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Published: October 27th 2006
Today was the first not good day I've had so far on my adventure. Considering that's 1 out of 5, and one of those days I was being invaded by resolute German aggressors, it's not too bad a ratio. Plus, it wasn't a
bad day, just wasn't a good one. To start with I forgot to charge my camera battery the night before so I had to wait for that to charge before I left the house and I didn't discover it was dead until late so all in all I didn't leave the house till after midday. I had planned to do the Exploratorium and Boudin Bakery Tour today, and whilst I still had time then I was soon to learn that fate had other ideas.
First off, the only bus that takes you to the Palace of Fine Arts, where the Exploratorium is located, or anywhere near the Palace of Fine Arts for that matter runs from the East of town. So in order to go pretty much due corth from the house I have to get a tram all the way to the east of the city to get on a bus to come back west. Then,
the tram I get is stuck at the stop for half an hour because some guy in the back has collapsed but since it's evidently not that serious the paramedics don't put any kind of a ruch on it. And of course because they're trams there's no way for any other to get past. It may be green but it's sure as hell not very clever. So then I finally get to the bus stop and again have to wait at that stop for twenty minutes whilst I see four of the same number bus come in the other direction and stop at the stop across the street. It finally comes and then I get to enjoy the fact that this particular bus service runs right through the centre of Chinatown and quickly fills to the gills with locals, and of course there's loads of them because they've all been waiting an age at the bus stop like me because of the infrequency of the service. Anyway, we finally get north to the wharf, and we've lost most of the Chinatown entrants and now the bus stops about halway along the route whereupon the driver casually informs everyone this is
as far as she's going. Although the line has half the way again to go. So I get off, wait another twenty minutes at that stop for the next one, because I was in the middle of a place I didn't know and it was all I really could think to do at the time, and that bus comes and tells me that yes, he is going all the way to the Palace of Fine Arts. Some two hours after I left the house that afternoon I had finally arrived; of course there were some building works going on at the entrance where I wanted to get in so I had to take a ten minute detour round by the Bay to get to the entrance. And then, the less said about the Exploratorium the better. Think like a poor man's Science Museum. If you took some of the exhibits of the Science Museum, stuck them in a high ceilinged warehouse, broke the ones that were clearly of most interest and just left a sign saying "not in service today" on them then you would have the Exploratorium. However, since my plans for the Boudin Bakery had been foiled by
Palace of Fine Arts IV
The colours children, the colours!the ineptitude of the San Francisco Municpal Transport system I spent most of the afternoon there, vaguely interested in a few things here and there, a little educated occassionally, but for the most part pretty bored.
The Palace of Fine Arts on the other hand, the buildings outside and in the grounds was fantastic. That's why I have lots of photos of that and NONE of the Exploratorium. To compound my day the bus journey back coincided nicely with the end of the school day so I got to ride back with a bunch of squeling, screaming 12 year-olds. Oh, and I think I'll have nightmares about being squashed in by the big sweaty Chinese guy; though he'll probably have nightmares about being squashed in with the big sweaty English guy so I suppose it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other really.
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