San Francisco

The trip to San Francisco is largely uneventful. Only one thing I notice on the way: Even when it is obvious fruit grown (and we travel through America's orchard), one has to rely on artificial irrigation. The grasses in the irrigated areas are all dried up and yellow ocher. On the entire trip with very few exceptions such as Yosemite and individual watercourses nothing in July was of natural green.

The approach to the Greater San Francisco we note with the traffic jam on the other side, which is four lanes wide and more than 10 miles long. Is it because of Friday afternoon or you can have it here every day? Later, the $ 6 take on the Oakland Bay Bridge substantially pays off. Not only that we did not swim as my wife points out dry in all respects, but also because of a very nice first look at The City. In fact, the temperature falls as promised: 40 degrees 30 km away from SF, 29 degrees in Oakland and 21 degrees after we crossed the bridge.

The Hotel Whitcomb is surprisingly found quickly and equally surprising the parking fee hits us: $ 28 plus tax per night. For this sum you almost get a room somewhere else. The hotel foyer looks expensive too, but the front desk makes any positive impression destroyed immediately. 20 minutes to wait and 10 minutes processing time for a decidedly unfriendly check-in. I can not remember that in my entire long life it took so long to receive a room key.

The hotel room is then logically only hardly larger than a parking space for the Dodge. The interior is indeed beautiful, but the bathroom door can no longer be closed, the sink does not run from time to time and the central light switch is defective. This is probably called historic charm in the U.S. Anyway, we only want to sleep here.

Now one more promise to the children is met (how many are there, anyway?). Our first destination is Amoeba Music in Haines Street. The shop is great and well sorted, so we get out an hour later with 16 CD for 33 $, and three of us again with very good spirits. What all four of us thrilled is looking at all the charming little Victorian houses in the district of Haight Ashbury (http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/haight/) with bay windows and turrets. As shown in the TV series "Charmed" notice the children. The many beggars and homeless people have not occurred in this series, probably.

We take the car to go to Chinatown (http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/chinatown/) and even get a parking space at the edge of the Financial District. Chinatown itself is then a mix of souvenir shops and restaurants and almost no atmosphere, but the 5-course dinner is the best so far on the journey. There are only Chinese in the restaurant, so the cooking might be quite original. With a delicious feeling of fullness we make our way back and see that the fog again already covered about 30 meters high.