Well, I'm a pro at riding BART now. I waited a little later to leave the hotel this morning, so the train wasn't jam packed with people commuting to work, and I paid for the right parking spot number. The secret to blending in on the train is to wear your earbuds and listen to music on your iPhone, and either apply makeup or stare blankly like you have no soul. Just two stops away from the sketchy part of town I got off in yesterday is a nice part of town where I started from this morning. I transferred to a bus to ride over to The Palace of Fine Arts and it went straight through Chinatown, where riding the bus is apparently THE thing to do, no matter what time of day. The little old Asian ladies gave me the gimlet eye the whole way, even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, as far as I know!
I walked all around The Palace of Fine Arts taking photos, and then sat on a bench for a while and watched the ducks and swans swim around the pond. It was chilly, breezy and almost but not quite raining a little, so after about 30 minutes I was ready to move on.
Fisherman's Wharf was the next stop on my list. I found the musee mecanique, which is a warehouse full of old coin operated games and machines. I'll post the photos in the next post (they are on my phone and typing is easier on the iPad) - can anyone tell me why you'd ever pay 25 cents to see Susie dance the can-can??
Next, I stopped at Boudin for lunch. They make sourdough bread on site, and their clam chowder bread bowl is renowned. The bread was excellent. The chowder was average. I've had better in Boston.
From there, I walked down to pier 39 to see the sea lions. There were about five of them hanging out and posing for pictures, and about fifty tourists obligingly snapping away. I overheard conversations about sea lions in English, French, German and Chinese. People are just suckers for animals, I guess.
After that it was back to the bus stop to go find Art Fibers, which is a really neat yarn shop. The bus went back through Chinatown - what a nightmare! The whole thing was full after two stops, but at least a dozen more people pushed their way on at every stop after that!! About the time I was certain we were going to be on the evening news for crushing someone to death, we got to my stop. Luckily I was seated by the door, so only about a dozen people had to get off to let me out. Glad there won't be any more bus riding on this trip!
Art Fibers was awesome, and had pettable swatches of every yarn in the shop. They design and dye all their own yarns, and they had one kind made from yak fur, and one made from paper fiber! I had a hat pattern with me, and I got the yarn to make two, because I fell in love with two different yarns and couldn't bear to leave either behind.
Then, it was off to the BART station which was fortunately only a short downhill walk away (my feet are killing me!). I grabbed dinner at the in-n-out burger, which I consider to be a requirement for any trip to California.
Tomorrow will be the Golden Gate Bridge, Muir Woods, and Saucilito, then the Eddie Izzard show tomorrow night.
Sounds like a fabulous day!
Posted by: Mom | July 16, 2011 at 06:22 AM