Bohemian and Botanical in San Francisco - Part 2

Had a delightful dinner tonight in the North Beach section of SF with my new friend, Malie.  I met her through a friend in Atlanta via Facebook.  So now back to my recount of the day...

After the Japanese Tea Garden, I had originally intended to hit some of the museums today as well, but with the temperature at 65 degrees and sunny, I just couldn't force myself inside.  So I decided to go to the SF Botanical Gardens.  I was lucky enough to join a docent led tour of the gardens.  And learn some of the history of the area.

SF is at the same latitude as Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Italy - some of the major grape growing areas of the world - which is why California is such a great wine producing area.  I learned that the gorgeous huge trees I've been seeing in parks around SF are Monterey Cypress and Monterey Pines.  I got to see 2 different types of redwood trees.  The Botanical Gardens were originally built on an area that was nothing but sand dunes.  SF decided to build a park similar to Central Park in New York.  So they flew out the guy who designed Central Park.  He took one look at the sand dunes and said it couldn't be done, and flew back to NY.  So they hired a 24 year old Army engineer who did the landscaping for the Presidio area.  He used tons of horse manure collected from all around SF to enrich the sand and make dirt.  He planted tall Monterey Pines and Cypress trees to form a natural wind break, and proceeded from there.  Some of the original trees that were planted around the edge of the park still stand.

Bohemian and botanical in San Francisco - Part 1

The Haight Ashbury neighborhood in SF is famous for being a maven of the hippies in the 60's and 70's.  Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead, head shops, psychedelic colors, beads and braids all combine along Haight street.  It's colorful for sure - both the brightly decorated shops and the strange mix of people.  Residents mingle with Dead heads, homeless people, white Ameri/European tourists...and lots of dogs being walked everywhere.  The smells are a strange mix of incense, body odor, pot and sometimes of pizza, thai food or coffee wafting from restaurants.  I wandered in and out of several blocks worth of shops surfing tie dyed clothes, jewelry, cool looking second hand shops, etc.  I bought a string of sandal wood prayer beads from a snaggle-tooth tibetan whose shop smelled of incense and who was listening to Paco De Lucia (spanish flamenco guitarist).  We had a brief discussion of the music, in which I recommended he might want to listen to Vicente Amigo.  By then I think the incense and the pot smells were making my head whirl, so I decided to head to the golden gate park.

After a brief skirmish with Major Tom (my Tom Tom GPS), during which we circled the park several times looking for the correct entrance leading to the museum area and not the one that Major Tom insisted I turn into (I tried to tell him it was barricaded and the mounted policeman would not look kindly on running through it.), I managed to park and headed into the center of the Golden Gate Park where the museums were located.  It was such a beautiful day that I couldn't bear to go inside to museums.  So my first stop was the Japanese Tea Garden.  What a treat!  It's so serene and peaceful - despite the tourists.  I stopped several times to sit on benches and close my eyes for a few seconds of meditation.  One of the things I couldn't get a picture of was a dragon made out of a hedge of low cut bamboo plants twisting on a hillside, with stones for the head and the tail.  I could have stayed there forever.  Perhaps when I buy a house of my own again, I'll attempt to recreate such a peaceful oasis.  I may have to return there again before I leave.

Escape from Oakland

My original housing out here was supposed to be in Oakland.  I heard from a few people before I left the east coast that it wasn't a safe area. Even the guy who showed me to the rental car, upon finding out where I was headed, cautioned me about it.  However, as my recruiter assured me that it was safe and other travel techs had used it, I decided to give it a try.  I punched the address in my trusty Tom Tom GPS, ( I call him Major Tom) and set off from the airport.  Crossing the Bay area bridge was pretty cool, but once you're on the actual bridge, the sides are so high that you can't see out the sides.  As I crossed into Oakland, the area seemed to be nothing but warehouses and industrial buildings and lots of graffiti.  I began to fear that Major Tom had led me astray.  However, turning the last corner, there appeared a Target to the left (surrounded by chain link fence) and to the right an Extended Stay America.

