Day 3 (Sunday 26th Dec 04’):
Today was my last day at Kunal's place as I was scheduled to head out to San Jose in the evening. So the plan was to head out to Sausalito, an elite island up north of the city, from where we could jog across the Golden Gate bridge.
Kunal and I had checked the timings for the ferry, which would take us across to Sausalito the next morning. However, we both woke up late:) and realised we might just be able to make it, if we cabbed it to the Ferry Terminal building. So we found ourselves running across the street and onto the pier where the ferry was to take off from, just in time to get aboard. Once aboard, we went upstairs on the upper deck to get a good view of the SF we were to leave behind and all its water-scapes.
SF was truly living up to its fogginess those days and the once-blue sky had turned grey. The result: not such great pictures, but tremendous fun all the same. It was drizzling on the deck, as I took in the receding SF skyline behind me with the Bay bridge in the distance. The Golden Gate bridge was not clearly visible, so I guessed that I would have to wait till I actually got on it, to see the remarkable 'red' of it. Alcatrass was visible in the distance and I made up my mind to visit it the next time I would be here.
Sausalito, from the ferry, appeared to have tiers of houses on its sloping water's edge. The ferry got us there in about 25 mins. As we disembarked and walked around a bit, I was reminded of O'Bahn (a similar island city, north of Glasgow, Scotland) and Martha's Vineyard, close to Boston, MA. It's the same theory: similar geographies yield similar architectural scapes, obviously! We walked by a couple of stores and restaurants, browsing around for what they had to offer. At a candy store, (Kunal has a big sweet tooth) we bought salt water taffy (I had always wanted to taste it, since I got to know how it sticks to your teeth). We decided to go to a high-end Italian restaurant, by the ocean for lunch. Somehow the place did not live up to it's standards, and we were sorely disappointed by the service and the food.
However that did not dampen the course of the rest of our day. We found out the timings of the bus that would take us to the Sausalito-end of the Golden Gate bridge, from where we could walk across it, into SF.
Turns out, we did get the bus, but due to the lack of communication on my behalf, the driver actually drove us right across the bridge, into SF and stopped there. Not ones to let go off the walking-the-bridge experience, Kunal and I alighted and decided to walk to the nearest pylon and come right back. It was windy on the bridge and the bus timings were highly erratic that Sunday - our perfect excuses for not walking the bridge's entire length.
The walk was unforgettable. The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most beautiful structures I have ever been in, and like all of SF, it too had its own unique colour, RED. That inherently, enhanced all the pictures taken there. Since I am always drawing references, this came closest to walking on the Tower Bridge and the Millenium Bridge in London. The entire bridge spans less than 2 miles, so its practically walkable, hence walking-the-bridge is definitely on every SF tourist's must-do lists. The experience was equally awesome for Kunal as this was his first time walking across too. We joked about the presence of so many Indian's there (all staring at each other), easily differentiating between the lover's/ newly marrieds and of course the Silicon Valley junkies. It's a joke that in most of America's world-famous tourist spots such as the Niagara Falls, Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State building you will find plenty of Indians. I must admit, I have been to all three of them and thus am a small reason of why that theory arose:)
We took the bus back close to Kunal's place as it was time for me to pick up my stuff and leave for SJ. The first part of the trip was over and I bid goodbye to him at the bus stop, to get into a MUNI which would take me to 4th and King (CalTrain station). I was to take the Southbound train and travel right through Silicon Valley to Lawrence, where Raj Sr. and Jr. were going to pick me up. The evening was to be spent at their place, meeting their family, especially Arav (Raj Sr's son) and seeing their newly bought house.
After an evening filled with socialising and home-cooked dinner (after long), I got dropped off to my friend Nicky's house in downtown SJ, close to her school SJSU. We were to pick up our rented car tomorrow early morning, to drive along Route 1 to San Diego, our destination for the next 4 days.
Among the various other inferences that are a part of my previous two days' travelogue, there are a few more that I concluded at the end of my SF trip:
As is the case with every city I travel to, I always ask myself at the end of the trip, if I can live here. The answer to that question with respect to SF is 'Yes'. For me the final word on a city and how much I loved it, rests largely with the answer to this question...Kunal, my city-mate had only one thing to say..that kind of sums it all up..."You have been following my route to every city I have lived in, from LA to NYC; and each time you lived there, after I moved out. So just let me know when you have plans to move here, It means it's time for me to move out!!
I 'll let you know Kunal, when that happens!:)
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