The California Academy of Sciences in the Golden Gate Park

Once again, I took the bus going from my hostel via the Golden Gate Bridge to the Golden Gate Park. This time, I wanted to see the California Academy of Scienes. I had already seen the building on my last visit to the park, however, I still got a bit lost trying to find it today. So instead of finding the right way to the museum, I discovered a cute little rodent which looked out of a small hole in the ground. I watched it for a while - it seemed to be building something, since it sometimes vanished into the hole only to come back a few seconds later with a load of soil. While watching, I started to talk to a woman who lived nearby and who also enjoyed watching that rodent. She gave me a few tips on what to see in the park.

After the rodent had vanished into its hole for good, I quickly found the Academy of Sciences.
At first, I went into a big sphere, in which a tropical rainforest was recreated. Apart from several amphibians in glass boxes, there were butterflies and birds flying freely within the sphere and among the visitors. If it wasn't for the heat in the artificial rainforest, I could have spent forever watching these animals.
After the rainforest, I went to the aquarium. Here, you could see many local fishes as well as more exotic ones.
There was also an exhibit on earthqukes. After waiting in line for way too long, I could go into a room where the 1906 and the 1989 earthquakes in San Francisco were simulated.
The roof of the Academy is also a quite interesting sight: There are small hills as well as a collection of beautiful local flowers, serving as the habitat of many insects and birds.
In the African exhibit you could watch some real penguins. There was a very fluffy penguin at the top of the rock, which apparently wanted to go into the water. However, it just didn't dare to jump in. So for about 10 minutes, I watched that penguin walk along the edge of the rock, looking yearningly into the water without ever jumping in. In the end, I gave up watching since the penguin didn't make any progress.
I finished my visit to the museum with a really cool movie in the planetarium on astroids and our cosmic origins. Apart from being very educational, the movie made you feel like you were actually floating in space, as it was shown in a huge theater with a round screen that made up the whole ceiling of the theatre. Watching the movie in there was really a unique experience.

It was akready 4:30 PM when I left the museum. After eating a snack, I walked west, in the direction of the Stow Lake. Getting there turned out a bit more complicated than I had expected. However, once I had arrived there, I could enjoy a nice view from the top of the hill in the middle of the lake. There was an unusually big amount of squirrels in that area. At one time, I saw about five squirrels together.
My next goal was the Bison Paddock, which was actually a bit disappointing since the bisons were just lying far away, hidden in the grass.
I kept going west. Just at the end of the park, there was a big, dutch windmill.
There is a beach at the west end of the Park. As it was already quite late and I was pretty exhausted from walking all day long, I just took  few pictures of the beach and then looked for the next bus back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, I went into the Cafe to eat a quiche and a soup. After that, I went to the front desk to ask them once again about a lower bed for my last two days in San Francisco. As it turned out, there has been a cancellation so that I don't have to move hostels within the city anymore. What is more, I can even stay in the bed I currently occupy.

Museums in the morning, prison in the evening

Since I woke up pretty early this morning, I decided to go to the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park. When I left the hostel, the sky was still clear. Unfortunately, it started to rain when I arrived at the Golden Gate Park. As I arrived at the tea garden by 10 AM, the admission was free. The garden was nice but rather small and I was glad that I didn't have to pay the 8 USD for the visit, since it just wouldn't have been worth the money.
I took the next bus east and got off in Downtown San Francisco, where I took a historic street car after checking out the location of a hostel. There were some flyers about the street car museum and since there was a stop right next the museum, I got off the street car to check it out. The admission here was free as well. The museum was tiny and there wasn't too much to see. Still, it was an interesting 10 minute stop. I took the next street car north to Pier 39.
As the sea lion museum was closed the last time I was at the Pier, I paid it a short visit now. I was surprised to find out that sea lions and seals have some kind of fur instead of a slick skin. What is more, I found out that the seals that I saw on my first day in San Francisco were actually sea lions.
By now, it was raining heavily and I hurried to get back to the hostel. The rain had stopped when I arrived there. I still decided to take a break and eat a lentil soup and a salad at the hostel.

I had already booked a tour to Alcatraz for this evening weeks ago. Because of the weather forecast, I had been a bit worried about going tonight, but the date couldn't be changed anymore. However, I got really lucky and the weather was just perfect. 

