The walk of death to a golden bridge

This weekend I did a lot of things for my standard. On Friday, it was decided that I could get half the day off, which gave me the chance to go visit places.

I took a bus from downtown to the Presidio park planning to walk around the park and explore it. Halfway through the trip, I decided I wanted to go see the Golden Gate Bridge since that's one thing I haven't done yet.

So the bus left me by the Palace of Fine Arts, from where you can see the bridge from a distance. There's this place called Crissy Fields that makes its way towards the bridge, so I decided it would be fun to actually walk to the bridge. Didn't seem so far away.

Crissy Fields, trip duration: 3.7 miles

After walking on the beach for a while, shoes full of sand, I decided I wanted to take an easier route. Basically it meant walking a couple yards to walk on pavement. So much easier.

Trip duration: 4 miles

The smartest thing anyone can do, is do this trip wearing the new shoes you bought the day before. My toes are twice the size they normally are and filled with soles. Hurts like a bitch. I should've thought that through before I left. But being this far, I didn't want to turn around so I decided to keep walking.

This was probably the savior of my day. Trip duration: 5 miles
Only 0.4 miles to go!

The final test was walking up 0.4 miles of stairs. It doesn't sound that bad, but I'd like to remind you that at this point my feet were numb and I could just feel the blood oozing from my heels. Makes me shudder just remembering it. 

Trip duration: 5.2 miles

And I finally at the base of the bridge!

No throwing missiles? There goes my weekend plans...

The happy ending

Saturday was another day for me to spend snooping around the city on my own. Letting my inner child get the best of me, I decided to go visit the San Francisco Zoo - a 30 minute train ride from where I live. I've never been on that side of San Francisco, where the fog appears every day. Lucky for me, there wasn't that much at the actual zoo, but there was a lot at the beach surrounding it.

Giraffes, antelope and zebras were kept in the same area, interacting with each other

So this is a nice shot of the "before" moment when the bird decided to come straight at us.. Some scary stuff right there

The lemurs were taking the day off

I loved how the seagull was standing there in one leg like no one would notice it didn't belong with the flamingos

So I watched this bobcat dig out a mouse from under the rock for a full 45 min

Made new friends :3

The beach by the zoo

I've realized that some things are really fun to do alone. Going to the zoo meant not being harassed to keep moving forwards. I could spend just as much time as I wanted watching the animals do their business (like the bobcat) and skip the ones that weren't really interesting. Shopping is another wonderful thing to do alone. But like everything, some are just meant to be shared with a friend. It's probably the one thing I miss about home. Lucky for me, my parents are coming to visit in about 3 weeks, so I have something to look forward to :3

But for now, it's time for the new Once Upon A Time episode!

The pros and cons of a big city

So since my macbook has completely lost the ability to transfer photos from my SD card, I decided to post this ahead of schedule. This is something I've been typing up along the way and I always thought I need to add more to the list. Yes, they are pros and cons, but I'd rather call them the things that I like and things that piss me off about this city. So without further ado, voila!



Pros

Talking to strangers

Of course I was going to list this first. This is the number one thing I keep telling everyone. Americans are so nice! It blows my mind again and again. Not once have I gone to a playground and not had a nice long chat with a women about anything to do with kids, my life, their life or even just the weather. Also, since I carry a child and a stroller onto the bus very often, I don't even realize that someone has already lent a hand in helping the baby up the steps while another has grabbed the strollers to get them up for me. Leaving me with nothing to do except throw around a bunch of thank you's in their direction. I even strike a conversation with the person who happens to sit next to me on the train. It's just a normal thing to do here. I am going to be the town drunk when I get back to Finland, talking to everyone like an old friend.

Halloween

The rumors I've heard about this holiday have been all true. Halloween here is bigger than Christmas in Finland. Weeks before the actual day, I already began seeing the decorations around houses and yards. Stores are also selling everything and anything related to Halloween: candies, costumes, Halloween-themed water and I even see pharmacy pills with halloween shaped pills. I can't wait for the actual day of trick-or-treating! Just one more week to go!

These were already put up weeks ago!

