Friday, December 18, 2009

CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO





















Our first full day in San Fran turned out to have lovely blue skies which was great. We walked down to Union Square, which is the heart of downtown (well that's how it appears to me), shopped a bit and checked out the ice skating rink (didn't skate but wait till I get back to NY) and the Christmas tree.
We decided to see a show while we were here so we booked tickets for Wicked. I had seen it in Melbourne but Belle missed it and there wasn't anything else we wanted to see. I had enjoyed it so much the first time (thanks to my spa buddy surprising Joyce and I with tickets - fantastic ones at that) that I was happy to see it again. So we made our way to the theatre district to buy them and then jumped on a cable car and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf. I am pretty sure that the cable cars are the same thing as the trams we have because they have one here that is from Melbourne. In fact they have them from all over the U.S. and different parts of the world.
Fisherman's wharf was pretty cool. Very touristy but not mega tacky. Just very coastal and sea sidey. We found a fun shop for left handed people whose catch phrase was something like "I made be a lefty but I'm always right." Well I don't know about that (mostly because I'm not left handed of course) but apparently left handed people are meant to use the creative side of their brain more, hence lots of artistic people are left handed.
At least that's what I read in Oprah's magazine.
After the wharf we headed back to our local (the bar/pub/restaurant next to our hotel that we love) for dinner and then headed off to the theatre. The hotel called a taxi for us but it took so long getting there that we just hailed one. We got one of those drivers that drives like a maniac and talked non-stop the whole way. Luckily for us it wasn't too far. I mean don't you hate that? You want to be polite but you don't want a full blown conversation with the guy. Plus he had an accent so he was hard to understand and I think he thought we were stupid because we couldn't work out what he was talking about. Eventually I realised he wanted to know what the work irk meant. English wasn't his first language (hence the accent) and I have no idea why he wanted to know what that meant - maybe he was just trying to expand his vocab.
Anyway the show was great (I think Melbourne was better - maybe because I had a better seat and the theatre at home was bigger and so the whole thing seemed larger and grander) but we had to walk a bit before I managed to grab a taxi after the show. This time it was a dodgy old car and the driver locked all the doors once we got in. Bit disconcerting. But then maybe it was to protect us from other people jumping in. Well that's what I told myself. The good news is that we got back safe and sound despite the dodginess of the car and the door locking.
Obviously, otherwise I probably wouldn't be typing this.
And you wouldn't be reading it.

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