West Coast Adventures, Dude
Aug. 28th, 2006 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_ytI got back from my trip to Califonia on Saturday, and took care of most of the usual post-vacation crap. I did my laundry. I'm still jet-lagged.
I figure I owe my loyal fans (all zero of them) an account of my trip to California. I plan to touch on the highlights or describe things in detail as I feel appropriate and present events in more or less chronological order. In many cases, chronological order also corresponds to a north-to-south geographical order, since we started in San Francisco and went down the coast, visiting various places along the way until we reached L.A. Since it will take a while, I'm going to do it in installments.
First installment: Arrival in California
The trip started off well: in part because of the three-hour time difference, the flight to San Francisco boarded at BWI at a reasonable hour instead of early in the morning. It was Southwest Airlines' first nonstop flight to Oakland from BWI, so the gate was decorated with balloons and a festive atmosphere prevailed. The attendants started off with a sort of little Southwest-related trivia contest in which the passengers could win prizes. One of the questions concerned where Southwest was planning to open up service in the Washington, D.C. area: I correctly answered Dulles, which is the only airport that's actually in D.C., and I won a little book of drink tickets. I gave a couple to my parents and to some friends of theirs who happened to be taking the same flight (which came as a surprise to us - we just bumped into them at the gate). Of course, I used some for myself on the flight, which lasted six hours. My laptop battery didn't last nearly that long: fortunately, I had a nice long book to read, Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Although it's her first novel, it got on the New York Times' bestseller list, and deservedly so, I think.
We reached Oakland in the evening and took a van from the airport to the Chancellor Hotel in downtown San Francisco. I can't really say what the city looked like on approach because, well, I couldn't see much of it. You know how your breath sometimes steams on a very cold day? Well, the same phenomenon takes place on most of the Northwest Coast - and consequently in San Francisco - pretty much all the time and on a massive scale. You know, warm air off the land hits cold air off the sea and poof. The effect is intensified by the close proximity of the mountains. Once you're inside the city the fog is not heavy enough to be dangerous, but anything at a great distance is obscured, especially if it's over the water.
The Chancellor Hotel near Union Square, where we stayed while in the city, is across from the Francis Drake, a more famous (and fancier, and more expensive) hotel where Mom's family stayed when they visited San Francisco some thirty years ago. The Chancellor is interesting and charming in an odd way. All the rooms, bathrooms, common areas, elevators and lobby are on a smaller scale than one is accustomed to in an American hotel. The hotel's website says it was built in 1914 and has changed very little since then.[1] Well, it has certainly had the plumbing and wiring and such redone since it was built, but the basic layout has not changed. It couldn't be, unless they were to gut the building and completely redo the interior. That's not to say it was decrepit: on the contrary, it was clean and in good repair, although Benjamin seemed to be allergic to something in the place.[2]
As for the city, I found it immediately enchanting. As we drove down the streets in the early evening, I saw all kinds of people walking around, and the streets were lined with colorful shops, restaurants and clubs. Union Square was lit up, and someone there was playing a saxophone. We could hear snatches of saxophone music from our hotel room, when we had the windows open to let in the breeze.
Before the trip I thought that my brother Daniel and I could go around San Francisco at night, after Mom and Dad and Benjamin had settled in, to look around for ourselves. We didn't actually get to do that, but I did make a little excursion early the next morning.
[1] It is also described as a "boutique" hotel, whatever that means. I suppose that's a way of billing it as unique, charming, a bit small and at least on the right side of decent, which it is.
[2] However, he was sniffly for pretty much the whole time we spent in northern California, so maybe it was just something in the air.
Upcoming second installment: More About San Francisco
I figure I owe my loyal fans (all zero of them) an account of my trip to California. I plan to touch on the highlights or describe things in detail as I feel appropriate and present events in more or less chronological order. In many cases, chronological order also corresponds to a north-to-south geographical order, since we started in San Francisco and went down the coast, visiting various places along the way until we reached L.A. Since it will take a while, I'm going to do it in installments.
First installment: Arrival in California
The trip started off well: in part because of the three-hour time difference, the flight to San Francisco boarded at BWI at a reasonable hour instead of early in the morning. It was Southwest Airlines' first nonstop flight to Oakland from BWI, so the gate was decorated with balloons and a festive atmosphere prevailed. The attendants started off with a sort of little Southwest-related trivia contest in which the passengers could win prizes. One of the questions concerned where Southwest was planning to open up service in the Washington, D.C. area: I correctly answered Dulles, which is the only airport that's actually in D.C., and I won a little book of drink tickets. I gave a couple to my parents and to some friends of theirs who happened to be taking the same flight (which came as a surprise to us - we just bumped into them at the gate). Of course, I used some for myself on the flight, which lasted six hours. My laptop battery didn't last nearly that long: fortunately, I had a nice long book to read, Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Although it's her first novel, it got on the New York Times' bestseller list, and deservedly so, I think.
We reached Oakland in the evening and took a van from the airport to the Chancellor Hotel in downtown San Francisco. I can't really say what the city looked like on approach because, well, I couldn't see much of it. You know how your breath sometimes steams on a very cold day? Well, the same phenomenon takes place on most of the Northwest Coast - and consequently in San Francisco - pretty much all the time and on a massive scale. You know, warm air off the land hits cold air off the sea and poof. The effect is intensified by the close proximity of the mountains. Once you're inside the city the fog is not heavy enough to be dangerous, but anything at a great distance is obscured, especially if it's over the water.
The Chancellor Hotel near Union Square, where we stayed while in the city, is across from the Francis Drake, a more famous (and fancier, and more expensive) hotel where Mom's family stayed when they visited San Francisco some thirty years ago. The Chancellor is interesting and charming in an odd way. All the rooms, bathrooms, common areas, elevators and lobby are on a smaller scale than one is accustomed to in an American hotel. The hotel's website says it was built in 1914 and has changed very little since then.[1] Well, it has certainly had the plumbing and wiring and such redone since it was built, but the basic layout has not changed. It couldn't be, unless they were to gut the building and completely redo the interior. That's not to say it was decrepit: on the contrary, it was clean and in good repair, although Benjamin seemed to be allergic to something in the place.[2]
As for the city, I found it immediately enchanting. As we drove down the streets in the early evening, I saw all kinds of people walking around, and the streets were lined with colorful shops, restaurants and clubs. Union Square was lit up, and someone there was playing a saxophone. We could hear snatches of saxophone music from our hotel room, when we had the windows open to let in the breeze.
Before the trip I thought that my brother Daniel and I could go around San Francisco at night, after Mom and Dad and Benjamin had settled in, to look around for ourselves. We didn't actually get to do that, but I did make a little excursion early the next morning.
[1] It is also described as a "boutique" hotel, whatever that means. I suppose that's a way of billing it as unique, charming, a bit small and at least on the right side of decent, which it is.
[2] However, he was sniffly for pretty much the whole time we spent in northern California, so maybe it was just something in the air.
Upcoming second installment: More About San Francisco
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 10:44 pm (UTC)A lot of my kids used to fly Southwest and we'd enjoy the trivia contests. One time I won them a deck of cards by having the longest hair of anyone in their waiting area.