29/12/2012, Saturday, Pacific Grove,
CA
L. screamed all night again. She neither
slept nor let us sleep at all. I wish we could find a solution for my
baby’s problem. For breakfast we had the
same problem as last night. The waiting time for decent places was at least 40
minutes. So we went to Archie's American Café, but the result was still
disappointing. L. still does not eat anything.
Then, we watched seals sunbathing on the
beaches of Pacific Grove.
Among them, there was an enormous elephant seal.
Then
we went to 17 Mile famous for its forest, oceanviews, beaches, parks, golf
course and luxury mansions.
Famous golfer Tiger Woods also trains here.
The
beautiful landscape and being the location of choice for rich pensioners make
this place very exclusive.
The nature in this region is quite different from
southern and central California. Instead of intense green and tropical trees, here
they have large trees grown in high altitudes. The sky is cloudier and grey.
After 17 Mile, we went to the famous city
of Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Actor Clint Eastwood was once the governor of this town. The
Hansel and Gretel fairy tale like houses are a little reminiscent of the city
center of Santa Barbara.
The beachfront homes are worth a visit.
However, in
spite of all this beauty, it has been enough to see this city just once. It
doesn’t make me want to come back again. Whereas, I cannot forget Santa Barbara,
especially Santa Ynez...
We made dinner reservations in advance at Red
House Café. Although not the best place for babies, the food was great.
12/30/2012,
Sunday, Haight, San Francisco
We had our breakfast at the French
patisserie called Bechler. It was
nothing special but at least better than other options. Fortunately L. woke up
only once, so the three of us started the day better. We headed to San
Francisco.
The first stop was the hippie town of Santa
Cruz. A pleasant stop for surfers. I guess for those who live in San Francisco,
it is a nice place to visit outside the city. Half Moon Bay was our last stop
before we reached San Francisco. This is quite a small surf town. I cannot say that
there's anything to see. It wasn’t worth our time.
We rented an apartment in the Haight
neighborhood of San Francisco.
A very nice apartment in a Victorian building.
Haight is a bohemian, hippie neighborhood.
It corresponds to Cihangir in
Istanbul. And the main street to Beyoglu. In fact, there are very nice vintage
shops here with old clothes and furniture. There are treasures to be found. If
it were not cold and dark, and L.'s bedtime weren’t approaching , I would have
loved to browse these shops.
We got into a traffic jam worse than
L.A.’s, passed through the world's largest park, Golden Gate Park and
eventually reached Fort Point to get a view of the famous Golden Gate Bridge.
This
bridge is truly elegant. Lucky for us, San Francisco’s normally foggy weather
is now clear and sunny. The view was great, similar to the Bosphorus. The
surfers and sailing boats create a great image.
12/31/2012, Monday, Haight, San Francisco
...
As we were approaching the city, San
Francisco first appeared to be a large, busy and crowded city. In fact it is
not. It is quite a medium sized city. Population is close to 900 thousand. Everything
is close to each other. But the colorful and unique, wedding cake-like Victorian
houses, the architecture, the hills, the ocean and beaches, a large green area
and an exciting social and night life actually make it quite a livable and
pleasant city. This city seemed to me the most pleasant and cosmopolitan city in
all of America.
Laurel Heights is a neighborhood of the
rich where the likes of Cisco's CEO lives, yet the houses are decent and could
be described as modest. The city center is no different than any other American
financial city center. However, the Chinatown here is the largest Chinatown in
the world (outside of China).
The Japanese Quarter is distinctive with its order,
cleanliness and simplicity. The Mission District is also distinctive with its
Hispanic influenced famous wall paintings. The Castro neighborhood is known for
its vibrant nightlife and gay community. In fact, I liked its vibrancy.
Most of the city's shores are equipped with
piers. Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf are the most famous piers. Alcatraz Prison
is reachable through a ferry ride leaving from these piers.
However, tickets to
Alcatraz run out days and sometimes even months in advance.
However, anyone who
manages to go there, says it is worth going to and that it’s a different
experience.
There are other cities around the bay such
as Oakland, reachable through ferries or Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. Of these,
San Francisco (I think even in the entire U.S.) has the highest population of Asians.
We also managed to visit the Stanford
University campus. For only 11 thousand people, it is a very spacious university;
the campus is like a city in itself. Still it wasn’t worth our time –in my
opinion.
02/02/2013, Wednesday, Napa Valley Road, CA
As we were navigating the streets of San
Francisco yesterday, I was surprised by the similarity of this city to Istanbul
neighborhoods such as Sariyer, Tarabya and Bebek with bay windows, colorful,
wooden houses, and the sea side mansions.
Of course, it is a smaller, tidier,
cleaner and less crowded version of Istanbul.
The famous Lombard Street, a winding steep
slope where cars and pedestrians are forced to go down in a winding manner
creates a very pleasant and unique image of San Francisco.
It has also been
worth visiting the Mission district in daytime to better see the vibrant and
colorful wall paintings drawn by Mexicans.
Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 are
flooded by tourists due to nice shops and seafood restaurants. Best of all, it
is possible to watch sea lions sun bathing peacefully in Pier 39.
In the 80s, there was a TV drama series
called Twin Peaks. Its theme score was very mysterious and interesting, but at
that time I did not follow the show because I was still very young. Therefore,
I did not know that it was shot in San Francisco. Twin Peaks is a neighborhood
of San Francisco from where we could get a very clear view of the entire city.
It
was as if we were watching Bosphorus, the sea of Marmara. The similarity is
incredible. Normally, the weather in this city is said to be always foggy but
we have been very lucky. It has been always sunny for us.
...
Meanwhile, L. has started climbing
furniture and dancing. Very sweet. She runs to us, grabs our leg, hugs us
tightly and kisses. She is very loving.
Today, we first visited a suburb called
Sausalito.
The view of San Francisco and Alcatraz from here is great.
It’s a
very cute town.
If you need to live in this bay, Sausalito may be the most
peaceful and decent location.
On our way to Napa Valley, we passed
through the intense red wood and legendary "Petrified" Forests.
Even
on a sunny day, the tall trees create darkness.
In Napa Valley, we went to
Sterling Vineyards.
Of course, it is not the right season to be here now.
Nevertheless, the nature is beautiful. Still, I realized that I prefer the
vineyards and the valley of the Santa Ynez. If one has already visited the towns,
vineyards and surrounding of Santa Ynez, such as Los Olivos and Solvang, they
do not need come to Napa Valley. On the other hand though Napa Valley Cabernet
Sauvignon wines are very popular and considered valuable.
On our way back to San Francisco, we stopped
by Sonoma, another vineyard town, which has the largest town square in the
United States.
I would call this square a park. Sonoma is a very pretty town.
01/03/2013, Thursday, San Francisco, CA
We spent our last day in this small city,
driving around and visiting Alamo Square famous with its Victorian row houses.
We passed through the Japanese Tea Garden and the Chinese Pavillion in the
Golden Gate Park, where there are also interesting statues and buildings like
the Museum of Science. It was a pity that we did not manage to find tickets to
visit Alcatraz. We ended up having an extra free day in San Francisco.
In fact, in this California trip, we should
have spared extra time to visit San Diego, Santa Barbara and Solvang. So we
could have had one less day in San Francisco (because we didn’t manage to go to
Alcatraz). But in any case, Santa
Barbara required an entire day.
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