Flowers in your hair

San Francisco reminds  me a lot of St. John's. It is hilly, it can be foggy, it has stunning Victorian architecture. It does not remind me of St. John's in ways that include an efficient transit system, a thriving harbour front, a thriving and diverse economy, and a grid system to get around.

Our last night together as a group is spent on a boat. Well, theirs is. I wandered around Pier 39. Pier 39 is a magical place where you can get sourdough bread, Biscoff cookies for free, and see some wildlife.

These harbour seals have taken up residence at Pier 39 since the earthquake in 1989. On this day there are hundreds of them but it is not uncommon for there to be upwards of almost a thousand. They are loud and smelly! No one seems to mind because there's even an area set up where tourists can sit and take pictures.

The first question people ask when they hear I went to San Francisco is, "did you see Alcatraz?"
Yes. Yes I did.

The long and short of why I didn't go to Alcatraz is simple: boats. Not cool.

After much bread and many free cookies later, we headed back to the hotel. Well, after Uber stood us up twice.

The following day, we parted ways with the group. It was Mel, James, Nat and I vs the city. We set out for brunch at a place but they had a 45 minute wait. Across the street was a no minute wait that took pity on the poor tourist who forgot to order coffee with her french toast and gave me one for free.

Before looking at a map properly, we decided to head down to Golden Gate Park, foolishly thinking it was near the Golden Gate Bridge. It was lovely but nowhere near the bridge. We figured ourselves out eventually and got on the right path to the bridge.

Path, in this case, being literal.

Mel, James, and Nat

Our plans for the day included going to the bridge, crossing the bridge, coming back, going to Fisherman's Warf and Ghiradelli Square. We had two option when it came to getting to the bridge: take the road, or take the path that ran parallel to the road but was much more scenic.

The path deviated from the road. Greatly. And in miles. We're all from metric countries and as a result miles are hard, yo. We ended up walking about 20 km from the park to the bridge.

We were about to give up hope when:

We saw it!! There it was! It's not deceptively far with no further wayfaring point at all! C'mon, team, we got this!

It happened to be Remembrance Day. We stumbled upon a WWII memorial. We took a minute to rest and reflect.

With a fork in the road and no method of telling where we were actually going, we got our first full view of the bridge.

Magnificent.

We also met our first - and only, and most awesome - stoner.

Our stoner was a slightly older man, just over middle aged. He had a spread of cheese, fruit, wine, and jam. He'd ridden his bike up the god awful hills to get there and seemed to be having a great time. When we asked if we could join him, half joking, he replied, "Well I would not feel so all alone..." and continued to speak the song. Much like Dylan himself. As we walked away, he called out some life advice to us: "Remember what Mama Cass said - feed your head!!"

I took so many really good pictures of the bridge. What none of them tell you is that the bridge is 3.5 km long. Which is really long.

We got to the other side of the bridge much later than we expected. We'd also put on about 25 km at this point and lost the will to carry on.

Oooh, pretty.

 I like when others participate in James pictures. We'd spent a good 20 minutes taking pictures of everyone else looking like they were holding or squishing the bridge, or doing yoga poses in front of it. James the person had an idea for James the bear; he should high five the bridge! While it didn't work out exactly as he planned, it still looks good.

None of us listened to our guide the day before and didn't know how to get back. We thought there was a ferry we could take on the other side. Oh no. We had to go to Saulsilito and  get a ferry. Fortunately we swung a deal with a hop on/hop off bus that as also going there and we got to bypass the gigantic line at the ferry terminal with pre-purchased tickets.

Next: no cows or lamps in sight.