When I went inside, there was a door open to a utility closet and several people standing there looking in and using at least 4 plastic trash cans to catch water coming from a significant pipe leak.  One of them took a cell phone picture and discussed using it for proof.  They asked me to hold on a minute.  I decided to just look at the room first.  It was skeevy looking.  The rugs didn't look entirely clean; the whole place smelled bad; everything was worn and sad and cheap looking.  So I called my recruiter and was sent back to the other side of the bay to look at a hotel.  On the way back across the bridge, I had to pay a $4 toll.  No contest.  $4 toll everyday, skeevy lodging and unsafe area or decent hotel out near the airport on the other side of SF?  La Quinta Inns & Suites wins.

That was Tuesday, the day I arrived in San Francisco.  Today on the news, there was a story about a minister who was feeding the homeless (as he often did) in Oakland.  He got shot and killed today.  The bullets grazed his 3 yr old granddaughter and pregnant wife.  Yeah, La Quinta rules.

Open Air Bus Tour of SF

I have found that one of the best ways to get an overview of a new city, and decide the best places to go back and see on foot, is to take a tour by bus, trolley or carriage.  I decided today to try the open air bus tour in San Francisco.  It had options to "hop on, hop off" at all stops if I wanted to - however I found that I wanted to sit back and listen to the tour and make notes.

San Francisco has a vast hodge podge of ethnicities that founded it, like most other cities in America.  Among the many influences are French, Spanish, Asian and Italian.  Before I boarded the bus, I visited the Boudin sour dough bakery/museum which discusses the french influence.  Bakers were revered during the Gold Rush days.  As for the Spanish influence, I mostly saw spanish architecture - and there is a latino section.  Of course the asian influence is best seen in Chinatown - which was the one place I got off the bus.  I was sort of disappointed in it though.  It seemed mostly to be lots of tourist shops - packed with junk to appeal to the masses.  If there were real finds, they may have been off the beaten path.  Since I had to get back to the bus, I stayed on the main street.

I would love to take a tour through SF with an architect.  The different styles are amazing - the victorians being my favorite.  Driving up Van Ness (hwy 101) was an interesting view of styles as well.  One side of the street is all original buildings.  The other side is all new construction - rebuilt after the earthquake and fire in the early 1900's.

The tour took us up Hwy 1 toward the Golden Gate bridge.  Highway 1 is 644 miles in length, stretching all the way up to Oregon.  It was once the primary route of travel along the coast.  It turned out to be a foggy day to see the bridge - which is not really Golden at all, but a sort of rusty red color.  As the bus picked up speed across the bridge, we were buffeted by heavy wind from the ocean on one side and the bay on the other.  It was freezing!  Note for future:  Next time take a hat and a coat!  I have serious sun and wind burn.  But the views were fantastic from the top of the bus.  The fog rolling over the hills was amazing.  It looks like they have a fog machine on the other side just pushing it over constantly.  The fog rolls over the top and then dissipates so that the bottom of the hills stayed clear and sunny.

I made a list of the places I want to go back to:  The Japanese Tea Garden, the botanical garden and museums at the Golden Gate Park; Haight Ashbury district; Sausalito and Muir Woods on the other side of the bay.  Pictures of todays tour are below.  Too tired to be eloquent tonight.  Stay tuned.

San Francisco baby!

San Francisco, California - surrounded by water on 3 sides.  I finally made it after a very long day of travel.  The company I work for decided to put me up at an extended stay in Oakland CA across the bay.  But when I arrived, I found out that there's a toll on the bridge ranging from $4-6 depending on week or weekend, etc.  Plus several people, including the guy at Enterprise car rental, stated that Oakland is not safe.  I went to the hotel and it was kind of skeevy and didn't smell good.  After many calls to my company, I ended up staying back out near the airport at La Quinta hotel.  So no kitchenette, but at least I won't have to do dishes or clean my room!  Then they called to tell me that I needed one more TB test.  Like they couldn't have gotten this done last week when I went all over the place for testing and faxing tons of documentation!  So we worked things out and I will probably have another mostly free day and start work on Friday instead of Thursday.

