Friday, December 6, 2013

California Field Trip #2: San Francisco

San Francisco in the winter is SO much nicer than San Francisco in the summer. If you go to San Francisco in the summer you'll freeze your butt off, but in the winter it's gorgeous and pleasant--often foggy, but it IS San Francisco...

We didn't even have the fog on this winter visit, which included all our favorite traditions, first of which is always a nice lunch with the extended family in one of the many seafood restaurants on the piers. We didn't do oysters this year, but both girls were nevertheless adventurous eaters--Will had rock fish, and tasted her Uncle Carlos' baby squid tentacles, and Syd ate a calamari "steak" sandwich. Yum!

After lunch, while the rest of the family shopped, we strolled past Boudin, of course--
This baker, unlike last year's, didn't *really* want to be in the show window, and stoutly ignored us as she worked. After she finished this crab, however, she lifted it up to show the audience, as she'd been trained to, and Syd burst into applause. The baker smiled in spite of herself.
 --where we bought the girls a sourdough sea turtle each, of COURSE, and then went to pay homage to the sea lions. Of course.




Pier 39 is SO touristy, but it does have fun, festive things to pose in front of:
Matt laughed at me because after I took this photo, a strange couple handed me their iphone and asked me to take a photo of them, too. They wanted a boring old front shot, but you can't see the TREE that way(!!!), so I insisted on lying back down on the ground and getting this exact same shot of them.
After this, the family picked us up, drove us over by Crissy Field, and then went off shopping again. We did a little more looking around--
The girls were unimpressed with Alcatraz--until I told them that this is also where Azkaban is!


--and then did some climbing and jumping and digging and running while the sun set:





And that's what you call a full afternoon in San Francisco!

3 comments:

  1. TinaDecember 6, 2013 at 11:39 AM

    Your vacations look like so much fun! I love the Azkaban comment. We are actually family-reading "The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel," by Michael Scott. We just finished reading a chapter that had a crazy murder of crows flying from Alcatraz to the Golden Gate Bridge. I will have to show Emma the pictures so she can actually "see" the scene better.

    Willow looks mesmerized by the sea in the video. That's how I feel every time I am lucky enough to get back to a coast.

    Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

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  2. julieDecember 7, 2013 at 10:15 AM

    Ooh, we'll have to check out that book! We're currently working through the Percy Jackson series as our in-car audiobook selection; after that, I want to do the Kane Chronicles by the same author, since they tell you a LOT about Ancient Egypt. I want us to all have read all the Little House books before we go to De Smet this summer, too, but I'm going to have to assign those to Will, I think, while letting Syd listen to them on audiobook--I don't think the Little House audibooks will hold Will's attention in the car, not when she's inevitably holding some science fiction/fantasy novel in her lap in perpetual readiness!

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  3. TinaDecember 7, 2013 at 10:49 PM

    We started listening to the Percy Jackson series with Emma's Da, but we never seem to be in the car long enough with him to get through the series. That will probably be our next family read-a-loud series.

    I keep thinking we should be reading the Little House series, but I just haven't felt motivated to do it.

    It amazes me that kids can't concentrate on a conversation, but give them a good book, and the world could be exploding and they would never notice.

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