Weekend in San Francisco

Antonia and I took this weekend to go on a mini-vacation in San Francisco. We took the train up and stayed at the Adelaide Hostel, where we periodically got to explain to people from the other side of the world that really, we actually only came from about 30 miles away. From there, we spent the rest of the weekend just exploring the city on foot. My feet are complaining a bit, but it was quite fun. Some of the highlights:

Grace Cathedral. We walked the labyrinths and were even lucky enough to have an organist playing when we went inside.

Chinatown. We walked past an open door to a little gym, where west coast swing was playing. Inside were a half dozen little old Chinese couples doing WCS. It was very cute. We danced outside, briefly. Dinner at the Lucky Creation vegetarian asian restaurant, which included a "mixed vegetable" place with a lot of really wacky mushrooms.

The Musee Mecanique which had tons of old carnival games, of the insert-quarter-and-watch-something-happen type. A lot were bizarrely morbid, like the Opium Den one. I liked the player pianos they had, though.

Fort Mason park was a nice little place, and included such interesting things as an unclimbable statue, a wonderfully twisty tree, and a segway parade.

We found a great picnic spot at the Exploratorium.

Swing dancing at The Doghouse. It was kind of a small night there, and I didn't last very long because of all the day's walking, but it was fun anyway.

Sunday morning we went to the early service at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church and got to listen to their awesome gospel choir. We had heard that Rev. Cecil Williams had retired, which was too bad, but luck was on our side: the new pastor was away this week and Cecil Williams was back giving the sermon today. He was great.

More parks. I loved climbing up and up through Buena Vista park. We just stuck our noses in Golden Gate park, to listen to some of the drumming and go on the carousel (I got to ride the ostrich).

Haight Street. Lots of amusing stuff along there, including a shop that almost made me wish I smoked pot just so I could have an excuse to collect all their beautiful pipes.

And for now, a little vegging out time before going to bed early. (I was going to wait and write about everything later when I was more coherent, but I figured I may not get to it if I do that.)