The Awesome San Francisco Weekend!

The extended weekend was over before someone could finish the word combination “San Francisco” – obviously it wasn’t like that but I felt like that.

I grabbed some coffee for my friends at McDonald and waited for their arrival at my home in Camarillo. They have been dropping some one at the airport.
The drive up the 101 started just after 10 PM and ended at about 4:30 AM. We had less breaks on the way and the traffic was easy going.

We moved in our pretty cheap deal hotel which we booked on hotwire for a pretty awesome price and slept until 11 AM, had breakfast at Starbucks and started the sightseeing in San Francisco. The Palace of Fine Arts was a very good place to walk around and to enjoy nice architecture.
Next huge sight was the Stanford University in Palo Alto. This amazing campus had just everything and was obviously technically up-to-date. There was the Hoover Tower with good views across the whole campus, a huge library and massive buildings for each faculty. If someone can gift me some money so that I can study there, just call me.
After some In-N-Out burger we headed to the google headquarters. I heard already good things about it before I went there but I was completely impressed actually standing on google property. The first things to see were the bikes in google colors. As they have not been locked we had fun using them to explore google grounds. We found a huge park area kind of thing with a volleyball ground, seating arrangement, art place and an outside whirlpool/pool attached. Last one was locked behind bars otherwise we would have taken the chance for a swim. Lets apply at google in the future!
Second headquarters for me in the area have been Apples. I was kind of disappointed because the huge silver shining apple was missing at the front entrance of the building. Anyways we took some nice pictures there and headed towards facebook headquarters. But there we were even more disappointed: only a small lettering says that this is THE facebook building, not a huge thumbs up or facebook sign on top of the building. This gets a massive dislike in form of not even taking a single picture.
It was already kinda late when we reached the hotel to prepare for the big night out. However we didn’t manage more than one drink in a bar east to the hotel – everyone was tired from the night before.
We got up early enough to enjoy the included breakfast: waffles and cereals. A stroll along Pier 39 in perfect sunshine made a perfect start to the day. My friends boarded the boat to Alcatraz when I decided to climb the Coit Tower for a good view of the city of San Francisco. I managed to see the narrow winding Lombard street and to ride the old cable car before my fellowers came back from Alcatraz. Reunioned we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Sausalitos district for late lunch. As that place is famous for its clam chowder, I couldn’t resist to have one after a greek pizza. The district and coastal line in this district was inviting for a walk.
Back to down town north ways as we planned to avoid traffic jams south ways across the Golden Gate bridge. However the views along the huge red bridge from below are pretty awesome. The Oakland Bridge on the way back was built using similiar techniques.
Later we headed out again to find a nice club to stay. The Parlour was nice and offered some good music but the crowd has not been there. Another Club in Down Town looked also pretty empty which is why we enjoyed driving up and down in Downtown with the car before heading back to our hotel. A hundred feet westwards of the hotel we finally found a nice bar with Karaoke feature and enjoyed another hour there before finally going to bed.
The whole Monday was meant for the road trip back to Los Angeles. Apart from beautiful landscape we have been visiting a lot of nice places: Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Santa Cruz Boardwalk, 17-Mile-Drive and Big Sur.
In Santa Cruz we have been riding the wooden roller coaster and enjoyed the fun atmosphere in the theme park at the board walk. On the 17-Mile-Drive we had a salad picknick with some handicap: it was windy and cold at the picnic table and one could not miss the smell of the seals living not far away on a rocky island. We didn’t win the fight against the sunset on the Big Sur. It was nice to see the landscape at the 90 mile long stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in half shadow and half lit but I would have prefered to have one more day at this road with the stunning views  to not have to rush from one vista point to the next.
I fell into bed right after reaching home at quarter to 11 PM.
It was definitely a very nice weekend and is definitely not to miss for anyone who is coming to California!

Following, all pictures i have taken on this beautiful weekend:

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Giant Dipp...
I am in Gi...
Santa Cruz...
Santa Cruz...
Pancakes -...
Palace of ...
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At Stanfor...

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