Phew! A 44 hour
day thanks to the International Date Line meaning we left home in Wellington at
14:30 and arrived in San Francisco at 11:00 the same day.
The 12 hour
flight from Auckland landed half an hour early thanks to a strong tail wind
over the Pacific. Air New Zealand looked after us very well in two seats right in
the nose of the B747 cabin that seated only 14 passengers (we were a lot further forward than the pilots). As always
we ate dinner together sharing my table with Jane wedged in the ottoman and
managed all the courses on offer as well as a fair quantity of wine, desert
wine and port.
Our Cabin In The Nose - Jane Front Left
We were both
pretty tired after a restless night before (excitement or nerves, or a
combination of both?). Once dinner was finished Jane had her bed made in no time at all and was soon
fast asleep, I thought I would finish watching “Rush” in bed having started the
movie before dinner, but the next thing I recall was waking up with my screen
just a dull glow. A nightcap of Glen Morangie soon had me back to sleep until
breakfast time. Jane woke at the same time having been out cold all night.
It was my turn to
wedge myself into Jane’s ottoman for breakfast together. After that I just caught the end of Philomena
as we descended to the south of San Francisco and came into land on a cloudless
day.
It took the best
part of an hour to clear customs, but that did mean our bags were there waiting
for us when we got to the baggage hall. After that it was plain sailing to the
shuttle stand (or shared rental vans as they are called here) and a quick trip
to the Beresford Arms Hotel in central San Francisco. Our room was ready for us
and after a quick shower we set off to explore the city.
It was only a few
minutes before we met the first of many friendly Americans. As we were standing
gazing up at a tall orange painted apartment building across the street with a
steel fire escape that appeared to hang precariously all the way down the face,
a woman stopped and explained she lived opposite and could see from her
apartment that they were luxurious apartments. She suggested if we wanted to
get a good view of the city we should go to the top floor of an hotel just down
the street, we didn’t take her up on that.
Cable Car In Powell Street
We soon reached
Union Square where we turned down Powell
Street heading for the cable car terminus. It was lunch time by then and we
were feeling hungry. We decided to get our first taste of America at Tad’s
Steak House which turned out to be a good choice. I had the PJ’s Fat Burger and
was impressed that I was asked how I would like it cooked. Jane went for a
Cheese and Ham sandwich. The buger was topped with bacon, onions, sauce and two
cheeses. Both dishes came with salad and fries.
The Menu In Tad's Steak House
As we finished
our meal we were consulting a map to see how we might get to Lombard Street (the one
with all the ‘S’ bends that winds its way down a steep hill). A fellow diner
came over and asked if he could help. It turned out he couldn’t, but again we
were impressed by the friendliness.
Feeling very
full, we continued to the cable car terminal where we were tapped up for $2 for
the homeless, bought a $15 day pass each and joined the queue for a car. A
couple of cars filled up before it was our turn to get on, but I found it very
interesting to watch how they maneuvered cars onto a small turntable which they
rotated manually to turn a car around and then pushed it onto the line heading
away from the terminus.
I remembered from
my last trip that the driver is known as a Gripman because he operates a large
lever that enables the car to grip onto the cable moving in a slot between the
tracks. He also operates the brakes (blocks of wood that make contact with the
track – cable cars don’t stop quickly). The gripman is assisted by another
whose job it is to apply brakes going downhill and in-between times to collect
fares.
At a stop shortly
after we wet off there was a stand-off between the gripman and a would be female
passenger who wanted to board with a dog. I only heard one side of the
conversation with the gripman repeatedly stating the dog wasn’t allowed on
board unless it was caged or muzzled. Commonsense eventually prevailed and the
woman and her pet boarded. I guess she must have argued the dog was as good as
caged as it was in her handbag! See photo below.
Dangerous Dog Allowed On Cable Car Eventually
We loved the
cable car ride taking us up some very steep hills before descending to the
terminal near Fisherman’s Wharf. Interestingly, cable car stops are in the middle
of crossroads, they being the only level sections of track on the steep hills.
The tracks are in the middle of the road and traffic is required to give way to
passengers crossing from the kerb to cable cars.
From the cable
car terminal we walked to Fisherman’ Wharf. On the way we passed a Route 66
Store that was overflowing with all sorts of stuff, much of it bearing a tenuous relationship to Route 66 at best. We dis spot the following
amongst the collection however:
One For You Ella!
At Fisherman’s
Wharf we contemplated taking a tour of the USS Pampanito, a 2nd world war
submarine moored adjacent to a Liberty Ship, but decided against it as we
thought we could use our time better. One fact we did glean was that what
seemed like a very small vessel had a crew of 80 who were at sea for up to 75
days at a time and there were no showers on board!
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| USS Pampanito (With a Liberty Ship Behind) |
Instead, we walked
to the end of Pier 39 to look at the sealions basking on platforms
floating in the dock. The sealions arrived after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and caused
a lot of bother clambering on boats and damaging them. As a result, the City
removed the boats and installed pontoons for the sealions to bask on. Up to 1,700 have been there ever since thanks to a plentiful supply of herrings.
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| Sealions At Pier 39 |
We took a walk round
the shops on the pier which were stuffed full of tat. One shop – the Magnetron stocked nothing but thousands of fridge magnets (do people actually buy the stuff?). We were tempted by a magnet that could easily pass for a donut, but decided against it :-)
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| Magnetron |
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| Donut Fridge Magnets! |
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| The Emerald Lady |
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| Captain Ryan
While we were waiting to depart we got talking to some of the very friendly American passengers. Our young captain kept up a non-stop chatter for the full time we were on board. He was very quick-witted with comments such as the spectators on Pier 39 were the poorest tourists in San Francisco because they couldn't afford his $10 trip!. He yelled to them "It's only $10!" He referred to the passengers by the state, or in our case, the country we came from. His first words to us were along the lines of "New Zealand - does it hurt being out on the bay again?" and then proceeded to tell the rest of the passengers how NZ was 8 - 1 up in the America's cup, but lost 9 - 8. Later he offered each passenger the chance to steer the boat. When our turn came it was "New Zealand, here's your chance to get even".
We headed back to our hotel via the cable car accompanied by some very animated Italians as far as it's terminus in China Town and walked the rest of the way.
We ate dinner at The White Horse, advertised in our hotel as an English pub. It was a poor imitation although the Flat Tyre beer was good. Jane had a California Burger (medium rare) and I had a chicken sandwich, both accompanied by the inevitable fries and salad.
Walking back to our hotel we agreed the day had been a great start to our time in the U.S. and:
1. Americans are very friendly
2. We needed to eat better, otherwise we would be considerably heavier by the time we left for Europe.
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