San Francisco, CA

While we did a lot of traveling in Arizona and intended to do a lot more over what was left of the summer, we realized this was an excellent opportunity to drive to California, now that we were so close to the West coast. Eventually we decided against making the long drive that would cut into the 4 day long weekend, but decided to fly to SF anyway and spend the long weekend with the Sapatnekars: Amol, Wrena and Ameya who were also being visited by Amol's brother- Anant. From the time we landed at the airport we realized that SF was a place like no other in the US, though at times it did bring back memories of Bombay and Goa!

We reached the Sapatnekar home in Fremont on the 4th of July by noon and immediately headed out for SF bay. Our goal was to get to the piers in time for the fireworks and take in as much of SF as we could along the way. We took the BART to SF and walked up to the sunny but breezy city. Right there was a line for the famed tram ride and we duly Q'd up.



SF is the most alive city I have seen in the US yet: everything seems to be alive! The roads are at insane inclinations. When you drive in a car you can't even see the road often when you're descending a slope. And then there's the magnificent ocean and all its glorious garnish: seagulls, waves slapping on rocks, crabs, fishing boats...

We stopped for lunch at a place called Alioto's (?) and ate fish. Adi had a crab to herself, I decided to just eat the usual fish and clam chowder, which is extremely popular around here. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, saw a great Jazz band. One old lady even stopped me when she saw my Purdue sweatshirt and happily remarked that her husband taught at Purdue some 50 years ago...she was really old. And sweet.

After that we headed to the pier edge: we were among the first to get there and had a 2 hour wait till the 9pm start. It was freezing!!! And coming from the Arizona heat, we had not prepared for this...Amol was an angel and bought us some SF hats to keep our ears warm and that helped a lot.

The wait was worth it: the fireworks were splendid. Much better than the ones in Chicago I had witnessed at the Navy Pier last year (2004) and better than the best I had seen upto that point. Fantastic stuff and some really innovative designs like a smiley face and a couple of hearts streaked the sky. It lasted some 30 minutes too.



We headed back on the BART and got home by midnight. It was a great day, one of the best "touristy" days we have ever had together! And all thanks to Amol and Wrena for making it possible.

Click here to see more pics!