Nowadays the island is a national park and serves as breeding ground for many birds.
The Alcatraz tour was pretty interesting, we were told many interesting stories: 

Alcatraz started as a military base and became a small prison for deserters soon after that. It only became a state prison much later in 1934 and stayed that way till 1963. There has been a total of 14 attempted escapes. The 14th escape succeeded, although the prisoner ended up escaping into a military base. The 13th escape is the most famous one and still an unsolved case. No one knows if the three prisoners survived the swim to the shore.
The tour ended with a demonstration of the prison cell doors. 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

Walking around Fisherman's Wharf, you can see several bike shops advertising bike tours across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito with a ferry ride back to San Francisco. Since I didn't feel up to biking the hills up and down and spending about 30 USD just for that (plus 11,50 USD for the ferry), I decided to try this tour by foot.
I started by taking a bus to the foot of the bridge. It was already pretty cool to see the Golde Gate Bridge up close. As the bridge is just about 2.5 km long, crossing it wasn't too exhausting. However, there was a fierce wind.
After arriving on the other sie of the bridge, I took a short break to eat a snack (something I have eating a lot lately: a banana with crispy bread).
As I was still feeling pretty energetic, I decided to try and do the rest of the tour by foot as well. Unfortunately, there was neither a map nor a tourist information, so I wasn't entirely sure which way the nearest ferry would be. I decided on following the bike trail that most bikers were using. It felt a bit weird using that trail, as it was not necessarily made for pedestrians - the road was tilted in a weird way, so that it felt like one of my legs was too long and the other one was too short.
At the entrance to Sausalito there was a woman greeting every biker and informing them about the distance to the nearest ferry. She was a bit surprised about me walking all the way from the Golden Gate Bridge (the whole tour was just about 6 km so it was not unusually long for me), nevertheless she agreed that the weather was just perfect for a nice long walk.
Sausalito had many nice little shops and was directly at the coast, so I enjoyed it there very much.
After finding out when the next ferry to the San Francisco Ferry Building would depart, I decided to eat a big scoop of chocolate ice ream in a small park. The ice cream was great, I was just slightly annoyed by some asian tourists feeding pigeons right next to me.
At 4:45 I boarded the ferry. It also seemed to be the best time to leave, as the sky above Sausalito was starting to become more and more clouded. At first, I chose a very nice seat inside of the ferry, which was located directly at the front window. However, as the air wasn't too good inside and I wanted to enjoy the fresh wind, I spent most of the ride on deck.
Getting from the San Francisco Port to the hostel turned out to be a small challenge because I had to wait forever for a tram. As I was too echausted to walk far and the tram seemed to be the easiest connection, I waited.
When I was finally back at the hostel, I took a few more pictures of the bridge from the plateau where the hostel is located (Fort Mason) and ate some pasta at the hostel's cafe.

Mixed feelings and first impressions of San Francisco

Even through the trains in the US drive rather slowly compared to trains in Germany, I barely slept tonight. I know that I must have slept at least a little, since I remember dreaming something about my dog Benny.
The train arrived in Emeryville around 8 AM and after taking a bus, I arrived in Fisherman's Wharf around 9 AM. At first I got my 7 day bus pass for all muni and cable cars at Walgreen. Next, I went to the hostel. After leaving my luggage at the hostel, I started exploring the city.

At first I went to Ghiradelli Square, where you could find several shops of the famous Ghiradelli chocolate (I got to try two pieces of dark blueberry chocolate). There was a cable car station nearby, so I decided to take one of them to the Union Square. Riding the cable car was definitely fun, it was almost like riding a slow rollercoaster and I had to hold my hat so that it wouldn't fly away.

From the union square I went back north in the direction of China Town. On the way, I ended up buying some facial cleaner (the seller kind of persuaded me to buy it, they had some kind of promotion), which I regretted later on. Finding the sights in China Town turned out to be a bit complicated and I got a little lost. Just when I had found what I had wanted to see, I realized that I had lost a map with lots of coupons, which I got in the Amtrak bus this morning. By then I was actually pretty annoyed by San Francisco.

Still I kept going. It was kind of surpried that I got many compliments regarding my hat throughout the day. I wouldn't have expected a 3 CAD hat to draw so much attention.

I went to the Cable Car museum, which was nice but not too interesting. Since I was pretty exhausted, I waited for the next cable car in the direction of Fisherman's Wharf. There was a cheap Supermarket nearby and I bought a sandwich snack there. Next, I walked to Pier 39.
There was a visitor center at the pier and luckily, I could get another copy of the map I had lost. There were also many fun shops. Since I felt like eating something sweet, I tried some Fudge for the first time, which wasted quite well. Furthermore, you could see a bunch of seals which rested on some platforms close to the pier. By the time I got back to the hostel, I was in a good mood again.

At the hostel, I finally got to move into a room. However, I was assigned an upper bed. That usually wouldn't be a problem, however, there was no real ladder and I would have to more or less climb over the edge of the bed. As I didn't feel comfortable with that, I requested another bed. Unfortunetly, there are only free lower beds until Sunday, so I will have to find another hostel for my last two days here.

