TravelStream™ news feed for member fifoota on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/fifoota en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 31 May 2009 04:51:12 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243767000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243767000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243767000/tpod.html Sun, 31 May 2009 04:51:12 -0400 Going coastal!

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San Francisco airport, California, United States

And now it is Friday and the beginning of the long trip home.  A daunting travel itinerary consisting of a 4-5hr drive back to San Francisco, a trip on the BART train to the airport (meeting Tera on route), a flight from SFO to LAX on American Airlines, collecting baggage in LA because they couldn't check it for me the whole way through (damn it!) and then the 12+ hr flight across the Pacific with V Australia home to Brisbane.I cherished my shower in the morning, knowing I would not get another one for about 40hrs (sorry to those who have to be near me before I have one back at home!).  We left on schedule from Yosemite (well done to us!) and traveled for the last time through the roads of Yosemite Valley, through those huge pines, the Dogwood plants, the lupin and so forth.I never did find Yosemite Sam in Yosemite, and I had been disappointed to find out that I would not find Smoky Bear there either as he is in the National Forest and not the National Parks!  Silly me!  But Sally had it covered and stopped in at the National Forest so I could make Smoky's acquaintance.We resisted the lure of MacDonald's and Burger King on the way home, and managed to take all the right turns on the way home.  Finally, approaching San Francisco, we saw that it had turned it on for my last day here - that's right, the fog was rolling over the hills and coming to welcome me back.  It is such an effective air conditioner that it dropped the temperature by 20°F immediately and over the next few minutes by a further 5°F.  I got to take an amazing classic view over San Francisco Bay in which you can see... well, nothing!So I have said my final good-byes to Sally & Monica, negotiated the BART and met Tera and made it to the airport.  Having wished Tera a final good bye, I now have nothing to entertain me apart from tacky souvenir shops, fast food and dodgy internet connections (I am writing this in word currently hoping to add it to the blog later when and if the connection actually works).  Well, you have to love long distance travel!  I could, of course, finally read the novel I bought in Brisbane airport that I haven't had a chance to read yet...Before long I'll be home and I must say, although I have had a great time over here, I am definitely looking forward to being home again.  I don't have any plans for my next trip yet, but I'm sure there will be one in the not too distant future... as soon as I forget the plane trip involved in getting there and home again!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243766700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243766700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243766700/tpod.html Sun, 31 May 2009 04:48:13 -0400 Going coastal!

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Yosemite National Park, California, United States

We decided to head to Glacier Point in the morning and we were glad we did.  The sun was shining, the view was spectacular, and the place wasn't crowded.  However, as the morning wore on, first came the crowds, then came the rain, and finally came the hail.Thankfully we were in the car by the time it poured down rain and before the hail came, and we decided to have a bite to eat.  When the rain became even heavier, we felt it might be a while before it cleared, so we decided to move on and find somewhere in the Valley with better weather.  That is the amazing thing here in Northern California, both in the San Francisco area and at Yosemite.  It seems if you don't like the weather where you are, you can just hop in the car and drive for 30-60mins and find better weather.We headed to Bridalveil Falls - it was not raining here, although you do still get wet from the spray from the falls.  I'm sure everyone has his or her own favourite falls in Yosemite.  For me, the Yosemite falls, consisting of both upper and lower falls, were still my favourite.We headed back to the Lodge after our viewing of the falls, and here the weather was so hot and sunny that Sally went for a swim while I basked in the sun by the side of the pool.  It was even so hot, that after a while I had to move into the shade.Later still, the weather gods decided it should be cold and rainy again, so instead of walking to dinner at the Ahwahnee, we drove over.  It meant we had more time to look around and sit in the bar before dinner, but we had to avoid the alcoholic beverages over dinner!  Dinner was very good and we even managed to restrain ourselves and not overindulge (we had, after all, done that just the night before and suffered the consequences!).Another great day in Yosemite National Park!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243601100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243601100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243601100/tpod.html Fri, 29 May 2009 12:16:58 -0400 Going coastal!

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Yosemite National Park, California, United States

