San Francisco #4

And so we come to the end of a much too short three-day visit to the fascinating City of St. Francis. I wasn't as taken with the architecture here as much as in Boston or Chicago, but there are wonderful views, especially of and from the waterfront.

The MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) has an appropriately unique home, build around a central sunlit column.

Any individual's choice of favourites from the collection will be correspondingly unique. Here is one of mine, though I'm not really sure why!



The concept of modern art was my inspiration for this angle shot of one of the galleries. I think it works.

And here is my favourite from MOMA. The guard fit perfectly into the scene. As I took it a neighbouring guard commented, "You'll be on a magazine cover!" 'Fraid not, but he did make it onto the Internet.

The de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park is another home of the fine arts and on my visit had a fascinating display of modern creations.

This is a look into a block of acrylic, carved and coloured so that it can be viewed as a sort of static kaleidoscope. Of course, one picture cannot do it justice.

And this piece reminds me of the gigantic silver sculpture in the waterfront park of Chicago.

The West Coast of the US has a reputation for wierdness. Perhaps it's well-founded but just out-dated. Or maybe I didn't go to the right places. Whatever, it didn't seem unduly wierd to this tourist from Toronto (or thereabouts).

The trolleys lived up to their hype,

and there is Lombard Street, "the crookedest street in the world", which I walked up while everyone else was driving down,

and I got a picture of this sample of west coast wildlife in McDonald's

but all-in-all things seemed relatively sane and a great place to visit. Thank you, San Francisco!

And now it's back to the salt mines (aka "the barracks") and here I am preparing some trenching for a concrete below-grade wall to help waterproof and support our almost two centuries old limestone building.

San Francisco #3

My original thought on going to San Francisco was to see three ballgames, two at Oakland's Coliseum against the Blue Jays and one at the Giant's AT&T Park. One of the three would have to be on Sunday afternoon (and I have never, ever, attended a professional ballgame on Sunday.)

But it just so happened that on the Sunday before I left, the sermon was on the subject of "being where God wants you to be", and I had mentioned that I expected to be worshipping at Grace Cathedral. Then I discovered that the Cathedral holds it's main service at 11am. 11am at Grace Cathedral and 1:05pm at AT&T Park would be iffy. "Why is he preaching so long?", I'd be thinking. "I wish there were fewer people - Communion is taking too long." It was clear God didn't want me to be attending that ballgame on Sunday afternoon, so I changed plans and did a tour of the Giant's park on Saturday morning instead.

And it's a beautiful ballpark, if you're into ballparks. Everything about it seems right -

even the fact that the statue of Willie McCovey is on the far side of the McCovey "Splash" Cove, where you can barely see it.

The grass is immaculate,

there is a mini-diamond for kids,

the view of the city is beautiful

and Willie Mays seems to be everywhere.

And then there's me and the Coke bottle.

.

In Oakland, just across the Bay, (you can walk over the Bay Bridge or take the BART train system underneath the Bay) the Jays split the two games I attended. On the Saturday evening there was a great crowd because Rickey "Rickey is so humble" Henderson's number was being retired. I sat in the cheap seats and took some good-natured ribbing from the A's fans, but that was the game we won. The Coliseum is not nearly as memorable as AT&T Park, so it's good that I took a picture.

Church on Sunday at Grace Cathedral was a positive experience with an encouraging attendance.


If I were living in San Francisco I probably would worship elsewhere simple because of the style of service music there. But then perhaps I'd wander over to the Cathedral afterwards because they serve a nice community lunch out on the plaza!

San Francisco #2 (Most pictures will enlarge if you left-click on them.)

About a mile and a half along the Embarcadero from my hotel is Pier 39, a major tourist hangout. Lots of boutique stores, little restaurants, children's rides as well as



hundreds of seals just lounging around


an aquarium next door

and upside-down busses passing by.

You can get a good view of Alcatraz, which I didn't visit but sailed nearby on the cruise boat.

The cruise went out to the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course, that is a mandatory picture-take, but I couldn't figure out how to get a good one from our vantage point and with the foggy weather. Actually, foggy weather is a staple of the GGB. So I took some other shots.

A couple of days later, on Sunday afternoon, I took a long walk at the Presidio, for many years a military staging base and now a fascinating combination of the arts, recreation and history, run by the National Park Service. There I took a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge from land.

and one of the Palace of the Fine Arts at the Presidio. Didn't get inside this time, but maybe next!

San Francisco

Of course, three days wasn't (weren't?) enough to visit a city like San Francisco but I gave it a good try, and in the process took pictures of most of the things tourists are supposed to take pictures of. The hotel where I stayed is right on the waterfront (the Embarcadero) just steps away from the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge.

The City has done a great job of beautifying the waterfont for modern use and a stroll of a mile or two from the hotel turns up what follows.

"Between the Ferry Building and the end of Market Street in San Francisco sits an unusual fountain. It is locally known as the “Vaillancourt Fountain” but the sculptor, Armand Vaillancourt, named it “Québec libre!” on the night before the inauguration day of the fountain in 1971. Armand Vaillancourt is a French sculptor, painter and performance artist born on September 3, 1929 in the city of Black Lake, Quebec, Canada. “Québec libre!” which is in French and when translated to English mean “Free Quebec!”. Armand gave the sculpture such a name to show his support for the Quebec sovereignty movement and more largely, the support for the freedom of all people in Quebec." (found on the Internet)

Among the things which surprised me about San Francisco:

* How cool the weather was for the beginning of August. I wore a jacket almost all the time.

* How friendly and helpful the people were.

* How thoughtful the public transportation system is to seniors and the disabled

*That I didn't see much really "way out", other than a tiger-man in the line-up at McDonald's
(picture to come)

The other surprising thing for me is how inexpensive it is to fly from Buffalo. I have been using Hotwire for hotel and flight bookings and find it GREAT!

I haven't quite got the hang of moving pictures yet but thought I'd post it anyway! It's "Views From The Embarcadero"".