To sum up, I have mixed feelings for San Francisco. On the one hand I love the cable cars and the city is kind of beautiful to look at (especially from afar). On the other hand, all the steep roads are a bit annoying (I think you could say that my mood went up and down in the same manner as the streets) and some things didn't go exactly as planned. Still, I had so many nice experiences today, that I probably shouldn't complain.

Klein bottles in the Amtrak train

So far I’ve had the most amazing time here on the train ride to San Francisco. I got a roomette, that’s a small room consisting of two chairs that can be transformed into a bed later on. It’s just for myself so that’s more or less the first private room I’ve had since coming to America.

The view out of the windows of the train is great; I’ve seen villages, lakes, mountains and deep cliffs.
Around 3:30 PM, there was a wine tasting in the parlor car. Since I had nothing better to do today, I decided to try it out. We were offered three local wine, which all tasted quite nice. 

I’ve spent most of my time on the train in the viewing area of the parlor car, looking out of the windows and talking to people. 
I’ve especially enjoyed meeting an older, maybe a little particular physicist who made a business out of selling Klein Bottles (check http://www.kleinbottle.com/). He was an extremely nice and funny guy and he gave me a set of Klein Bottle earrings, which I absolutely adore.

Washington Park - From the Hoyt Arboretum to the Rose Garden

As I had predicted, sleeping in the bunk bed wasn't too bad.
After taking a shower, I went out to eat breakfast at Starbucks. Since I wanted to buy some snacks, I went to the closest supermarket I could find, which was about 20 minutes from here by foot.
Once again, the weather was just perfect. In fact, it was close to 30°C, but it didn't feel too hot. After buying some fruits, water, cheese, and a small apple cake, I walked back to the hostel.
While storing my stuff, I met my bunk bed neighbor who gave me some advise on how to get to Washington Park. I took that advise, went to the busstop about 2 blocks from here, and took the blue line tram.
I got off the tram at Washington Park. There was an elevator that brought me up about 300 feet. Consequently, I could go downward most of the time. At first I went to the Hoyt Arboretum visitor center. There was an extremely nice older woman who offered me some free tee right away. Next, she gave me some advice on which trails to take. I had planned to see the Japanese garden, so she advised me to first take the magnolia trail and then the wildwood trail to get there.
The magnolia trail was really beautiful. I was more or less the only person hiking there and the streets were so far away that the only sound I could hear was the singing of the birds. The silence was a welcome change in contrast to the noisy streets of Seattle.
There was a construction site close to the wildwood trail, thus that path was a bit more noisy. It was still a really beautiful path.
When I arrived at the Japanese Garden, I decided against going in since that would have costed me almost 10 USD. Instead, I went to the rose garden right next to it. The roses weren't blooming yet. Still, it was quite nice there.
About 2 hours had passed when I arrived at the east end of the park. Since I wanted to walk back, I decided it was best not to take any more detours. On the way back I took a few pictures of a nice looking church. Unfortunately, it seemed to be closed.

I also stopped at Powell's again. This time, I went to the science section. Since I really wanted to buy something small here, I decided on an elementary introduction to probability theory. I guess that this will probably be too basic for me, however, I was only looking for some light reading and since probability theory always seemed a bit alien to me, this might be a good choice.
Shortly before arriving at the hostel, the driver of a police car gave me a thumbs up sign, since I was more or less the only one who did not ignore the red traffic lights.
 
All things considered, I had a wonderful day in Portland and I still really love this city. I think it is due to Portland being so green, there are trees everywhere and the parks are also a lot nicer than the ones I have seen in Seattle.

Arriving in Portland

For some reason, I like Portland a lot better than Seattle.
I arrived just past 5 PM and my hostel was just a few blocks from the bus station. It is more or less located in the old China Town and the area around here actually looks pretty cool. At the hostel, I was at first a bit shocked about my room since I had expected a room with 8 beds. Instead, I got a room with 8 tripple beds (I had skipped the word 'tripple' before), so a total of 24 beds. Still, every bed has a privacy curtain and my bed is a bit hidden in a corner, so I think that it might not be too bad. In addition to that, the room is not completely booked anyway.
After leaving my luggage at the hostel, I started exploring the neighbourhood. I cannot really explain it, but I liked the feel of Portland at once. Of course the really warm weather (I think it was around 25°C) might also have contributed to me enjoying this city.
At first I walked to the Willamette River and took a look at all the bridges there. After that, I walked in the direction of the famous store Powell's Books. After taking a few deliberate detours, I found the store pretty easily. It was really a huge bookstore which also offers a few nice merchandise articles. Since I was already pretty hungry, I didn't stay too long.
It took me a while to decide where and what to eat. There were many street shops which sold very international food. However, in the end I decided on a Sports Bar, where I had a burger with fries and a cider. I think most people were there in order to watch a basketball game which was transmitted. I looked at the screen a few times myself but it didn't really catch my attention. Thus, after finishing my meal, I went back to the hostel.