On Tuesday 26th, it was time to pack all my gear and load it into Sally's car for the last big hurrah of my holiday, our trip to Yosemite National Park.  Sally had organised to go to a lecture on route run by the Centre for Land Based Learning and given by Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Penisse (the restaurant we went to earlier in our trip) and author of "The Edible Schoolyard".  The lecture was out on an organic farm, and I must admit that my favourite part was the delectable food spread and wine offered beforehand.As the above lecture was a late afternoon gig, we only drove as far as Oakdale to spend the night.  Oakdale is out in the 'boonies' (or hicksville), so we got to enjoy our breakfast the following morning listening to good old country music.  My breakfast of bacon and eggs 'over middle' (I would have had trouble ordering how I would like my eggs cooked without the assistance of Sally) with sourdough toast was really very good.  We drove on, only stopping at a cafe at Groveland where Sally has been stopping for years to have pancakes.The Central Valley of California through which we had been driving is incredibly good farmlands and provides much of the fresh food eaten throughout America.  The drive up out of the Central Valley, over the Priest Grade, to reach the Sierra Nevada was spectacular.Having driven through National Forest (looking out at all times for Smoky Bear), we finally reached Yosemite National Park.  Driving through this park is an absolute delight, with tall pines majestically lining the roads.  I love the smell of pines, enjoying it just as much as I had enjoyed the scent of our aussie native eucalyptus earlier in the trip down in Big Sur.We decided to drive up to Tuolumne Meadows first up, and were rewarded with a wonderful drive through pines with snow still scattered on the ground.  We had a fantastic view from Olmsted lookout, an area rich in wildlife, including various birds, squirrels (I have one running around outside my window now), chipmunks and marmots.  This was my first view of Half Dome, one of the iconic features of Yosemite.It took a while to reach the meadows, but our persistence was rewarded with amazingly beautiful scenery and even some deer grazing.  Sally said she had never seen the meadows look better than they did for us.  She has been to Yosemite many times during her life, first coming here as a young child, and was quite delighted to feel the park was such a familiar place, and to be able to appreciate the distinct seasonal differences in the park.We finally decided it was time to descend into Yosemite Valley, and on arriving to go and visit another of Yosemites iconic features - Yosemite falls.  We were sprayed in a 'fine' mist as we viewed them.  They are an incredible view, and being Spring are in their full splendour right now.  We decided to stop for a little snack and then, having been overcome by the temperature (yep, I was pretty cold), we decided to retreat to our Lodge.Unfortunately you can't make reservations at the Lodge for dinner, so after presenting and getting our buzzer which would recall us eventually for our place, we went and did some kitchy shopping (just as bad as the offers back home) before hitting the bar.  I got carded at the bar - I mean really!  The girl looked very sheepish after looking at my ID.  Our buzzer did finally go off, and I can happily say the dinner was worth waiting for.  Sadly, we over indulged, mainly because the sourdough bread was just amazing!  A great end to a great day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243546200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243546200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243546200/tpod.html Thu, 28 May 2009 20:41:04 -0400 Going coastal!

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Inverness, California, United States

After a blissful sleep-in until 9am, Tera and I got ourselves organised and out to the Farmers Markets at Ferry Plaza to get some provisions for Inverness.  They are changing over from plastic bags at the markets, so there was a man dressed in the number of plastic bags an average person uses in a year, in order to highlight the need for change.  We got some really nice cherries and strawberries and some cheese.Inverness is on Point Reyes, a triangular portion of land North of San Francisco which is apparently migrating even further North.  The weather was variable, as it appears to be in Northern California with lots of fog, but moments of lovely sunshine in between.  We went walking on Tomales point and loved the wildflowers, and also went to Limantour beach.But probably the best things about being at Inverness was the company of good friends and also a little visitor from next door - Bob, the cat.  Sally and Monica have a lovely garden at Inverness and it was lovely to sit outdoors and enjoy it in the afternoon and early evening.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243537200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243537200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243537200/tpod.html Thu, 28 May 2009 18:27:28 -0400 Going coastal!

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San Francisco, California, United States

After a week of being a tourist, it was time to attend my High Risk Emergency Medicine Conference.  For reasons unknown to me, they decided on a starting time of 6.30am!!  Luckily that was just for Registration and breakfast - I had a whole hour to get my brain in gear before the educational program began at 7.30!  However, unfortunately for me, just making a cup of tea or coffee to fortify myself was to be a minor challenge.  It brought to mind the advertisement at home "I just want milk that tastes like real milk".  My 2 options were: cream or 2% milk.  Now I assumed 2% milk was something like skim milk but was worried it might actually me more watery, while the cream given I was in the States could quite possibly be cream and not just full-cream milk.  I risked the cream, and it definitely did seem thicker than milk but not really cream consistency.  I had a cup of tea first and then took a coffee in for the morning's session.The presentations were all quite good, especially the Cardiology topics covered on the second day - highly relevant given where I work where we see a large percentage of Cardiology presentations.  The lunch times were long (1.5hrs) and we were free to go off and find our own lunches.  Given I am used to having 5 minutes, if I'm lucky, to have lunch at work, I naturally did not take up all my allocated time with lunch.  I thus went and visited Union Square and got in some retail therapy at Victoria's Secret.On Thursday evening, I finally managed to navigate the public transport to find my way to meet up with my friends to visit Alcatraz on the night tour.  I can recommend this over going during the day simply because the number of people is limited on the night tours whereas there are often huge numbers on the island during the day.Come the weekend, I left my conference duties behind me and Tera and I made plans to join Sally and Monica up at their house in Inverness.  I was incredibly glad to have the early mornings behind me.  They were truly taxing!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243308600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243308600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243308600/tpod.html Tue, 26 May 2009 17:55:08 -0400 Going coastal!