Busses and bus stops

Every stop is informed beforehand, so when you are closing in on a bus stop, the intercom tells you what the name of that bus stop is by telling you the name of the street. This has made my traveling so much easier, since I don't have to keep checking my phone to see where we are. Even when the intercom doesn't work, usually the bus driver will shout out the names of the streets -- some even start telling you what other busses will go through that stop.

Example:

Seventh and Market street! Transfer to bus 22 to [insert city here] and bus 19 to [insert destination here].

This is so useful and I thank the bus drivers every time for making my life that much easier.

Street names

This is not just here in San Francisco, but the street names are so convenient. 1st street, 16th street, 27th street. To make life even easier, most street names can also be found written on the sidewalk. So you just have to look down to see where you are.

Cigarette policy

Here, smoking is frowned upon. I mean, of course some people look at you with a very angry look if they are against smoking. But here, I' hardly ever see anyone smoking.. There are exceptions, but still. I love the fact that you don't have to walk in cigarette smoke whenever you go outside. It's refreshing.

Movie theaters

Where do I even begin? These people make the Finnish theaters look like old school televisions. First of all, the seats. Comfortable enough to make me fall asleep. I'm telling you, they are so soft that you actually sink into it! Second, the "no seat number on ticket" policy is great! You just buy a ticket and sit wherever you like. It's much easier to decide where you want to sit after you've seen how big the screen is or how the seats are arranged. Here, the theaters are at least two times bigger than the biggest theater I've seen in Helsinki...

I also had my very first IMAX experience a few weeks back with the movie Gravity. It sounds lame and stupid, but I actually felt like I was a part of it. At least with the "things floating at you" scenes. They made them look so real. 3D in Finland is so so lame. Heh.

Sunshine and fog

Here, it's mostly sunny the entire day. If I'm lucky, it's been around 77 degrees outside in the sun (I think that's 25 degrees Celsius?).. But when the sun shines the entire day, the ocean evaporates which causes the next day to have a fog in certain parts of the city. The Golden Gate Bridge is something that you just can't see on some days because the fog is so dense. Apparently some parts of the city never get sunshine because of it.. But on the other hand, the fog is probably the prettiest thing I've seen happening to the sky. It hardly ever moves, so it looks like a wall of white blocking your view of the other side. If I had a better camera, I could probably capture those moments :/

The beach on a foggy day

The beach where the fog can't reach

Trains

I can't remember how many times I stepped onto the wrong train when I first started moving around the city on my own. Inbound and outbound trains just confused me.. I had no idea what they meant (inbound = towards downtown, outbound = out of town). Now that I do know what they mean, I still manage to step onto the wrong trains. But the good thing is, before the trains leave from their stations, the woman on the intercom announces what train this is, what station you are at now, where it's headed and if it is inbound/outbound. We need to have this in Finland. It's saved me from many annoying "get out of the train to take the next one going the other way" -moments. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Doppelgängers everywhere!

Maybe it's just because I'm not used to seeing new faces everyday, but I swear I have seen doppelgängers of maybe 30-40 people I know. It's crazy! Sometimes they actually look so much like their twin in Finland that I feel like saying hello or grabbing them or something.. But it's a fun game to play when waiting for a bus/train -- see how many people you can spot that look familiar to you.

Cons

Disclaimer: most of these things are just things that pissed me off the first few weeks I was here, until I got used to them. So don't take anything personally, please :)

Marijuana

Here, it's legal if you have a doctor's prescription for it (so for medical uses only). But I think many have gotten around that speed bump because you can smell marijuana wherever you go. I mentioned before that people here don't really smoke cigarettes --which is because the majority smokes weed. I've seen it so much that it's become a natural scent when strolling around town. I really dislike the smell. ugh.

Couples

Again, this might just be me missing home, but there are so many annoying couples around! The worst are the 13-year-old who sit on the park benches and can't keep their hands off each other. In Helsinki, you don't see that very often. Not as much as here anyway. We get it, you are dating, please take your hand off her ass. Waiting in line at the store? Snogging session. Movie theaters? Do I even need to mention this. Sitting on the train? It's a good thing you guys have your clothes on because otherwise this would be rated R.

