MOD can barely walk tonight. Neither can I. Today we walked 23km’s of this amazing city called San Francisco. Ended up in a nice little bar called Fish & Farm. Happy Hour. They had $5 beer, $5 vodka and $5 sweet potato fries. We had two of each. Turns out their short glass $5 vodka carries two shots…..stopped those tired legs from screaming, if only for a short time.

Some time ago my eldest son visited San Fran. He was quite disturbed by the amount of homeless people here. I had visited after him and really didn’t see the issues he saw. It’s a different story this time around, and a very real humanity problem.

SanFran is the fourth most populous city in California and the thirteenth most populous in the States. It was founded in June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established Presidio of San Francisco (part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area) at the Golden Gate, and the Mission San Fransico, now the oldest surviving structure in SF and sixth religious settlement established as part of the Californian chain of missions. SanFran has a history of tolerance. And mild weather. The homeless people have migrated in droves.

The AirBNB we are staying in is in an industrial area between the Civic Centre and the Mission District. Inside it’s a cute mix of bright pink, blue and white with everything we need including, to my great excitement, soda water en masse.

Outside it’s a flat metal block with an almost hidden door in a urine soaked street. We have found it quite confronting but grateful that our story is obviously so much easier than others.

So today we made the most of our one full day here and the gift of this trip.

Starting with the mandatory wake me up – yes 1/2 strength soy latte (I can hear my boys whine that my pathetic choice of half strength coffee is criminal), we hopped the subway BART train (Bay Area Rapid Transport) down to Embarcadero, essentially where the piers are. The sun wasn’t doing her thing in the morning so it was quite foggy, one might actually say smoggy, although that suited us. No sunburn if we can help it.

Pier 39 is always interesting to wander through the shops, get a good view of Alcatraz or check out the Sea Lions. Known as California’s Sea-lebrities they have made their home on the West Marina for many years. At one stage there were 1700 but today maybe 40 were out there putting on a show for the crowds.

Little bit of St. Kilda right there…….Mandatory photo with Alcatraz in the background, well somewhere there in the smog.

Now you can see Alcatraz in the background…..

We continued on Mission No.1 (which frankly was a lot of exercise before we begin the pigfest-cruise tomorrow) and wandered further along the piers.

Two things I have discovered in SanFran.

1. Motorists are extremely nice to pedestrians

2. They have bloody big trucks here. And no, I am not kneeling down. And yes I am short. But seriously??????

All this walking started to wear a little thin and finding a Krispy Kreme shop was nearly too much for me, but as we know MOD eats healthy (sigh) and keeps me honest (double sigh) so I avoided the temptation.

However, I did suggest we activate Mission No.2 (practice how much food we could actually fit in) and taste some damn fine clam chowder at the Blue Mermaid Chowder House and Bar.

Beer may have been involved.

Yep, I ate it all. Which meant further walking. We do want to enjoy the pig trough at the pigfest after all.

We wandered down to the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. Fort Mason was the army’s primary depot for shipping troops and supplies to conflicts. They have shipped out 23 million tons of cargo and 1.63 million soldiers.

Heavy stuff.

Not far along from there, we found the Palace of Fine Arts. Wandering through the buildings and gardens you could actually forget where you where and think you were in Rome. The PoFI is the only remainder of the most opulent World’s Fair ever held in the United States, the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE). The PPIE promised the theme of ‘human progression through human endeavour’ and delivered it in spades. Fair goers were treated to displays of technology from 31 countries, including the first transcontinental phone call connecting Alexander Graham Bell in New York to his assistant in SanFran. And to show it all off they created the most amazing buildings and gardens.

Oh Lord, I broke my own cardinal rule, runners with denim. I’ve turned into an old person tourist…..

Next stop was a trip up to Lombard Street…..

and then down again…….

And then a walk through Little West Italy where we found this cute little car. My size!

Love this mural on the Chinese Restaurant.

So after all of that, we found ourselves resting our weary legs in the Fish and Farm talking to a ‘local’ who just happens to be heading to Auckland tomorrow and a Fijian Barman. And having a vodka. Or two. Or was that four?

Not too shabby.