Sight-seeing

I seem to be the only one who needs 6-7 hours of sleep. Everybody else needs a lot more.
This is the quiet hour I have for me alone, to write and to read. Yes, I still try to read, but I just can't finish the book I've startet nearly two weeks ago!

Today was sight-seeing day at San Francisco. What a unique beautiful city!! The landscape, the houses, the colors, the feeling, the sun, .....Now I understand why everybody tells me that this city is different from other cities.

We startet our day by changing our rented Jeep with a rented Kia Van. We're one person more and tomorrow we'll have to leave to go to Sacramento, because our hosts will leave for three days.

Then we climbed on the Twin Peaks. The road was closed because of the airshow during Fleet Week. It was worth it. The view from up there is fantastic! After lunch in a small café - luckily far from any tourists, we drove to the Golden Gate Bridge.

That, of course, is a must-do. We stopped after the bridge for photos and at a small yacht harbor. Next stop Sausalito. There Billy said for the first time, that he needed a nap.

Just driving through the town is impression overload. Wherever I look is something interesting, different, beautiful. On our return to the city we stopped again after the bridge. An other round of photo shooting. And, surprise, the airshow was still going on. Now with 6 airplanes together. I hadn't expected to like it, all day we saw
some planes doing tricks, but they were quite far away, not that impressive. But now they flew several times very low above our heads, made spectacular tricks over the Bay, came back. It was exciting. For my sister it was a waste of kerosine, for my brother-in-law it was dangerous. Both true. But I admire their skills and discovered the beauty.

After that Billy and Uschi wanted their nap. Susan and Meike wanted to go shopping. Of course I joined them while Billy and Uschi parked somewhere and tried to sleep in the car. What a waste of time!

We strolled through Haight-Ashbury with it's variety of shops and people. I could have stayed for much longer to absorb the feeling of the city, but the program said Fisherman's Wharft. Billy parked about 2 miles away from there fearing not to find a place nearby. So we walked along the piers. I've no idea how many miles I've walked today, but it must have been a few. Billy wanted to eat Clam Chowder. Obviously a local speciality. I didn't try. I don't prefer soups in general and I don't eat clams.

Finally we arrived at the wharft. It is nice, expensive and touristic.

No night-life for us. At 8.30 pm Billy reminded us, that we have to go because Philipp and Lisa are waiting for us to go to bed. So we just walked back the two miles, drove about 40 minutes to Hillsborough and that was the end of the day.

One problem is obvious though: the number of homeless people. I don't judge them. They don't disturb me. I just wonder how many of them chose to live like that and how many fell through the non-existent social net.
I haven't seen anywhere else signs like "no loitering", "no soliciting". That doesn't mean anything, I haven't seen too much of the world, but still.

And there are other unknown signs: "No smoking at the seated area (outside!)" or "Smoking only on the curb at least 15 ft from the entrance". They sell "medical" Marihuana in shops, but you can't smoke a cigarette on the sidewalk.