After a few nights in the old forests, it was time to leave south for a big city famous for many things - San Francisco. The idea was to travel down highway 101, but we only did it some of the ways. We missed a sign or something to make a turn, but we eventually got to it and drove along the coast. We passed several filming spots and even planned to have lunch in one of them, but we didn't know it was that crowded/expensive, so we just moved on.
The Golden Gate bridge greeted us as we entered the city from the north. We rented a place in San Francisco, unlike in Oakland last time. It cost much more than the previous place, but at least we didn't have to commute to the city daily. The owner of the place was cool, he used to be a tennis player, but now he's a coach. We hung out with him one night, and he told us stories of how he traveled through Yugoslavia on his bicycle back in the day. He's also been to India and was into spiritual things, and we loved listening to those stories.
Right the next day, we went on our first tour of sightseeing. For the first time, we didn't start the morning in the camp peeling hard-boiled eggs and then hiking. We took an Uber to the first museum of the day - Asian Art Museum. The place was huge, and we only had a little time to see everything, but what we saw pleased us. We definitely planned out too many things for the day.
The next place was the Museum of Ice Cream, which you had to reserve months before. We arrived there, and there was a bunch of folks already waiting. The museum didn't meet our expectations, and it was expensive. The great thing was that you could get as much ice cream as you wanted, but unfortunately, we wanted to avoid overeating on ice cream.
The next stop was the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We saw everything there was there and rested for a bit. The total time we spent there was about 3 hours. At that point, we were already tired from all the content. You can take in so much in a day before you feel tired and overstimulated. We decided to spend the day just walking and/or chilling.
The city is beautiful and has this strange energy that draws you to explore it as much as possible. Last time (in 2018.) we biked the city and this time, we walked it. The San Francisco main area is smaller than other large cities, so you can get by on foot. That was relieving because everywhere else, you have to drive a lot.
But there are also bad things. First of all, it is expensive. Also, there are a lot of homeless people that are plainly ignored. The prices and homeless folks are the things that make this city hard to live in for me. These are both related to each other, but I believe it can be solved somehow. As a first step, it would be nice for folks living there to acknowledge the homeless on the streets instead of treating them like they do not exist.
In any case, I'd like to visit this city anytime and spend a month or two. The day was ending, and we decided to walk home. Looking back now, walking at night wasn't such a great idea, but we still did it. We mainly kept to the main roads and well-lit roads. After 2 hours, we were back in our Airbnb.
Join me tomorrow when we get around the city's north part and experience Golden Gate Bridge from that side.