This is my last instalment of photos for now. I’m sure there will be more on my photoblog sometime soon.
Around the bay
I’d bought a City Pass, which included a ticket for a Blue and Gold cruise around the bay.
It wasn’t the nicest boat I’d been on and the commentary by “Captain Nemo” was rather cheesy. However, I really enjoyed it. The weather was great and the information in the cheesy commentary (by some of Nemo’s guests) was interesting. It was well worth it to go right under the bridge and back.
Did you know that the colour of the Golden Gate Bridge is international orange, and the bay was dubbed “Golden Gate” long before the bridge was built? Also, it was the first bridge to be built with safety nets for the builders.
Pillow Fight
My husband saw the announcement on the net for the Valentine’s Day Pillow Fight at the Justin Herman Plaza. I got along there to try to take some photos, but it was damn hard! There were so many fighters and a lot of spectators too – I had no idea it would be so huge!
The photos on Laughing Squid are great. It was hard to take photos; aside from all the people it was getting dark too. I think I got the essence of the feathers flying around though – that was my favourite part. 😀
I nearly jumped in to take part. One girl with pink hair jumped out of the fray and offered her “ripe” pillow to anyone who dared, but I was too slow to decide and someone else took it.
Alamo Square
Alamo Square was one of my top destinations to visit, but I only made it there at the end. I guess the two main attractions to it were Full House (these Painted Ladies don’t include the Full House house, but Alamo Square is in the intro to the show) and So I Married and Axe Murderer:
“I’m afraid you’re going to k-leave me.”
“Cleave you? What does that mean Charlie?”
My husband took the one of the dog. So cute!
Exploratorium and Palace of Fine Arts
The Exploratorium is essentially an interactive science museum. It has a whole lot of things that are fun to play with and are based on fairly basic (or possibly not so basic, I don’t know) physical principles. We spent hours there and it wasn’t enough!
I loved the bubble thing, it was well worth the wait to play with it!
Sadly we couldn’t go into the rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts. It was closed for construction or repairs.
This is supposed to be in So I Married an Axe Murderer as well:
“Come, Nadia! Let us dance like children of the night.”
I just couldn’t picture it though. I guess I’ll have to watch the movie again!
Weird toilets
These two are extras just for LaurenMarie!
One of the first things I noticed, apart from driving on the right-hand side of the road (which I was expecting), was the toilets. They’re a different shape!
It may not look like a big difference, but when you’re expecting to sit down and one and then sit down on the other it’s weird. You can see the toilet in Mountain View is shorter, stouter – the bowl looks much wider. It flushed differently too, it would drain the water and pull everything back, then refill the bowl. Our toilets flush water through, refilling and pushing things back at the same time. I don’t think our way is as effective or efficient.
I was also surprised at how many of the toilets and taps were activated by sensors! There’s not much of that here.
On a finishing note… I go back to uni next week. Scary! I’ll have to be a lot more efficient with my time.
YAY! The toilets! hehe, I’m weird! There are toilets with different shapes around here, but I would say yours are definitely taller. And some toilets flush the way you’ve describe the Australian toilets, but most are the way you experienced in San Fran. OMG, I’m so weird. Can I share more weirdness with you? This “thing” with toilets dates back to when I was little, too. I used to tell my mom I had to go to the bathroom, but I really just wanted to see what the bathroom looked like! *blush* I’m going to go now… (and I don’t mean to the bathroom!)
Sometimes I weird even myself out.
Haha, my brother used to do something similar when he was little. I don’t know what his real motivation was, I’ve never asked, but he used to have to go to the toilet every place we went to.