30 nov: Twin Peaks, Market Street and the Harbor, San Francisco

a house that looks like a Russian church <3

 Going into town today, Robert had a few adresses to check out, from record shops to old studio's and the location of a very old pre-Creedence picture.
We walked the wrong way to find the bus, but that made us see the fab house on the picture above.

It was quite a ride on the 22; southbound on Filmore Street. We enjoyed the ride, all kinds of stuff to see you dont see when you only do touristic things. On Geary street we went "the Filmore was on Geary" like everytime we do when we crossed that street. After a few seconds it hit me: this time we were ON FILMORE an Geary. We started hysterical looking around but didnt see anyting. (note: the Filmore where CCR and all other bands played was "Filmore West" and doesnt excist anymore. This Filmore venue was first)

We got out at Market Street and walked around the block for no reason (not the last time today) but the weather was nice and there was lots to see, like a lot of those historical F-Line streetcars from all over the world. Warning: you will see a lot of them between the following pictures, because my dear nephew Ben (hoi Ben!) is a bus/train/streetcar geek :-D so I had to take pics of as many as possible.

MUNI, the public transport company in SF, has the coolest logo EVER

Robert visited a recordshop, and while I took a rest and looked on my map, I noticed that the nearby hill at the end of the street,was actually Twin Peaks, so we decided to throw in a short trip. Okay. First we had to wait on the bus for half an hour. (at least our transfer tickets were still valid) The bus took the zigzag roads up the hill trough pretty streets passing nice houses. when we crossed Market Street again, we were surprised with a stunning view on the city!
we were the only tourists on the bus, and a friendly local (didnt meet any unfriendly locals yet, hope it stays like that) told us where to go. When we left the bus, we had to climb two sets of stairs that looked like a trail. Halfway up the first one it struck me: Ohno! if you go up, you have to go down! For some reason, I cant walk down steep dirth paths, without picturing myself falling down the hill and break all my bones. Robert had to promise me he would hold me on our way back down.
And yeah, miss Hoodoo goes hiking in a long dress again :-D at least I was wearing decent boots.
On top of the first stairs we were at the bottom of the actual Twin Peaks, two small hills on top of the big hill we saw from down the street.
we climbed the second hill and the view was great.

the big street on the left is Market Street!

with the stunning (old part of) the Bay Bridge in the back

now this was pretty cool: if you take a good look you see the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge stick out of the fog on the bay.

the view was pretty, but for us not overwhelming. Two years ago we were taking across the Golden Gate bridge to the hills behind it (you can see it on the picture) and that view was so ubergorgeous we stayed there for hours, didnt wanna go down anymore and took 5 million pictures. So if you're planning to go to San Francisco: forget Twin Peaks, cross the Golden Gate and drive up that hill.

 we stayed there for maybe 20 minutes and went back down cos we hoped we would catch the next bus back. I had to grab Robert on my way down but did ok. Halfway down the last stairs, we saw the bus arrive... we walked down faster, and I waved at it when it left, but it was no use (at least the driver didnt wave back) we were 30 seconds too late, and had to wait 40 minutes for the next one.
I'll spare you a ton of "boredom waiting by the busstop" pictures.

The hill on the right is where we went up. Twin Peaks is located in a residential area.

I've waited on busses in my life before, but seldom with this stunning view from the stair I was sitting on... While waiting on the bus and writing my diary, a lot of locals passed walking their dogs who had to come and say hi :-) (or 'snifsnif') By the way, I'm absolutely positive that one on 3 residents of San Francisco is a dog.
Ofcourse, when the bus arrived, our bustransfers were expired so we had to buy a new ticket.

THIS totally rocks. But I dont see myself doing this with my heavy bike.

 At least the busdriver was very friendly and told us where to go. When we got out the bus, a local saw our map and also told us where to go :-) In the meantime, as you can see on the previous picture, a man placed his bike in the special bike-rack on the bus and got on. What a great, great invention!! (seen it in other places in the USA too) Also great on the bus was the acces of wheelchairs. We've seen disabled people in big electric wheelchairs roll in. Busdriver folds up a section of the seats, the bus leans over to the right to lower the step, a lift gets out (didnt see how that works yet) and the wheelchair gets on!

Robert didnt need much time in this one

"awMsome cakes" :-D

City Hall with beautifull streetlight

 we walked up Market Street from 16th street. It was a nice walk, lots of stuff to see.

