Had a busy couple of weekends with Rick visiting and us doing much
sightseeing. I've been too busy to blog.
The weekend before the one just gone was a long one on account of Martin
Luther King Day on the Monday. We spent Saturday in San Francisco, Rick and
I at Camp Sysadmin, as
previously
mentioned, and Sarah pottered around on
her own (photos
here).
On Sunday, Rick and I went for a reasonable (28 kilometre) bike ride around
the part of the bay accessible from the
Stevens Creek Trail in
the morning, and in the afternoon we all drove into the hills to check out
the
Lick Observatory.
You can see the observatory as a little bump on the top of the mountains on
a clear day, but it's deceptively further away than you think, because it's
actually on top of the second line of mountains, not the first. We didn't
expect to find ice and snow or for it to be zero degrees (Celsius) at the
summit. We made it up just before 5pm, which was closing time, so we'll have
to go again earlier in the day (and more appropriately attired) to check it
out more thoroughly. Some photos
here.
On the Monday, we did a bit of a group outing with a few other people from
work, including Tanya, who is visiting from the Dublin office and also in
extreme tourist mode. We took a
Caltrain in to Millbrae, and then
switched to the
BART for the
remainder of the journey. Finally, we took a
cable car from Powell station over
to Fishermen's Wharf, where we wandered about for a bit, and then had a nice
$11 cruise on the bay for an hour and a half, which went around Alcatraz and
under the Gold Gate bridge. After that we caught another cable car back
downtown, wandered around for a bit, and then met up with a few more people
from work for a beer, and then had dinner at a
nice Irish pub that we found.
Photos from that outing
here.
On the Saturday of the weekend just gone, we drove to Monterey, mainly with
the aim to hire Segways and fang around on them.
Mission accomplished, and it was
very affordable too. I think we'll definitely do that again. We also need to
visit the
aquarium. I really liked
Monterey. It reminded me a lot of Berry, on the New South Wales south coast.
Photos
here.
Finally, on Sunday (i.e. yesterday), we drove back to San Francisco, where
Sarah, Rick and Tanya did the
Alcatraz cruise/tour thing, and I
spent most of the time riding the cable cars and
street cars. The $10 day pass purchased
on the cable cars is great value, as it seems to be valid on all of the
San
Francisco Municipal Railway (affectionately known as the "muni").
In the afternoon, we all went on a
bus tour
of San Francisco (the same one Michael and I did in July, but with a
different driver, and slightly different route).
Finally, we had a really nice dinner at an Afghani restaurant a few doors
down from the backpacker's hostel that Tanya was staying in. Photos from the
day
here.
Rick flew out tonight, and hopefully had a good time while he was here.
We're certainly feeling a bit weary from all the sightseeing, but having
visitors is always a good excuse to get out and do it.
Next weekend, our friend Brett is visiting from Canada. No rest, I tell
ya...
Al Gore, former vice president of the US, has given a very, very interesting and impressing speech on Martin Luther King Day a few days ago.
He states very clearly a huge number of (unlawful, illegal, or immoral) things the current US president Bush and/or his administration have done. For example: