We woke up on Tuesday morning about 6.30am feeling a bit better so all as we did was watch some TV for a bit then had a snooze for a couple of hours or so until about 10am then decided to get up and go out for a bit of fresh air. First stop was Halliday Plaza, aka a big hole in the ground, were the tourist information center is to buy the travel passes for the week, is not got any better since we went there last time only in the fact that the lift down to it that stunk of pee was broken so we used the steps then headed into the underground station and used the lift in there too get back up to street level again, crossed the road and hopped on one of the historic F line streetcars for the twenty minute ride down to Pier 39 to see our pinnipeds (sea lion) friends.
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| Sea lions of Pier 39 |
Pier 39 has to be one of my favorite spots in San Francisco; it’s just such a laid back place to be where the boardwalk meets the pier. It is obviously aimed at the tourist but it's been done well. The streetcar drops you right outside the entrance and the last time we were here the Christmas tree was up and the temperature was 21 degrees, today the temperature was 24 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. We walked the full length of the lower level of the pier and at the end, you get a spectacular view of the San Francisco Bay from Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island and to the Bay Bridge. Even though we still didn't feel too good it was nice to sit here for an hour or so and just watch the boats in the Bay then we headed up to have a look in the shops on the upper level before going back down to the west side of the pier that overlooks the K dock were all the sea lions live again. I could sit there for hours watching the sea lions even though there was only around a couple of hundred there this time, the last time we were here they numbered around seven hundred and it smelt like it as well. As it was around mid-afternoon now the sun was on that side of the pier and with no wind, it felt a lot warmer than it was so it was time to take our coats off and stretch out on the benches and soak up some of that Californian sunshine that we had missed so much. Even on a warm day, you take your coat with you as sometimes in certain places it can be freezing cold even on the warmest of days.
After an hour or so we walked back out of the pier and joined the queue for the streetcar back to Market Street, from past experience the later you leave it to travel from here the bigger the queue gets, I was down here around 9.30 one night and you had to squeeze on one of these things. We had a bit of a wait of about fifteen minutes but at least it wasn't packed out, unknown to me at the time if we had walked down the road and around the corner we could have caught the bus back to Market Street and it probably would have been a bit quicker as well. At least the streetcar dropped outside Walgreen’s so we could get something to eat now we were feeling a bit better and some bottles of drink. I think the plane ride had dehydrated us more than we first thought and that wasn't helping on top of the flu we both had. So after picking up some supplies and cough medicine, which we both seemed to developed again during the day it was back to the hotel to munch on the sandwiches and drink plenty of juice to try and re-hydrate while watching TV. Neither of us was long out of our bed that night, I think both of us were asleep by nine pm. At least from now on we could only start to feel better I suppose and I wasn’t wrong.