Sneakers and jeans

A lot of people here go for a run. You see almost as many people going to work in the morning as people out on a run. I think this is what has kept the sneakers-and-jeans fashion going in this city. And not just regular sneakers. I'm talking about running shoes! You know, the bright green Nike shoes that just shine onto your face when they pass you by. It makes my inner fashionista go crazy. They do not fit well together, why can't people see that?

Homeless

So many homeless people. They're everywhere. It makes walking home very difficult because you have to zigzag your way across the streets to avoid all the sleeping bums on the sidewalks. The good side of this is that I've met a couple who just wish me a good day in the morning. Every morning on that same spot. It's kind of nice. So it would be listed in the "pros" section if it weren't for the annoying ones that just want your money of shout things at you when you pass them by.

Starbucks

Yes, this is listed in the cons. They put way to much sugar in everything, never get your name right and they dare call themselves baristas! Your coffee comes from a machine, just like in McCafé. You are not the same as people who work in "real" coffee shops. Also the fact that there is literally one in every street corner, sometimes I've even seen two in an intersection! In the morning, don't even think about going anywhere without seeing 80% of the people with Starbucks coffee mugs in their hands.

Inbound vs. outbound routes

Who came up with the idea that the same bus going in two different directions has to have a completely different route? Why, why, why is this a thing here? Logically, if you take bus number 50 somewhere, you should be able to take the same bus back to where you came from, right? WRONG! Thankfully most of the time the routes differ by just a couple of blocks, but in worst case scenarios they have absolutely nothing to do with each other. This was a very hard thing to understand at first...

Change

I've complained about this a lot.. But the change is ridiculous. I'm completely used to the fact that there is nothing that exists under 5c. So of course every time I go to the store I forget the fact that I will be getting a bunch of one cent coins because I can't seem to be able to pay in exact change. The same goes for the one dollar bills. I have so many in my wallet I don't even want to count them. True, they take up less space than the one euro coins do, but I guess I'm just not used to this stuff.

American diet

It took me an entire month to realize that Subway here is not the same as it is back home. They mentioned it in the news a few weeks ago, Subway is just as unhealthy as McDonald's or Burger King. Well, if you use the right ingredients that is. But I was told that almost everything is enhanced with hormones to make fruit bigger, cows grow bigger and stuff like that. Most of that stuff isn't even legal in Finland due to the health risks. So basically, eating anything here, even home cooked foods, will make you gain weight because of the way they are produced.  Do I even need to mention the fact that they put sugar in anything and everything, especially anything that has to just be stuffed into the microwave before you eat it. It really makes keeping your weight the same that much more of a bother.


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And that's all folks! Ciao!

Golden Gate Park: Botanical Garden

It costs seven dollars for a non-resident of San Francisco to step into a garden that can fill any nature lovers' needs. Want to have a taste of Africa's vegetation? No problem! They also cover California and Australia.

Africa

Redwood Grove

To be perfectly honest, seven dollars for that? Meh, I'll spend it on a fruit mix from Starbucks... But as a whole, it was a pleasant little sunday stroll to get away from everything. There were probably 50 squirrels in that park and I think I managed to bump into them all. Every corner you turn there's a grey squirrel looking back at you (exotic right, grey squirrels?).

Last week was pretty much of the normal day-to-day stuff, so nothing really worth blogging about. This weekend I'm thinking Alcatraz, so that's going to be fun... I hope at least!

6 weeks down, 6 weeks to go. Time flies so fast it's like I'm on a jet plane. Although it really does slow down a bit once you've localized yourself with all the attractions and shops and so on and so forth. So, I've put my life on autopilot. Wake up, go to the park, pick up the six-year-old, gym, sleep, repeat. Of course there's so much going on during the day, but that seems to be the basic outline of my life. Weekends? Well, no friends = all the time in the world = gym. I better be a body builder by the time I get back. Yeesh. I'm not complaining though, it's nice to know what I'm doing for a change! :)

Anyhoo, just letting myself know I'm still up for this writing thing.. Maybe if I actually got my ass up on weekends to do something fun instead of burning off unneeded calories, my life would sound much more interesting on paper. But for now, I think I'll keep up my routines. My autopilot life is easier anyway.

Here's a bunch of pictures I never had time to post. Hooray!

My old room

My new room. I've got a mini-fridge, microwave, small sink and a bunk bed with a sofa underneath. I live in a 3mx4m cube...

Golden Gate Park: Japanese Tea Garden

The Golden Gate Park is something that will take a while to explore, since it's approximately the same size at Central Park in New York. Correct me if I'm wrong... I've already been to the Academy Of Sciences a couple times, so today to celebrate my free day I decided to go somewhere else:

The Japanese Tea Garden. It's a little bit of japanese culture in the middle of a big city. For the first time, I could forget all the loud cars, busy streets and skyscrapers and just enjoy nature. Having never been to Japan, today gave me a small idea of how beautiful it can be. To top it off, the weather today was sunny and there was no wind at all! (I'm laughing at you Finns with your snow and cold weather)

The entrance

Zen garden

Pagoda

Drum bridge

This place has now reached my Top 5 in things I should do in San Francisco. Even though it was quite crowded since it was Columbus Day --the place was full on asian tourists snapping pictures of a tree for five minutes before moving on-- I still managed to enjoy myself. I even sat down for some green tea :3 This place is totally worth the 7 dollars it costs to get inside it.

There were squirrels running around and hopping on trees, lots and lots of coy fish trying to escape the heat of the sun and you could hear birds chirping in the distance. Makes you forget everything and just take everything in. I am definitely going to japan just so I can see if this was all a terrible lie or will I really find this kind of paradise again. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Coy fish, yay!

For some reason my Macbook won't read the SD card from my camera, so all these pictures were taking with an iPhone… The place was magical, but the phone pictures makes it look boring. Ugh.

On saturday, I finally moved in to my own place. My room in probably 3mx4m in size but that's alright. It's actually quite cozy! I've got my own mini fridge/freezer, microwave and a TV I can watch from my bed. The only problem is that the bathrooms are on the corridor, as is the kitchen. So basically every time I need to use the bathroom or cook something, I need to remember to take my key with me so I don't lock myself out. This is exceptionally difficult during the morning hours, because my brain doesn't have the ability to function correctly to remember to take it with me... Otherwise the neighbors are really quiet... I mean like "not even here" -quiet. I've seen one person leave this place, that's all. The manager told me that there are about 20 rooms, so a lot of people.... but to me it feels like it's just me. Yay for privacy!

The man who raised animation to an art

Last week, I visited the Walt Disney Family Museum, dedicated to the life of Walt Disney before, during and after Disney was found. I really didn't understand the "family" part in that name, since it was mostly just pictures and text and a couple of videos, so I don't see younger kids enjoying 70% of the museum. It was a huge exhibit though, it took me almost 4 hours to go through it all.

The lobby has a collection of all the awards Walt Disney won (284) including a key to the city of San Francisco. The most noted one was probably the honorary award for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was basically an Oscar with seven miniature ones beside it. Haha, I just understood the reference there...

When you walk into the actual exhibition part, there's a room full of pictures of the Disney family, including Walt when he was about 9 months old. I just couldn't help laugh at the fact that in the middle of all those serious-looking men and women, the baby was the one who would change all their lives for good. After those there was a long narration of Walt and his brother  Roy when they lived on a family farm and when they moved to Chicago. I never actually knew that he started off with his brother…

TIL: Walt Disney came very close to death during WWI.

"[The post office] had a big bombing during the First World War. I was right in the lobby when --vroom! -- this thing went off and here comes dust shooting out and everything. And that was the way I came out every night. I missed the darn thing be about three minutes. They locked the doors.... There were several people killed." --WALT DISNEY

Walt at nine months old, he looks so cute :3

Anyhoo, all the information there could have probably been read from a wikipedia article, but there were so many cool artifacts on display that I say it was worth it. They had the original drawings of Disney's first characters from Alice's Wonderland and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Also, there's a rough idea of how many slides it took to create 60 seconds of Steamboat Willie. If I recall correctly, there were a total of almost four hundred drawings, each one just slightly different from the previous one. All done by hand. Must say that it blew my mind up and out the window.

