|
 Heathrow bear and our first night in San Francisco, where we enjoyed a California burger at the Bagdad Café |
 We were lucky enough to stay with a friend of a friend, who lived right in the heart of things, and near Tartine Bakery and Café. |
 We visited the wonderful farmers' market at the Ferry Building several times. |
 |
 The window and pickle Christmas ornaments are part of our collection from every place we visit. |
 We visited City Lights bookstore and the Vesuvio Café, both hangouts of Beat writer Jack Kerouac |
 Probably our main inspiration for the trip was Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Barbary Lane was based on Macondray Lane. |
 The "crookedest street in the world", cable car rides, Misson Dolores, and Mike's house, where we stayed |
 The aquarium at Pier 39, an al fresco meal on the porch, and Safeway's finest frozen foods (unpurchased) |
 We have inserted body parts into the Bocca della Verita in Berlin and Rome in 2004 and Rome in 2006 |
 We sailed under the Golden Gate with Jeff. Above right is us in front of Harvey Milk's camera shop. |
 |
 We made a butt numbing, day long journey across the bridge into Sausalito and Tiburon. We saw giant redwoods in Mill Valley. |
 |
Friend Rus arrived and we spent the morning looking at some of San Francisco's finest murals in the Mission District. |
 The shop that sold the blue boxes (upper left) offered us a taste of chocolate with bacon. |
 |
 |
 Rus treated us to an unforgettable meal at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse, in Berkeley. Click HERE to read what was on the menu. We made our own plucot tart (above) back home. |
 We stayed right around the corner from San Francisco's oldest building (1776), the mission for which the city is named. |
 |
 |
 |
 The artwork above (man with glasses) is actually needlework. |
 Back to the market, where everything is larger and juicier than can be believed. |
 A lifetime goal of mine has been to eat at Greens restaurant, which we did! After meeting chef Annie Sommerville, five bowls of curried cauliflower soup arrived at our table. See the complete menu HERE. We admired a video of Alexander Rose of the Long Now project after dinner. |
 We returned to Greens for brunch the next day. |
 |
 |
 Grace Cathedral and a section of the AIDS quilt. Rus getting cheeky with the Romans and Nick discovering "new technology" for his Been-go card. |
 "Awesome" (pronounced "ossum") was heard six million times during our visit. It's certainly the "cool" of the 21st century. |
 A gourmet wine train to Wine Country is certainly the way to travel. |
 Have you seen Sideways? We are always reminded of the film when faced with Merlot. |
 Out of the city and into the scenery of Yosemite. It was packed with tourists, but nevertheless "ossum". |
 Our bed and breakfast, the Penon Blanco Lookout, was an eccentric haven for us and the hummingbirds. |
 We had this lake all to ourselves for an afternoon swim. |
 Another goal was to re-create the scene from Tales of the City. We didn't have to bribe youths with hand-rolled cigarettes. We bought our kite at Toys-R-Us. |
 |
 |
 Back to the city for more sights. The harp seals, above, were resting on a rock at Point Bonita lighthouse. |
 On our last Saturday, we attended a cooking demonstration by Andrew Swallow, who signed a copy of his book for us. |
 The windmill was a gift from a Dutch Queen and the bison have lived in the park since the 1800s. |
| Last year's holiday
in France georgenick.co.uk  
|
