the Boudin Bakery, which produces the most famous sourdough in San Francisco using ‘mother dough’ that’s been fed since the 1800’s! This museum was fabulous and really set the history of the bakery into its historical context. The thing I’ll remember the most is the story of how during the earthquake of 1906 the owner of the bakery had just enough time and presence of mind to scoop the starter into a bucket before running to safety as her business burned to the ground. Saving the starter meant that she could restart her business and, essentially, lost nothing. Now bad for some flour and water! The self-guided tour ended at a tasting room where I got an amazing snack of sour dough, ciabatta, and chocolate and raisin breads, with various toppings like marinated parmesan.

5) My traitorous map made it seem like the Exploratorium was close-by, so I decided to hike there next. Let’s just say I arrived an hour later extremely footsore. 🙂 I hadn’t spent any money yet today (!) so I decided to not look for lunch and just ate at the museum before exploring. The Exploratorium is so much fun. For those in Ottawa, just think of what the Science and Tech museum used to be like, and then multiply the fun factor by at least 1,000. Every single exhibit is interactive and teaches you something about a different branch of science. One of the cooler exhibits were a ‘shadow camera.’ I have no idea how it worked, but a flash of bright light would capture our shadows. Really, really cool effect. There were also some developing chicken embryos in the same style as the skate pouch. I spent a full three hours at this museum until I’d had my fill of fun. I’m such a kid. 🙂 A final note regarding the Exploratorium is an hysterical find at the gift shop–an Einstein action figure. Love it! Coming out, I went around a lovely lagoon bordered by ‘palace’ ruins. I’m adding this so I can mention the only moment I regret not thinking to pull out my camera. A family of mallards was swimming close to shore looking for handouts. In the middle of the family, nonchalantly trying to fit in, was a sea gull. I’ve never seen a gull behave like that and I wasn’t the only one to find the sight pretty damn funny!

6) I was completely burnt out by this point, but I had a rogue ticket left in my book for a downtown attraction. The other two were for Golden Gate Park. I wasn’t sure I’d have time to see the downtown one any other day and it was open till 8:45 today. Since it’s something I wouldn’t have paid to see, I decided that a half-assed, ‘been there, done’ that tour would be sufficient. Which it was. You see, I’m not a fan of modern art, as in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (or SFMoMA for cute). Now, there were some things I actually liked and I really enjoyed the Martin Munkasci photograph exhibit, but, otherwise, modern art exasperates me!!! The big going on today was the ‘Matisse as sculptor’ exhibit, but I just breezed through it since I’m not a huge fan of Matisse. At any rate, I did the SFMoMA in 45 minutes flat and I can’t imagine I would have spent more time there had I not been so burnt. I’m embarrassed to admit that the best part of going to the SFMoMA was the LONG bus ride from the Exploratorium. Hey, I can’t like everything!

7) After dinner at a nearby diner I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to walk home, so I hired a cab. Now, that’s exhaustion for you.

My left little toe is currently double its normal size thanks to an impressive blister and my SPF 60 failed me around mid-day, so I’m a tad cooked (but not burned, thankfully) and very footsore. What an amazing day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll just add that Neil came home with an impressive earthquake survival kit, given to him by Google. Obviously, Google knows something we don’t know, and I’m quite nervous. 🙂