Around the Bay

During the last week we did a few activities.

At the moment, I feel very at home in a gigantic Maya style computer shop, because my laptop is making trouble. But I am not the only one with technical issues, I am also very familiar with one of the apple shops, because Bossy’s laptop was broken, too.

Tuesday, after we visited these shops again, we drove to the Halfmoon Bay on the other side of the mountains, at the Pacific Ocean. The road though the forest was very winding. The temperature was getting colder and we had a lot more rain. Near the road there is a sort of garden center “Spanish Town – arts and crafts”. There are huge, rusty, metal animals outside dinosaurs, elephants, lions. Also some giraffes, Donna would have loved them!

Inside it is like a bazaar, a mixture of India, Spain, northsea… from every part a bit. Very impressive. As were the garden figurines outside. I need to hire a huge container for when I go back to bring all these impressive things with me.

We did 2 more geocaches on the seaside while we waited till the restaurant was open. We had an amazing view over the cliffs. I really love the sea.

Thursday we drove again to San Francisco to do a few business things. I had from the 24th floor at the department of the “Deutsche Bank” a wonderful view over the bay till the Golden Gate Bridge. The comment of the bank employee was: "I think she likes the view." But it was not only “like” - it was breathtaking, once again! Later I took more pictures from a different office view and was told that you can "pay for the view" to get a good one.

After that we went again to the pier. This time we walked in the other direction, to the tourist zone. There are lots of funny shops, also one only for left-handed-persons. Home of Olaf!

You can take a speed boat through the bay and you also have a good view of Alcatraz.

There are platforms were lots of sea lions are laying lazy in the sun, not even caring about all the people who are watching them. I thought of my very best friend, Nickel, and was happy and also sad, that she wasn’t here with me. Happy, because now we could easily go on, sad because she would loved them and had tried to adopt them for sure. And then we would never have gotten out of there.

This time we took dinner in the “Rainforest Café”. The whole place is styled as a gigantic rainforest cave. I ate coconut shrimps and watched the fishes swimming around me. They even simulated a small thunderstorm, where all the robot animals (not the fishes, they were real) came to life. I took a lot of frog pictures for Claudia. I think she would have loved this place.

On the way home we took the long way, over the Bay Bridge to the other side of the bay. This bridge has two floors. The down-level is the way out of the city, the upper one the way in. Bossy made the pictures, I tried to handle a 6 way crowded lane.

 

Saturday we drove to Monteray. There is a huge aquarium. And it is also at the sea, but on the other side from Halfmoon Bay. This is a very charming place. Small houses, rough seaside. Mostly build from wood. And good weather.

 

The aquarium was very nice, there are many spots for kids to try things out on their own. Also the employees were running around with small wagons and explained the animals inside, like starfishes, to the kids (and me) and let us touch them.

I also made a movie of the jellyfishes. If I would become a marine biologist some day, I would spent my time with seahorses and jellyfishes. Amazing things!