Thursday, July 21, 2005

I loooooooooovvee SAN FRANCISCO...!!!

after another great night dancing @ DOWNLOW in Berkeley last night I finally made it into downtown SAN FRANCISCO today.... and soooooooo loved it....!! this city is beautiful...!!

had to wait quite a while for the train at SFSU station and some guys said it was cause there was a bomb scare this morning at Montgomery station and maybe that was why it took so much longer than normal for the train to get there.....
GREAT !! Exactly the stop I had to get off at...!! and I had just been thinking before how lucky I was to also avoid the 2nd day with bombings in London..... hahha...maybe not...

anyway, then this other guy asked me for the time .... yeah - super-old chat-up line... ;) but he was actually pretty nice and friendly.... really into Tango and wants to go to Argentina next year for some competitions.... so we had this interesting conversation about how Tango and salsa and dancing and music in general bring people together and connect them all over the world..... soooooo true....

and get this - his first name was BISMARCK...!!! funny, hmm...?? especially since his Mum is from Nicaragua and his Dad from Venezuela... !!! oh well.... so we talked a bit about Europe (he wants to move there in a couple of years) and Nicaragua (cause it's also one of the countries I'll be passing though in a few months), before I had to get off at Montgomery station....and all seemed to be fine there..... no more bombs around anymore... so please don't worry about me....

then my first destination in downtown SAN FRAN was my bank HSBC to pick up my travellers cheques.... was funny cause they were already expecting me there since my bank manager from NYC had called them to order the cheques for me and I had also called them from VAN last week to confirm and double-check....

so they were like - "Oh Astrid... you're the girl who's gonna travel through Central America, right...?? Yes, we have everything ready for you..." SWEET.... they were so lovely and helpful and even gave me a little map of downtown SAN FRAN and showed me how to get to Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate....
yeah - talking about customer service.... ;) great...!!

so then I just walked through Chinatown and down Market Street till I came to the seaside and Ferry Terminal and market there.... looked around the market hall in the terminal for a bit....really nice there too.... !!

and it happened to be Michael Recchiutti's birthday today - some kinda famous chocolatier who has his shop there..... and they were serving his birthday cake and handing it out just when I was walking past... :)
yyaaiii.... so I had some of that amazing chocolate cake..... and it was free.... even better.... !! ;)

then I walked along the piers and Fisherman's Wharf... saw Alcatraz, Forbes island and the famous sealions too.... soooo nice everything...

oh - and of course GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE...!! wanna walk over that tomorrow... :)

at municipal pier those 2 guys had just caught this huge starfish which was really pretty... pink and grey....they asked me if I wanted to take it home, but not sure if Jay and his Mum would have been so very excited about that.... ;) so I just took a picture of it.....

also, saw the CROOKEDEST STREET and COIT TOWER on my way back to the station..... beautiful views from up there...

yeah - I love it here...!! SAN FRAN is great...!!

and now we're about to go dancing at COCOMO's.... yaaaiii...some more Salsa.... ;)

posted by Astrid @ 9:23 PM