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San Francisco, California, United States

Wednesday 20th May was a wonderful day!  It started out with a fabulous breakfast at Sally and Monica's - a favourite American breakfast: bagels with smear!  Yummy!!  There was a huge variety of bagels to choose from: poppy seed, sourdough and asiago cheese.  "What is smear?" I hear some of you asking - whipped cream cheese: we had this both with and without added herbs and, as if that wasn't enough, there was also the option of having some triple cream brie.  It was hard not to get carried away!After such a fortifying breakfast, Sally, Margaret, Ellen and I happily set forth with our plan for the day: to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, have a picnic and then hike back across the bridge.  Each way is about 1.7 miles (or 2.7km) and, for those of you really interested in trivia, I can tell you that the colour of the bridge is orange vermillion (also known as international orange) and a team of 38 painters are employed to touch up the paint continuously.We started our walk on the South side (San Francisco side) of the bridge, where there are some lovely gardens to enjoy.  The day was lovely and sunny, although there was quite a breeze, particularly on the bridge.  I thoroughly recommend the walk across the bridge as something to do when you visit San Francisco.  If you do, look out for the "No U Turn" signs (isn't it crazy that such a sign would be necessary on the bridge!) and the Crisis Counseling booths.You get a great view as you walk across the Bay over San Francisco, the Bay Bridge (part suspension bridge), the island of Alcatraz and Angel island (which was used as the location for quarantine and immigration stations during the late 1800's and into the 1900's).After completion of our walk, we drove through Golden Gate Park (stopping briefly for a small snack), and on to Lombard Street, a part of which is famous for being the crookedest street in the world.  The 8 switchback design was born out of necessity to reduce the hill's natural 27 degree incline which was too steep for many vehicles, not to mention very taxing on pedestrians.Having filled my touristic needs, we then headed for cocktails prior to meeting Tera for dinner.  The cocktails were lovely and the dinner equally enjoyable.  The 5 of us then proceeded to the main event of the evening: the show Beach Blanket Babylon, an iconic musical spectacular that has been running for 34 years.  It is kind of a comedic take-off of well-known personalities in the political and entertainment fields.  The costumes were spectacular, the singing fantastic and the huge hats (for which the show is famous) were simply outrageous (in a good way!).  All of us had a good laugh and left in high spirits, having had a fantastic day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243280400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243280400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243280400/tpod.html Mon, 25 May 2009 20:15:35 -0400 Going coastal!

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Berkeley, California, United States

The weather returned to usual today for the San Francisco area.  They say here in San Francisco that no-one needs an air-conditioner because San Francisco has natural air-conditioning.  A bit of warm weather and then the fog rolls in, dropping the temperature precipitously and seriously cooling things down.  You may or may not have heard the famous saying by Mark Twain: "The coldest winter I even spent was the summer in San Francisco".  I understand where he was coming from!Today I traveled across town from Tera's (in Pacifica) to join Sally and Monica in Berkeley.  After a quick look around their wonderful edible garden with Monica, Sally and I headed off for a few hours to explore the surroundings.  First up, we headed to Caeser Chavez for a walk and enjoyed some of the local flora and fauna.  My love for the squirrels was quite evident, and Sally was very patient with my need to photograph them.  We followed our walk by a trip to the Berkeley Rose Garden for a wonderful picnic lunch.Reinvigorated after our meal, we pushed on to Inspiration point where we would have had fantastic views over San Francisco if our plan had not been foiled by the fog!  Non-the-less, it was an enjoyable work and made us feel we deserved our upcoming gourmet dinner that night at Chez Panisse.Ellen, a fellow love of all things Antarctic, joined us from New York and we headed out for a fantastic meal.  It was wonderful to be able to finally catch up with Ellen since meeting on our trip to Antarctica in January 2007.  Ellen had been Sally's cabin mate, and they are both great fun.  We finally headed home for some much needed sleep.The following day, Tuesday 19th, we went to the California Academy of Sciences, which has recently been upgraded and is an amazing resource and great place to visit.  The museum includes a Rainforest exhibit, an aquarium, a planetarium, and much more.  The building itself has great architectural merit and is the work of Renzo Piano.  The roof is covered with vegetation and has 7 "hills" like San Francisco itself!Margaret, another fellow penguin-head, joined us on Tuesday and spent some time with us in the Cal Academy before closing time came and we headed off for dinner.  Following dinner, