When you inform yourself about San Francisco, you will be overwhelmed with positive references. But we wouldn’t have thought that the city is so extremely charming. But one thing after the other…
We arrived clearly after sunset at Judy’s place, who wanted to host us for our time in San Francisco. Judy is a friend of Karl and Claire from Wellington. Karl got to know Judy while they were living in San Francisco for 2 years. However, they warned us: previously they sent friends to Judy for a week, ended up staying for 9 months, but that won’t happen to us, or does it? Ok, we can already say that it didn’t happen. But we can completely understand it, because Judy lives in a huge house with pool and a beautiful garden. Orinda is located behind a chain of mountains which often keeps away the bad weather over San Francisco, but still it is only a 20 min ride by train to the city centre. So a perfect location with a perfect hostess. After chatting during dinner, Judy showed us what Karl expected us to do for his efforts. There is a morning tradition in the house of Judy that is maintained by Karl (and actually only by him). He jumps every morning before breakfast twice into the pool. It didn’t sound too bad so we tried it the next morning, but the pool is not heated why the water is quite cold. Tobi didn’t hesitate (Kerstin did) to repeat that every morning (it doesn’t happen often that you have a pool in your garden, right?).
After creating a plan for the next days, we drove around lunch time to Berkley to have a look on the campus of the university. One word, impressive! You see that Berkley receives around 10,000$ student fees per semester. There are not only really nice buildings, but also the probably most impressive library we have seen so far. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but as an example the reading hall has (probably highly expensive) leather couches, which highly reminded us of an English saloon from the 19th century. Judy recommended us a pizza restaurant for lunch named Cheese Board. They use self-made cheese and each day, they offer only one certain vegetarian pizza. Summary: a huge queue and incredibly delicious! But that was only the first part of the food specialities during our time in San Francisco!
The next day we finally took the train to the city center! After the kind man in the tourist information told us for around 20min all the highlights of the city, we wandered through the hilly streets of Chinatown and Little Italy to the Pier 39 being home to around 100 sea lions. On our way back we passed the Coit Tower and went on to Fisherman’s Wharf comprising all distinct types of specialties (including free tasting 🙂 ). In the evening, we had the craziest pizza we have ever eaten. Judy invited her two neighbors and ordered one pizza from Ray’s. Yes you heard right, ONE pizza for 5 people. How does that work? But after opening the cardboard we knew how that works. The pizza (from the bottom: dough, lots of cheese, dough and then tomato sauce) reminded us rather of a cake and after 2 pieces you are definitely full!
The two following days, we went again to the city to visit the Golden Gate Bridge, part of the coast, the Golden Gate Park and a district called “Mission”. All of that doesn’t sound really spectacular, but as we had enough time we could relaxingly inhale the atmosphere of the city and it blew us away. San Francisco has a flair that we know only from Paris, London and maybe Melbourne. Indeed there are a lot of tourists in the city, but still there are enough spots in which you can wander through streets without other tourists and have a look on the stunning houses. In “Mission”, that’s even more obvious than in other parts, because two cultures crash into each other. On the one hand, newly wealthier people and on the other hand elderly Mexican emigrants. In addition, there is the probably coolest shop in San Francisco. A “Pirate Supplies Store” which sells everything a potential pirate could need. From a treasure box, wooden legs and hooks to bottle post bottles or a biased dice. Next door, there is another scurrile shop selling dried creepy-crawlies and so on. So whoever is wanting to brew a magic drink, you know where to find the ingredients!
On the day before our last day in Orinda, we organised our further trip and picked up a few street maps from the American AAA. Judy recommended us another place close to the AAA where we could have lunch. That’s where we met the last cliché concerning American fast food. Fuddrackers sells the best burger, we have ever eaten. One pound of meat in a freshly baked bread. All other ingredients (tomato, salad, dressing etc.) can be taken from a salad buffet, how much you’d like to. And all for $9.50. Incredibly delicious! And a lot of meat! The same day, we made a short walk around a lake in Orinda and did part of the Rim Trail (short description: up and down for over 6 miles). We spent the last day in the city, visited the Union Square, Lombard Street and Pier 43 with a great view on the Golden Gate Bridge being half covered in fog.
The next day we started our adventure in direction Grand Canyon with stopovers in the Yosemite National Park and Death Valley. In order to not again buy tent and sleeping bags, Judy’s neighbours borrowed us theirs and Judy added a few self-inflatable mats. The next prove for American hospitality (it also happened in Australia though 🙂 ) Then our 4 day camping adventure started, more follows the next time…