Postcard: San Francisco

I heart San Francisco as you may have noticed from the numerous mentions of it during the short existence of my blog.  It is one of my favorite places ever.  I lived there from September 1997 to August 2001, which covered the pivotal self-discovery ages of 23 to 27.  I think those years there have had a lot to do with the person I am because this was the period after college when I was learning to support myself and live away from my parents but before 30 when the realities of adult responsibility began to hit me.  It's hard to cover that impact in one blog post, so I'll keep this postcard entry to my favorite touristy things to do in San Francisco.  The list is not all encompassing as I could go on and on about the city, but I picked some of the more interesting to me.  The photos are from my last visit there in June 2007 when my husband and I covered much of my list since it was our first trip there together.

1.  Ride the Cable Car.  Walk downtown to Powell and Market Streets so you can take the route from start to finish.  There are two lines and the one we took - the Powell-Mason line - runs from downtown up and over Nob Hill (my old neighborhood) and down to Bay Street at Fisherman's Wharf.

Hang off the side like this guy, a Sox fan.  We are everywhere!

And enjoy the views.

2. Drive down Lombard Street.  Lombard Street is America's crookedest street.  Because this area of the street between the cross streets Hyde and Leavenworth is so steep, the brick paved road was created with sharp curves to prevent accidents.

Apparently, my family drove down Lombard Street on my first birthday.  We were visiting the Oakland area, perhaps as a precursor to our move to northern California when I was 2.  My family owned our first motel in a little town called Sonora that was on the drive from San Francisco to Yosemite National Park.  By the way, I have two regrets from the time I was living in SF - (1) I did not make it to Yosemite and (2) I did not visit Hawaii.

3.  Take the Alcatraz audio tour.  It is well worth it.  Book ahead and early morning with Alcatraz Cruises, so that you can spend as much time as you'd like there.  There is a short ferry ride from the wharf and then you must climb a steep hill to the top of the island where the prison lies.

My brother and I went to Alcatraz when he lived in San Francisco for a year before I moved there.  I went to visit in December 1996 and we did the tour.  This day was memorable to me because the audio tour provides a rich history of the prison and its inmates.  Also, I did not bring my walking shoes on the trip and thus had to climb up the steep, steep walk-up to the prison wearing Mary Jane block heels.  I will not forget that torture.

4.  Walk around Fisherman's wharf, aka Pier 39.  This is a touristy shopping marketplace and restaurant area.  The street is lined with souvenir stores and street vendors.

This is the city's worst tourist trap area but I still recommend it mostly because I always got a fresh crab salad sandwich and clam chowder in sourdough bread bowl there.  I am a New Englander and I love seafood. While there, see the seal lions on the dock or sign up for the tour to Alcatraz.  My parents went to the Bubbagump Shrimp Company when they were there.  I said tourist trap.

5.  Go to a service at Grace Cathedral.  Grace Cathedral was only a few blocks from my old apartment.  It is one of the city's oldest landmarks and is of the Episcopal tradition. 

No matter what your faith, it is a beautiful building and it is enlightening to attend services. My friend and I attended Easter services once when I lived there.  We were two open minded people who thought it would be a great experience to try it out.  We weren't the only ones who thought so because the church was packed and we had to stand for an hour.  I was impressed that the sermon was open-minded and inclusive of all people and even all faiths.  In fact, we were encouraged to follow our own spiritual path.

 On my last visit, I acted for the camera.

6.  Dip your feet in the frigid San Francisco Bay water. 

I always laughed when tourists arrived in San Francisco with their shorts and summer clothes.  It is California, but northern California is cold.  I never wore shorts once and always carried at least a light jacket.  I would not go swimming at the beaches.

7.  Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge even if it is covered in fog.  The Golden Gate Bridge has become the symbol of San Francisco and is recognized by its red color.  When built in 1937, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.  It spans the Golden Gate, the opening between the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean.

Another thing visitors do not know is that San Francisco is foggy all summer long.  The nicest weather months are September and October.  Of course, I moved to the city during the year of El Nino and carried an umbrella for the first 4 months straight.

8.  Visit Coit Tower.  Coit Tower lies atop Telegraph Hill.  It resembles a fire hose nozzle although the designers claim that is not the case. It is, however,  beautification project for San Francisco that was built using money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy socialite.  The area offers fantastic views of San Francisco including Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, and Nob Hill.  There are murals painted in fresco inside of the tower by local artists.

When I had lived in San Francisco, I had bought into a myth that the tower was built to honor the firemen of the city because the daughter of the wealthy family who bequeathed it had been saved by the firemen.  This is why I liked the site and I am disappointed to find out that this story was untrue.  Alas, I'll leave it as a favorite because a friend of mine proposed to his fiancee at the top of the tower.