384 drawings, 60 seconds of Steamboat Willie

Did you know that before dubbing was possible, they had to record all sounds at the same time and had to time the animation perfectly? This was how the sound to Steamboat Willie was created. They had a bouncing ball on the screen and everyone used it as a metronome to stay in sync. One person messes up, the entire crew starts over. Talk about no pressure... According to the kind museum lady, the first recording was a complete disaster.

After you got past all the life stories, the exhibit welcomes you to the Disney cartoon part with a really cool cinema-like room where they have small clips from behind the scenes footage. In the center there was the actual final-draft and next to them were the rough drafts and voice actors' comments etc. That was probably the only room I could see a child liking with all the flashing colors and sounds.

Photo by Frank Anzalone.

Early drafts on Peter Pan, with the finished product playing in the center

After passing through all of Walt's greatest and not-so-great accomplishments, there are a few more rooms dedicated to life after Walt's death in 1966. One of them was with a model of Walt Disney's Disneyland, the way he pictured it to be. The thing was enormous.

Lastly, you are shown clips of old news broadcasts following Walt's death. You are also given the chance to listen to commentaries made by his friends of his passing. His death came to a surprise for some of them, so they were quite interesting to listen to.

And that, my dear children, is where the exhibition ends. The last room is multiple screens showing Walt's life and comments from friends, family, co-workers etc. Then you get to the good part - gift shop! I am still mad at myself for not taking my time with that place, it seemed to have a lot of cool (and expensive) stuff that I reeeally want to have just for the sake of having it. Maybe I'll have another sneak peek at it sometime...

Pictures by Disney after Walt's death, Dec 15th 1966

Who can name this Disney movie? ;)

Drawings for Pinocchio

Animator's desk. Above are rough-draft pictures from Pinocchio

Donald Duck

The Duck was a good foil for Mickey. See, Mickey couldn't get mad, or he couldn't carry a gun, things like that, so we had to find a foil for Mickey. So it turned out to be the duck --WALT PFEIFFER, story artist

We worked [the duck] into a picture. And being a duck, we said, Well, he likes water, we'll make him a sailor. Put a middy blouse on him and a hat-- WALT DISNEY


Long post today, but as the Disney fan that I am, this was a necessary post. There would have been a hundred more pictures to see, but since flash wasn't allowed, most of them turned out blurry and unrecognizable... 

When it's a sunny day outside...

Today we took a small road trip to a chestnut farm where we went to pick chestnuts. It really reminded me of the times when we used to drive from Hungary to Finland for the summer. Singing and pit stops (just one but anyhoo) and the general idea of just hopping in a car and driving off gave me a cool nostalgia feeling. What made the day even better was the fact that the sun was shining and apparently it was even +33 degrees at one point.

In Budapest, the chestnuts used to be in these kind of hard shells with thorns on them. These were from a totally different world. The spikes pierced through my shoes and you had to be really careful where you stepped. Regardless of my stupid choice in shoes, the place was really cool. It even had apple trees with delicious apples.

I love how California can go from a New York -type of city filled with skyscrapers and lots of civilization to something out of a safari documentary. The landscapes we passed were basically dried up grass with trees. Even the animals knew it was way too hot and placed themselves under the shade. Considering that this trip was around 50 miles, it's not even that far away and yet it was like a completely different continent.

Afterwards we headed out to a park for a picnic with bread/ham, cookies and organic apple cider. Usually I hate that stuff, because in Finland it's way too dry and the ones from a bar tap are 50% water. It was good though, which was surprising. It tasted like apples! Which apparently is a really hard thing for Upcider to do..                                  America 1 - Finland 0

It's been a long day and the drive home was exceptionally quite since everyone was too tired to talk. We just listened to country music and I watched the scenery. We even crossed the Golden Gate bridge on the way back, which was a much less exciting experience than I imagined. Turns out it's just like any other bridge, passing by car anyway… But hey, at least I get to say I've crossed it ;) Maybe next time I'll walk and actually have time to take pictures, it looks like one of those attractions that you need to take time to explore.

Tomorrow's another free day and I'm spending it at the movies with another au pair. Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman in the same movie? Count me in.