San Francisco – What an awesome place
What should you do when your star alliance air miles expire at the end of the calendar year? You’re right, go to the miles and more website and see if there are any good deals. I was lucky. For 25.000 miles and 270EUR tax, I was able to fly from anywhere in Germany to anywhere in the United States. I have never been to the west coast, an being the geek that I am, it is a must for me to go to the Bay Area. As a result, I choose to go to San Francisco to meet up with a group of Peace Corps workers I met earlier this year in Durban, South Africa. 11 hours flight from Frankfurt later, I landed in sunny San Francisco. Fisherman’s wharf – Pier 39 – Wax Museum and Ripley’s was all done pretty quick. Walking the streets by the piers in the middle of November feels pretty good to a European that needs to get used to the shitty weather season. I was staying with friends in East Bay (Kensington and Berkeley). The view from there is just amazing. The Bay Bridge on the left and the Golden Gate on the right:
To finish off the touristy stuff, we went to see the Golden Gate up close the following day. The bridge is very impressive, but if you continue to the west of the bridge down to Lincoln Park, you will see some of the most breath-taking views. For a golf-maniac like myself, a pretty good looking golf course right on the bay just tops it off nicely:
Later that evening we met up with a good friend of mine from my days at the European School in Luxembourg – Didier Hilhorst who now works at a pretty cool video finger printing company in Palo Alto called Auditude. We had an awesome meal all together in the part of town called ‘Mission‘ and then headed to the Castro part of town, as I had to get a glimpse of the gay community as I was now in the gay capital of the world. What a crazy night with Jaeger-Bombs etc. (Yes, I fell asleep in the car on the way back to East Bay and No, I did not get it off with any men).
The rest of my time, I spent working on my ongoing projects and eating as an American (jesus it is a crazy food culture). Conclusion: 5 days in the Bay Area is for sure not enough, and I am not done with that place at all…I’ll be back.
