01.08.2017
Ilgonis writing:
“I love SF”, this slogan was stamped on our hands while we waited to climb a Coit tower where we enjoyed a panoramic view of the San Francisco. I think I can agree with these words because during the day we experienced many wonderful things. We visited Chinatown with it’s busy street’s, rushing people and vegetable markets. We admired steep hills of the city that previously I had seen only on Hollywood movies. We wondered how people can park cars here and they do not roll downhill?
Then we went by a ferry to the famous island of Alcatraz. Do you remember a scene from the movie “The Rock” where Sean Connery sings a song about Sanfrancisko while taking a shower? Apart from the fact that this song was buzzing in my head for a whole day, this movie was all that I knew about Alcatraz prison. Reality was quite a different but not less impressive mostly thanking the good audioguide that revealed history of the prison and its inhabitants. After returning to mainland we listened to the furious cries of sea lions on a Pier 39. Did you know that wet sea lions are black but dry specimens lazy lying on the platform become moss green?
We were already tired and it was not easy to climb five blocks to the Lombard street but it was worth of it because we could watch cars slowly going down the narrow serpentine among flowers that are on the both sides of the road. A final crescendo (literally) was a ride on the famous San Francisco cable car that took us from the Fisherman’s Wharf to the train station. We went up and down banging and clinging while the most brave persons of our group were hanging on both sides of the cable car. The only disappointment was the Golden Gate Bridge that was hiding in the fog for a whole day. Let’s hope tomorrow we will be more lucky.