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Published: February 5th 2007
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We arrived in San Francisco aprox 4.5hrs late last night. That seems to be par for the course on the longer western routes on Amtrak. After chatting with the conductor for a short while, he wrote out a small note with a transfer ticket which gave us a free bus ride from the train station in Emeryville, CA to the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The ride would only have cost us $12 but free sounds even better! Though the trains run late most of the time, Amtrak has a great policy of comping either a hotel room or additional travel to make it up to you. The conductor wrote that note as a favor saying that if anyone asked, we should just tell them that the train being late caused us to miss the ride we had lined up for the afternoon, thereby qualifying us for a free ride. After reaching our hotel, we were soon fast asleep.
This morning we had a small continental breakfast at our hotel, the Heritage Marina Hotel, then hit the streets. We walked up the Lombard St. first. This is the super windy/hilly road everyone's seen pictures of at some point. It was
Hilltop view of San Francisco
Nice shot of the ocean behind San Francisco. just as amazing in person as in the pictures we've all seen. After this, we walked down the hill to the Fisherman's Wharf. There were some great photo op's as we walked by the piers. Many small roadside/pierside vendors were selling freshly cooked crab, lobster, and clams. Acacia and I found a small vendor which sold us a breadbowl full of fresh clam chowder and an extremely large crab sandwich with a lemonade for $13. To top it all off, a street performer came up and played a few songs on the violin while we sat and enjoyed our lunch.
After lunch, we continued to walk around and saw another set of really fun street performers. There were two guys dressed in shiny silver clothes with shiny silver paint on all their exposed skin. They were meant to look like robots. They had a loud radio playing dance music in front of them. They stood still on top fo two crates acting like statues until someone came up to give them a dollar. Then, they began to move like a robot using a very high pitched whistle in their mouths to make a machine-like noise to accompany their movements.
Dancing Robots
These guys were awesome! They stood still as a statue until your tip brought them to life to do a short dance and shake your hand. They would shake your hand, give you a lollipop, pose for a picture, then dance (extremely well at that!) for a minute. Then they'd settle back into a cool pose and hold it until the next tip.
After all this, we hopped on a cable car and rode it to the center of the cable car system to tour their museum which is in the building which houses the pulleys which actually move the cables. I'm glad we took Dad's suggestion and went to see this. It was really fascinating! After all this excitement, it was time to head back to the hotel for a recharge. Next up... MORE FOOD!
We first walked down to Ghirardelli to have an ice cream sundae. I know... Eating dessert first is something you're supposed to be broken of by age 10. But hey... Why save the most delectable part of the evening for the end, thus risking being already uncomfortably full, thus not enjoying such a renowned dessert to its fullest potential? I trust we're on the same page. We split an ice cream sundae by the name "Toffee Interlude" under the "Dark Series" sundaes section of the menu. After this,
Swimmers
This group/club appeared to be making the swim from Alcatraz island to the Fisherman's Wharf just as we were arriving. No, we didn't join them. We were, however, with them in spirit. we hopped on the number 30 bus to head down to the Italian restaurants part of town. We had dinner at a spectacular place named "Trattoria Pinocchio." Their claim to fame is that they make all of their pasta from scratch fresh daily. Trust me. It showed. I had a safood pasta dish with mussels, salmon, clams, and shrimp topped with a light marinara sauce which had a nice flavor but was subtle enough to allow you to really taste the seafood. Exquisite! Acacia had a past and chicken dish which was equally well prepared. I know what you're thinking... You're putting on weight just reading about this trip. Well, you may be gaining virtual weight while I'm quite certain that we're putting on actual weight. Oh well. I guess we can take one for the proverbial team. Bed time for now. Tomorrow, breakfast then a cab down to pier 35 where we'll board the Dawn Princess bound for the Mexican Riviera.
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