We joined lots of orange clad people yesterday morning at Crissy Field to make a human Golden Gate bridge, to be photographed from a helicopter with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, to be made into a postcard as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations. Something like this from the Golden Gate National Parks website:
However, not enough people showed up, the dogs in their orange outfits didn’t even make up enough numbers, so they opted to just do the 75 out of humans. Not sure if they’re going to Photoshop in the other 1000 people they needed or just make a big 75 on the grass in front of the bridge – that’d be kind of cool I reckon. We were on the side of the 7 so hopefully we can see ourselves although so many people in orange it’s doubtful! There was a woman in the crowd who’d walked across the bridge on the day it opened in 1937 with her grandparents and she got up on the organizer’s ladder to tell us about it via megaphone with loads of clapping and cheering!
Originally we were going to stand on the deck of the bridge on the San Francisco side – the organizers marked our orange spot
And we dutifully stood there with patches of people making up the towers and the central suspension cable
Once we were all asked to abandon our posts and reassemble into the 75 it looked a bit more dense so I think they made the right decision
Now we wait until Tuesday to see the actual photo from the helicopter, and sometime later in the year the postcards! How exciting to be part of the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th birthday, even though I do have affections for the Bay Bridge – it was 75 late last year but there were no official celebrations (the bridge is pretty pissed about that, it told me so on Twitter!) Next weekend Crissy Field will be overrun by thousands gathering for an actual birthday party and fireworks.
There’s an Urban Meadow on the walk to work – some might say abandoned lot – but it’s fenced off, has a beehive, lots of long flowing grass and other weedy looking things (could be anything, after all this is San Francisco) and today I noticed, lots of orange flowers that have bloomed in the last couple of days in the mini heat wave. Very pretty.
Wholefoods is an organic supermarket and is often referred to as WholePaycheck – expensive. And they don’t have regular olive oil, only extra and extra extra virgin – obviously I don’t understand organics or olive oil because it’s a mystery to me why they wouldn’t have just olive oil. They have something else I haven’t noticed in other supermarkets – a little table area where you can sit and enjoy a delicious box or plate of food that you’ve dished up from a stainless steel buffet in store. Often with a small oven, microwave or toaster area as well so you can toast up the bagels you just bought.
The other day I waited inside near the exit which was near the cafe area, for The Mister to grab some milk so I got to watch the people who use the cafe for a while. I saw
a woman who sidled up to the utensils area and liberated several handfuls of straws, at different times, checking her watch or pretend-busying herself with her bag of shopping in between handfuls thinking no-one was watching
a guy having a piece of toast, talking to himself and occasionally shouting out about the price of stuff these days
a guy who came in with his own Tupperware (Glad or plastic, for my US readers) container of left-overs for dinner and used the microwave to heat it up and sat down and ate it there
an old woman stuck in automatic opening door hell – she was hovering inside the door to keep out of the bitter wind (which is why I was inside) but every time she moved the door opened. Eventually I overheard she was waiting for a taxi. She kept going out to see if it was there yet. A couple of times took her shopping cart with her but didn’t go out far enough and the doors closed, jamming her and her shopping on either side. She decided to leave the cart inside and after a while when no-one was coming, thought it safe to leave it there and went out to look by herself. But the doors shut and she couldn’t open them from the outside, had to wait for a shopper on their way out to activate them open, but as they approached the doors she started shouting and gesturing at them to not steal her groceries. It wasn’t funny … but it was …
We don’t mind wandering around a zoo for a bit of exercise – certainly the Wellington Zoo offered that being so hilly! Plus we got to see the lovely orange pandas 🙂
So we headed way out West to the ocean to the San Francisco Zoo. I think the zoo is quite old, it wasn’t looking run down but perhaps a little bit tired and some of the enclosures could’ve been bigger. Also, I think it was a bad time of day/year to visit too – a lot of animals seemed to be asleep or hibernating – I really wanted to see the snow leopard, but no sign of him, and tigers were hard to spot too.
However there were plenty of characters to watch for a while.
A rhino enjoying the hose, although sad he had no horn
A hippo pooping and shouting in the pool (although mostly funny listening to the little kids shouting “eeeuuuwwwww mom loooook, he’s doing a poop.” Followed not to long after by “eeeeeuuuuuuwwwww don’t look eeeuuwwwww he’s eating it!” (Which he was. Gross.)