Around the beautifull Orpheum theatre, the number of weirdo's fast increased. The first time we were in SF we had an hotel right here so we knew, and they were all still there. Weirdo's and homeless people, and a LOT of them. They didnt really bother anyone but it was a bit sad. Also, unlike yesterday in Haight, we didnt really feel safe because we were way outnumbered by them and there were no streethippies just a whole bunch of weirdos. Well, what can you do, hold your camera with both hands, dont stare at people, and keep your arm on your purse.

 

 First we went to see the studio where CCR recorded the first record(s) Google Maps had provided us with wrong info, so we had to walk up and down Mission Street a few times before we saw it (climbing over people lying on the street)  we found it in the end, but it looked abandoned.

Next stop: civic center, where a certain picture of the Golliwogs (pre-Creedence) was taken. Someone has told us it was "at the Civic Center" and someone else told us "no its not" so we decided to check out ourself. For some reason, I had a picture in my mind of the Civic Centre being a tall building surrounded by lowbuildings, so we walked ahead on Market, between all those weirdos and lo lifes and homeless people looking for that. We didnt see it, so we looked at the map and saw we had to go back. On the other side of the street, more weirdo's. By now we really had enough. I feel bad for homeless people and people that need help etc, but sorry for not feeling safe walking on the street in daylight.

We found out that the Civic Center was not "a tall building" but a group of buildings like the City Hall and the Library. First we had to dodge more weirdo's and make detours to avoid them. We were not the only tourists walking around there, but still. And if we totally dont trust it we go back, dont worry! I've walked around there alone back in 2007 and never ever felt unsafe. I dont wanna walk around there alone anymore now.

We took out the picture, and started walking around. No luck. In a quieter area, we saw a security guard standing on the stairds of a big building (museum) so we walked up to her to ask.
 She was really friendly and looked at the picture and said she didnt had a clue. She gave us a few places where to go to ask, and then said "or the library across the street!" then "so who are these guys?"
we explained it was pre-Creedence, and she went nuts! Turned out her dad was a big CCR fan. On the picture they were really young (20) and she had to laugh when we pointed out that the young man with the big glasses was John Fogerty.
It was really nice talking to her and we went to the library, a HUGE building.
We were sent to the 6th floor, where the History departement was (I actually forgot what the name was) we asked a man who looked like he would know.
He took his time and started looking up things, also went to the back to ask coworkers. When he came back, he found out that John Fogerty was second from the left :-D so someone back there told us. He also asked if we looked on the internet. we tried to explain who he was dealing with and that we spent hours and hours and hours looking for locations of pictures like this :-)
He pointed out tthey were standing in front of a statue, and said we could go to the 4th floor and ask at the Music and Art departement. We thanked him and did so.
Man, that library is huge.
we got lost on the 4th floor and almost gave up, but we found an info desk and showed them our picture.
This time, it really triggered the womans attention. She thought it was fantastic that we came looking for it, and that we did so with a lot of other pictures before. We told her that the journey to get there was as special as finding the location.
In the end, she wrote down our email adress and we thanked her and didnt think much of it, and left. It had been a fun adventure, but hey, the picture is half a century old.

We didnt wanna go back up Markt Street through that rough crowd again (but we wanted to see something at the end) and for some reason our bustransfer was still valid so we waited for the antique F line to show up. we got a bright orange one with italian signs inside :-D

Market Street with Twin Peaks in the distance and a trolleybus.

we got out at Union Square because I wanted to look at the shops. Not really my type of shops though (should have known) and very buisy, but also... Cable Cars!!!

Powellstreet goes up STEEP!!

turning the cable cars around at the end of PowellStreet - by hand!

After the cable cars I felt all of a sudden very week in my knees and light in my head. It had been a while since our last meal. I try to eat healthy and have health snacks in my purse, but its not always easy. (Robert can handle it better somehow)
I dragged him across the street to the Westfield mall. Like Barstow, all roads lead to Westfield Mall too :-D we went to the nice supermarket in the basement (already forgot the name) and found yummy and healthy stuff.

Looking up in Westfield mall

Lunch: avacado wraps with a side of guacemole :-D

needed some coffee after that too. Look how they made my coffee!

<3 <3 <3

after that we ran into a man at the Ghirardelli shop who asked if we wanted a chocolate. Yes please!! Many Europeans think Americans dont have decent chocolate, after trying Herseys, but thats not true Ghirardelli is as good as the best Belgian chocolates! And these Peppermint Barks were so good... mmmm... 

 when we got out again, it was dark. we could see the tower of the ferry building and wanted to take a picture there, and going there we discussed how to get back to our hotel, cos no way we would walk from here. we could take the fun F-line back to some street where we could take a bus up north.

Ferry building!

 OKAY going to sleep right now. Its almost 1am.