San Francisco

On Saturday night we saw Chinatown and the North Beach, which is the Italian neighborhood. The Chinatown was pretty big and aside from all the cheap souvenirs for sale, it seemed authentic. In North Beach’s, where we had some tiramisu and cheesecake at an Italian café, the sidewalks were packed with people bundled up in coats and scarves and the restaurants and bars were all busy. It was pretty chilly that night, but I guess that is typical weather at night in San Francisco, even in August, because the city is surrounded by water on three sides and often has a brisk and cool wind coming from the Pacific.

Sukey and Pat both had Sunday off so we all drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and hiked a part way across the bridge. It was extremely windy and cool up there. We saw a few more neighborhoods, including the Haight and Ashbury area where rock music matured in the 1960s. That night we had dinner with Patrick Delahunt and Suzy Delahunt and her husband and daughter at a lakeside restaurant in Oakland. On Monday, Charlie and I saw more of San Francisco, from sea lions in the wharf to chocolate in the big Ghirardelli store. On Tuesday we drove through parts of Silicon Valley and saw the Stanford campus and the Google headquarters (from the parking lot).