Penguins peek-a-booing
Grizzly bears biting/kissing each other and playing with a swimming ring (first time I’ve seen these bears for real)
Caught this teddy on video
Flamingos that looked quite orange! Not sure I’ve ever seen these for real either and they were out in the open with just a low fence so I probably could’ve touched one!
Well well aren’t we getting all citified and metropolitan … just realized the last 3 Sundays in a row we’ve been out for brunch. Mid-morning is my ideal coffee and a cookie time of day but it’s not when I like eating breakfast: as a reasonably early riser, it’s way too long after I wake up to wait for coffee, brunch places don’t usually have toast and peanut butter so you’re forced to have something large like pancakes or eggs however, the silver lining is that by having a ‘large’ late breakfast, I don’t need lunch! The meal I actually hate most. The late coffee headaches haven’t been too bad either so perhaps it’s a trend that will continue.
3 Sundays ago – we went to a new neighborhood for us in San Fransisco, Noe Valley, where some other fairly recent New Zealand arrivals have set up their home, people we knew in Wellington, but not that well. We went to Zazie where our friends had to arrive before 9am to line up and wait for a sheet of paper on a clipboard to be hung on the cafe window, at which time everyone milling on the sidewalk lined up to write their name and number in their party on the list. When the cafe opened at 9am (by then we’d arrived) the owner came out and called good morning to everyone, took down the clipboard, and read out each name in turn, escorting them into a table until the cafe was full, then he crossed the first 20 names off the list, shut the door, and went out again to call the next name when the first set of diners started leaving.
The system worked! I had pancakes that time, and orange juice. Wasn’t going to trust the coffee, and a sip of the Mister’s told me I’d made the right choice. However, being New Zealanders, they knew we’d need a second stop for decent coffee pretty quickly. We walked along Haight Street and got some Blue Bottle in the Haight Street Market before spending the rest of the morning strolling through Golden Gate Park. Very nice.
Last Sunday we were in New York – yippeeee! Upon Cousin Grant’s recommendation we found our way to Market Table in the West Village for brunch – he was out on a 4-hour bike ride through New Jersey while we were eating. Unlike San Francisco, when we got there at 10am when they opened, there was no line around the block and in fact we were the first to arrive. Turned out it was a combination of daylight savings starting the night before so lots of people thought it was 9am, it was pretty cold and New Yorkers are late to rise, late to bed. However the place started filling up pretty quickly after we went in.
Again I didn’t trust the coffee so had some freshly squeezed juice which was fresh and this time poached eggs on grain toast. Man it was good. I can’t remember the last time I had a poached egg and this one was organic and almost cooked hard through, just perfect. And the toast, was toast. Not strange sweet bread with white butter. I was very impressed. The coffee stop following was Third Rail nearby in The Village, a spot I’d heard much about but never visited, great coffee.
And today, back in San Francisco we headed over to North Beach to meet Kara to stand in line for brunch at Mama’s. Famous in these parts. We’d stood there a couple of years ago with Bev and Dan but gave up after not moving much for 45 minutes.
This time we were there earlier and an hour after we arrived, we were at our table waiting for our brunch, after standing at a second line inside where you order at the counter before sitting down. A rather strange system. The place was mostly full of tourists, a very small L-shaped cafe. The food was a bit more diner-style which I didn’t enjoy that much – this time my poached eggs were floating in water in a side dish on a plate of plastic-bag loaf sweet white bread toast, a pile of chopped fried potatoes and a decorative slice of orange. The eggs weren’t quite cooked enough for my liking and I could still taste the vinegar they were poached in. However we were there for a long overdue catchup with Kara not having spent much time with her because of trips to New Zealand, Florida, New York and a bit of a cold. We also had a few sips of house coffee from large green mugs, but did go for the coffee seconds at Trieste in Little Italy not far away afterwards.
Not sure if we’ll be out for brunch next weekend or where we might end up – New York is the winning brunch so far!
This arrived outside our office in San Francisco while we were in New Zealand – a mobile garden, known as a parklet. It has a little bench seat on it and everything. Not sure I’ll sit on it facing the parking spaces outside the building next to our office but you never know!
Seems every opportunity we had we were posing in front of SDF’s camera when we were staying with her in Wellington – this time before we all went out our separate ways to catch up with friends. We’ve perfected the ‘teapot pose’ 😉
Great to be back in Blenheim visiting our friends. Popping out for coffee with Steph is a very rare treat – Mr A is off at kindy now so she was free to play ladies! We even found a cafe in Blenheim that serves Supreme coffee – Figaros.