I'm uploading some photos of the hotel, rental car, and a quick view out my window on the highway.  It's really different here!  The houses are packed tightly in groups and seem to be like tall, thin, salt boxes with flat roofs.  Of course lots of hills and wind.  I saw cable car, but it looked more like a marta bus than anything, so that was kind of disappointing.  But I did go down some side streets with incredible hills - just like in the movies!  As you start down the hill you can't see the street in front of you for a bit!

I'm back at the hotel briefly, loading up on some tourist maps.  Then heading out to scrounge up something for dinner.  Think I'll have an early night tonight to plan my attack of tourism tomorrow; including a dry run to where I'm going to be working.  Oh yeah, right, that's what I'm actually here for. :)

Here I go....

Here I go.... I'm spending the night at the Hyatt Place hotel near the Charlotte, NC airport.  My flight leaves at 7 am tomorrow!  So I didn't want to make any of my family and friends get up super early to drive me 30+ minutes to the airport.  I've had to quickly research baggage and carry on restrictions as I haven't flown in a while.  Most airlines have the same charges - $25 for the first bag, $35 for the second bag and a 50 lb weight limit on each.  I'm hoping my bags are not overweight, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they are.  I'll report on that later.  Delta has a restriction on fluids for checked bags which I thought was interesting.  You can't check anything that is more than 16 oz each and no more than 70 oz total.

So, 5 AM shuttle to the airport, 7 AM flight to Cincinnati and then a connecting flight to San Francisco.  I'll be there at 1:30 pm California time, which is 3 hours behind EST.  Grabbing a rental car at the airport and then have to find my way to the extended stay hotel in Oakland.  The company has assured me that it's 9 1/2 miles from the hospital.  I don't have to start work until Thursday morning, so I've got some time to settle in and find my way around.  Stay tuned!

Boring alert: For those of you who are interested, here is some information I found out about Extended stay hotels, never having stayed at one before.  The biggest question was about housekeeping.  Apparently they offer a weekly cleaning and refreshing of supplies when you book for longer than 7 days.  As for the rest I copied this from a web site:

Extended Stay Hotels is committed to ensuring a clean room at a reasonable price. Services are scheduled based on the number of nights reserved; e.g., 1-6 nights, towel exchange is available at the Front Desk; 7+ nights, one Full Service provided each 7 days. 

Full Service: (provided each 7 days) includes dusting, vacuuming, changing linens and towels, emptying trash, cleaning of bathroom and kitchen, and replenishing soap and toilet paper if needed. Additional Full Service may be scheduled as needed and purchased for $10/service.* 

Refresh Service: (optional service) includes replacing soiled towels, emptying trash, replenishing soap and toilet paper if needed, and making bed with existing linens. Refresh Service may be scheduled as needed and purchased for $5/service.* 

Daily Refresh: (optional service) includes the same housekeeping services as our Refresh Service but is provided daily. This service can be added at check-in for an additional $3/day.

* * Dishes are not washed during any housekeeping service.

On the brink and teetering

Deep breath.  I'm writing this at my sister's house in York, SC.  I made it this far and had lofty plans to visit extended family and have my first vacation in 6 years.  But I managed to mess that up pretty well.  All I can say in my defense is that divorce makes you crazy for a while - and it's much harder than I anticipated to suddenly be without a house, a job, dogs, responsibility.... You might think that I'd be soaring free and giddy.  But those responsibilities grounded me, gave my life a sense of purpose and place.  Now all the sudden I'm not needed by anyone.  I feel rootless and untethered.  I suppose it's what a phantom limb feels like - there, but not there.  An itch you can never scratch.

At any rate, I'm starting the traveling bit sooner than anticipated and in a much different way.  I'll be flying out on Tuesday to San Francisco, California for a month!  Leaving the Kia Soul here at the moment.  Temporary plans are to hopefully get another assignment in California after this one and have my car shipped out there.  If not, I'll be back in SC in a month to pick up "The Ghost".

So, here I sit, on the brink of my new adventure.  Ready to leap and feeling nervous and breathless.