Goodbye San Francisco

30 minutes left.
This is my final post from San Francisco. I have to start my trip home in about 30 mintes. It's time to say goodbye to a fascinating city, to nice weather, to the Union Square, to my friends and co-students, to many great teachers, to a cheap hotel, to the Pacific ocean, to NFL stadiums and much more...
It was a fascinating experience and now I'm curios about Berlin again. Probably the next three weeks will be like a vacation to me :-)
I will try to keep posting but please be patient with me. Anyway, thanks for reading and sharing my experiences :-)

Day 82

1 day left.
It's time to say goodbye, so the heaven and I shed tears this morning :-(
For the last time I went to school and this is how it looked:



I have to admit that it was touching to attend class for the last time. Even if I was happy that I don't have to do any homework :-)
After school the sun was back and for some hours the city was smiling at me. My living room Union Square tried to look as nice as possible.
In the evening we had dinner with our best friends from school, students and teachers. We went to a great German restaurant in the Mission district and introduced Schnitzel to Koreans, Brazilians and Americans. It was fun, even if we feeled sad because it was our last meeting.

Day 81

2 days left.
As a kind of a last minute trip we went to the oldest of the districts of San Francisco, the Mission. This was the place where the first Spanish missionaries arrived and settled. Today it is the Mexican quarter.The Mission is not really beautiful, but it's charming. Old houses, a view on Twin Peaks and other green hills and many great wall paintings are very interesting. The wall paintings, called Murals, are amazing. I took many photos and since I cannot decide which to leave out I will post almost all of them :-)


One example of a nicely painted building is the Edificio De La Mujeres (womens building).


The murals are mostly in small alleyways which I prefer not to visit at night.







Besides the murals streetlife is pretty similar to other quarters of S.F.
There are some food stores, though not as many as in Chinatown.
From some of the streets the Twin Peaks hills (and their neighbors) are visible.
And of course you can eat typical Mexican food. We had the best fresh Burito of my life on our way and for dinner we stopped at a simple but very typical Mexican Cantina, where I had a Sopa de Chorizo and a Negra Modelo beer :-)

Day 80

Only 3 Days left :-)
This evening we met again at Fishermen's Wharf and went to the well known Ghiradelli Plaza. But is was rather disappointing, actually there was nothing worth to mention. Then we passed Aquatic Park. It looked romantic in the last sunlight and the first light of the full moon.
By the way, this was the beach where a rogue sealion nibbled a couple of swimmers some weeks ago.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody! May it be a very successful and happy one! :-)We started the first day of 2007 with a late and lazy breakfast in a restaurant next door. It was surprisingly good and they even served coffee in real cups :-)
After the breakfast I went for a walk and took some pictures. The sun was about to set because it was already late afternoon...
The streets where amazingly clean because it is not allowed to have private fireworks. I like that...

Day 78

After a rather relaxed day we started the celebration of New Years Eve with a dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. I had a chicken noodle soup and something delicious with a difficult name :-)

Our idea was to watch the fireworks at midnight. Since nobody could tell us where it was going to happen and even the internet was not helpful on that we just guessed where to go. So after a warmup drink at the hotel party room we went there.The streets were very crowded, so we had to hurry to make it on time.
It turned out that we had chosen the perfect spot. The fireworks was fired right in front of us from a boat next to Bay Bridge.

The fireworks were beautiful with many colors and forms including even a smiley. Everybody was impressed.


I took some more pictures on the way back. After arriving at the hotel we joined the party there again. I talked to many interesting people from allover the world there and when I went to bed it was already day outside :-)

Day 77

I have many photos in today's post because it's maybe the last post of the year. I'm not sure if I can find time to write a post tomorrow evening...
It was an exiting day again. After a nice breakfast in an Italian cafe we went to Fishermen's Wharf to rent a bicycle. Our plan was to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and the return by a ferry.
By the way, parking is interesting in San Francisco. Because many streets are not level you have to turn the front wheels against the curb to prevent the car from accidently rolling downhill. The car on the photo is parked upwards.
Then I came across this interesting sign. I don't know what it means!?
And then, of course, we saw the news of the day everywhere.
After renting a bicycle and riding along the Marina we reached THE bridge. It was as exciting as always :-)
I'm not sure how tall the pylons are above road level, but I guess at least 200 meters. For me it's hard to look up along them, it's a strange feeling.
Just as we took some pictures on the bridge a container ship passed beneath. The crew waived to us...

This picture gives an impression how high the bridge is.
Right after crossing the brigde we entered Sausalito. It's a small town with come beautiful houses and many tourists like us :-) Since the town is spread over the steep side of the hill the houses have probably an amazing view over the Bay. I heard that many celebrities live here like the actor Robin Williams (not sure if it's true).
Because cycling makes hungry we looked out for a lunch. And we found the best burger restaurant I know so far. A real fresh made and flame-grilled burger...delicious!!

Because of the hillside Sausalito was already in the shadow in the early afternoon.
Then we came across this piece of art which used to be a car.
On top of it there was an uncountable number of small figures, very cute.
Sausalito is known for it's houseboats, but we only saw a few of them.


When we took the ferry back to San Francisco the sun was about to set. Alltogether it was a great day in California again.