Our good friends Jon and Elaine recently moved to Oakland, and David had never been to the Bay Area, so over the 4th of July we took a long weekend and traveled to California to visit our friends and enjoy the wonders of San Francisco.
We quickly hit a lot of the typical tourist sites (Pier 39, Chinatown, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Ferry Terminal), but we also mostly did a lot of eating and walking around a variety of neighborhoods. Some of our favorites were hanging out in the Mission and Dolores Park, visiting the California Academy of Sciences, the view from the Marin Headlands, and our day trip up to Napa to drink wine and beer.
Our friends live in Oakland, which should be a tourist attraction in its own right. The area around Lake Merritt is really nice, with a lively farmer's market and lots of people out and about jogging and walking dogs. We went to
Art Murmur, which was like a huge street party that takes over downtown Oakland on the first Friday of every month. Music, art, hipsters, lots of food - an all around good time. We even saw a sing-along version of R.Kelly's unintentionally hilarious "hip hopera"
Trapped in the Closet at the Parkway Theater.
Overall, the Bay Area is pretty awesome. Great urban design, good weather (for the most part), lots of nice parks, and wonderful food. We had so much awesome food, we're going to make a separate post just to cover the deliciousness! Stay tuned. On to the pictures...
 |
| Taking Simon for a walk around Lake Merritt |
 |
| The historic Ferry Building |
 |
| Inside the Ferry Building |
 |
| View from the base of Coit Tower |
 |
| View from the top of Coit Tower |
 |
| Elaine has this view from her office! |
 |
| Sidewalk grates in the Mission |
 |
| Murals in Clarion Alley |
 |
| Mural |
 |
| Mission Dolores |
 |
| Having some fun in Alamo Square. Hadoken! |
 |
| Land's End |
 |
| Art Murmur in Oakland |
 |
| Having some local beer in Oakland...David had cider. |
 |
| Driving across the Bay Bridge |
 |
| Boing! |
 |
| View from the Marin Headlands |
 |
| Golden Gate Bridge from Marin Headlands |
 |
| Trapped in the Closet! |
 |
| Green roof at the California Academy of Sciences |
 |
| Inside the California Academy of Sciences |
 |
| Superman: Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom |
 |
| Six Flags Discovery Kingdom |
 |
| Dolores Park |
 |
| Hanging out in Dolores Park |
 |
| Napa vineyards |
