Being a tourist in San Francisco
I have had occasion to go to San Francisco a few times, basically due to work related travel. The first time, I got a chance to travel on a type of tram (a cable car running on the ground). Lots of fun and very enjoyable. Later, on different occasions, I got the chance to see some more sights in the city (tourist places, not the night life / clubbing culture). San Francisco has an incredible reputation as a very liberal city, with a very mixed population (it is apparently the first city in the US where the white population is now less than 50%). Plus, it has pretty good weather; visitors not from Iceland don’t freeze to death in the winter in San Francisco, unlike many other cities in the US :-).
So, as I mentioned, I got a chance to travel to San Francisco in the month of December. I like weather with a nip in the air, and that was exactly what I got. The first few days were spent in San Jose doing the usual company related drudgery, and then the first weekend came. There were a group of us, and we decided to spend a bit of money (although you can use a combination of the usual bus / BART / Caltrain stuff) and hire a cab that will take us out for a period of around 8 hours through the city and nearby places (imagine hearing from your friends again and again about the scenic Pacific Highway !).
The cab arrived sharp at 9 in the morning, and off we went. Given that we were somewhat of a novice to the whole area, we asked the cab guy to take us around a few of the places (of course, we did mention a few of the places we knew about such as - Golden Gate Bridge, Pacific Highway, Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz). Off we went first to the Golden Gate Bridge (wikipedia) and then the highway beyond that. The Golden Gate Bridge is a mighty structure, worthy of admiring, and wondering how much time and effort went into building such a structure.