9.  and 10.  Leave time for two day trips out of the city

These were two of my favorite trips when friends visited town.  I would almost always head north to Napa and Sonoma Valley and do a wine tour.  Mondavi was a must stop because the tour guides gave a great intro to wine making there and I enjoy the sweet dessert Muscats.  I also liked Beringer, Sterling, Gundlach-Bundschu, and Benziger.  Once in while I would drive south toward Monterey and Carmel.  This is a longer drive but much prettier along the way.  I am a big fan of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Postcard: Iceland

For Labor Day weekend 2008, my husband and decided to do a quick getaway to Iceland.  The year before, we'd visited Playa del Carmen over the holiday weekend and had loved it.  Although not at the very top of our list of places to visit, Reykjavik was only a 5 1/2 hour direct flight from NYC via Icelandair.   The country has numerous natural features, including glaciers, hot springs, geysers, active volcanoes, and lava deserts. We were intrigued and off we went that Friday on an overnight flight.

Reykjavik has a renowned nightlife.  Many Europeans fly in for their bachelor/bachelorette parties.  We would not know about this.  I had just passed the 12 week pregnancy mark and my stomach had settled down enough to enjoy the fresh seafood, but strong smells such as alcohol were still bothersome to my system.  And I was exhausted all the time.  We heard a lot of the wild night life from our hotel room, though!  We did visit the bar at our trendy boutique hotel - Hotel Borg.

Note, within weeks after we went, the banking crisis reached a furor in Iceland and the economy crashed.  It probably would have been 1/3 the cost to travel after that happened.  Alas...

The main shopping and walking area of Reykjavik was minutes from the hotel.  Below are two photos taken of the interior of the Reykjavik Cathedral  and of the city view from the top floor of the cathedral.

The most popular daytrip in Iceland is the Golden Circle, a collection of natural wonders and historical sites outside of Reykjavik.  We visited the Gulfoss waterfall, Geysir, and Thingvellir National Park.  The Gullfoss waterfall cascades down the white colored Hvítá River. Geysir is the home of the famous Geyser (from which the word originates) that rarely erupts and the Strokkur Geyser that erupts in 3 to 7 minute intervals. This hot springs spout boiling water to a height of 25 to 35 meters.  Thingvellir National Park is the home of Iceland´s ancient Viking parliament and listed as a UNESCO´s World Heritage site.

 

What I most wanted to see was the Blue Lagoon, of course.  The soothing, mineral-rich water is supposed to have medicinal powers. I enjoyed the contrast of the warm water with the slightly chilly air outside. Though the lagoon looks like natural landscape, it was created by run-off from the Svartsengi power plant, which pumps the geothermally heated water from a mile below the surface to generate both heat and electricity.  The excess (clean) water is ejected into the lagoon.

I Believe I Can Fly

I am visiting my parents this week and, as usual, I have been digging around their basement unearthing things that I had thought I'd long ago thrown away.  I came across my skydiving photos.  I rarely even think about that anymore so it was a treat to recall those memories.

I was living in San Francisco at the time.  Do all of my memories seem to start there?  I had taken the GMATs in December 2000 (for the second time) and decided to do something "crazy."  My friend John had wanted to go skydiving for some time, so I called him up and said "let's do it."  As soon as I returned from spending the holidays on the east coast, we made the drive down the peninsula to a place where a friend of ours had gone.  It was early January 2001.  My parents were in India at the time so I got a free pass from having to tell them about it.  When we arrived to the place, I called my brother because I thought "what if I die and no one knows."

The type of dive we did was with a certified instructor strapped to our back.  It takes weeks and a certificate to skydive on one's own, so this is the typical dive that most people do.  We watched a 5 minute instructional video that was of no use at all and then met our jump partners.  I knew I was in for a wild ride because my guy had ona jump suit with skull and crossbones all over it.  Of course, that was my partner.  We took a tiny little airplane to altitude (or 15,000 feet).  There was 60 seconds of free fall during which I kept my eyes open.  I thought I'd have them closed the whole time, but skydiving is not scary at all.  My partner pulled the rip cord after 60 seconds and then we calmly floated down to the ground.  I was so quiet that skull guy would do wild left or right turns to try to force a reaction out of me.  Nothing.  I 've been in scarier car rides.  It was a great view but not at all like a rollercoaster ride.

When we driving back to the main area, John asked the skydivers if there ever had been any bad accidents.  One guy answered that once a chute failed at the end and the jumper dropped the last 30 feet.  John said "that doesn't sound so bad."  The guy looked at him and said "That is bad."

