Neither Lisa nor I slept very well last night and we have a bit of trouble getting up and moving as a result. We are eventually out at bed and ready to think about going out by just after 11am.
Our first stop is to get something to eat, we stop at Boudins the sour dough shop and both Baggage and I have soup in a bread bowl, I have clam chowder and Baggage has tomato. Lisa has a tuna sandwich. The food is really good.
We wander down to Pier 39 and have a look around the shops, plus go out to the end and watch the seals. Baggage gets some strawberries and chocolate sauce to dip them in and in true Baggage spirit when I give her $10 as she has no money for San Francisco she spends it all within 10 minutes.
It is quite amazing how the seals are so at home on the floating barges off the end of the pier, I guess before man came along the colony lived on the coast so why shout they move out. Also in the past I am sure they were well fed here, though today it is a crime to either feed or harass the seals as they are wild and protected animals.
Pier 39 has been totally transformed from it’s original commercial fishing use to a pleasure pier, today it is filled with boutique shops and things to do, we buy a couple of little souvenirs and enjoy looking around.
At the entrance to Pier 39 is the San Francisco Bay aquarium, we decide to go in here, Baggage is particularly keen after all the fun she had in the sea life centre in Hawaii. It is a relatively small aquarium, though does have a fairly long moving walkway under two glass tunnels through large aquariums, the first one shows many species of Bay inhabiting fish, the second one small sharks and rays.
After the tunnels there is a touch room where we get to touch the back of a leopard shark and a ray and I also get a rather large sea star on my arm. The latter sticks to the hairs on my arm and is quite painful when the assistant removes it. Baggage is particularly taken with the microscope in this room and enjoys putting all the available specimens under it to see what they look like, she then progresses to magnifying her skin and fingernails.
After the aquarium we wander back up to the hotel for a rest before going out to dinner. On the way we stop to watch a street artist creating unique views of the San Francisco bay and the Golden Gate bridge using a combination of spray paint, his hands and a paint scraper, he is really good and we are so impressed with the finished result we buy one. Something else for us to try and get back to the UK without ruining it.
After this the girls go straight to the hotel I go to a Safeway which is just across from the hotel on the way back to get a few basic supplies, coffee, some cold drink, some fruit and some croissants for breakfast tomorrow. I also pick up a case of San Francisco brewed, Anchor steam beer, after all an entire case from Safeway is the price of one bottle from our mini bar. Our rest at the hotel ends up being pretty extended as we do not go out for dinner until nearly 8pm. For dinner we decide to head to Knuckles again as it is close and the food is pretty good. Tonight we have nachos as a starter, I have a chicken salad, Lisa has pulled pork and Baggage has chicken noodle soup again. To drink I had a glass of Anchor Liberty Ale, a local brew, and very good it was to.
After dinner we walk back down to the front and take a look around the shops before returning to the hotel, primarily as we have eaten pretty late so this is to help our dinner go down.
We settle down at about 10pm, the problem with us all being in one hotel room is that Baggage has to stay up as long as we do, she cannot got to sleep before us as she does not settle, this means she ends up going late whilst we are going early. Lisa has trouble getting to sleep again, tonight it takes her about two hours after we get into bed, I do not have the same problem.
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