Maybe this is a memory I should not be sharing with my son!

Vivid Memory

I thought I'd elaborate on my memory of 9/11.

I had just moved to NYC in mid-August to start orientation week at Columbia Business School.  I was temporarily living with my brother at his apartment at 33rd St between 5th and Madison Avenues.    We were into the second full week of classes when the attacks happened. Since it was Tuesday, my schedule didn't start until 11AM.  Thus, I had gotten up at about 9:30AM and was getting ready.  I was blasting Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" on my brother's stereo (don't know why).  My brother, who had Grand Jury this week and had been downtown, burst in around 10AM and shouted out "a plane flew into the World Trade Center."  I thought I misheard.  At the time, people thought the first plane accidentally hit the tower.  My brother had jumped back on the subway and made it back before the subways were shut down and while the second plane was hitting the towers.  We turned on the news and 20 minutes later watched as WTC 1 collapsed to the ground.  WTC 2 had already fallen an hour earlier.

The gravity of the events hadn't hit me and I thought to myself that I needed to get to Strategy class.  I stopped at Staples for batteries for my calculator and the clerks looked at me like I was crazy for coming into the store.  I walked past 5th Avenue and could see the smoke clouds from downtown. When I shut my eyes, I can still conjure up this image.  I kept walking.  I made it to the subway on 33rd and 7th Avenue, but it was already shut down.  I began the walk to Columbia (at 116th Street!) with hopes of flagging down a cab.  There were hundreds of people on the streets, with no empty cabs in site.  It was an orderly state of frenzy, though.  I kept walking, with a backpack full of folders and my laptop computer.  I was sweating and exhausted, but I kept walking.  Around the West 80s, I found a cab and begged for a lift the last 20 blocks.  Class was canceled, so I walked to the main building in Uris Hall.  Classmates were gathered in the lobby around the TVs that were tuned to CNN.  People were crying and worried about ex-coworkers.  I saw one of my classmates and her reddened eyes and asked if she were okay.  The next hour passed in a blur before I hopped the now working subway back home.  By this time, it was known to be a terrorist attack.

It was a surreal day and so was my reaction.

Milestone: 7 Months

Another month has passed and a lot has happened both physically and psychologically.  Psychologically for me, too!

Eating like a champ: I already mentioned that the little one started solid foods. After apples, we returned to the squash family with yellow squash.  He likes this one better than butternut and acorn or maybe it's that he's a lot more hungry and I'm not feeding him enough!  I am stepping it up to 3 meals a day (oatmeal with fruit for breakfast, vegetable followed by gripe water for lunch, and oatmeal for dinner).

Formula dilemma: He drinks from a bottle, but is refusing formula.  We gave him formula at the 3 month mark because I was returning to work and I didn't think I could keep up with the pumping.  However, I was able to keep up by keeping a very lax schedule at work and he has been spoiled with only breastmilk.  My mom forced him to have an ounce here and there in the last two weeks, but he would stop drinking and she had to switch to the milk after that. I've been mixing a little formula into his oatmeal, so that he will accept the taste again.

Crawling:  He is an adept crawler at this point, much more so than at 6 months.  You put him onto the ground and he quickly rolls over and takes off.  You have to watch him every second because he zooms over to the TV stand that has glass doors or to the coffee table that has glass panels.  Tonight, we're getting rid of the "coffee table of death" as I call it.

Love of water:  The little one loves water.  I think what he loves most is drinking out of a glass.  He likes a sippy cup and has started holding it to control when he wants to drink, but he enjoys drinking out of a glass more than a sippy cup.  When I give him gripe water in a shot glass or water in a Moroccan tea glass, he lunges for it and grabs the glass in both hands.  I even was able to give him a liquidy rice cereal, which he hates, in a glass.  He wants to grow up too quickly.

Sitting up and Standing:  He is sitting up with ease now.  He crawls, then sits, then crawls some more, takes a sitting break, etc.  This past week, he started standing up unsupported.  He falls down within 3 seconds, but he is able to grab hold of something (such as the "coffee table of death") and pull himself up.  He is not always successful at it, yet he is persistent and I have seen him do it a handful of times now.  Two days ago, my husband went into the little one's bedroom to check on him and he was standing up in the crib.  It's time to drop the level a notch.

Personality: He likes to get his way.  He is very clever and manipulative about it.  I guess all babies are that way.  He is extremely active.  He will not sit still or take long naps.  He adores nature and being outside.  He could stare at trees for hours.  He likes boy things - banging toys, diving head first into tables, playing with cars, tackling you.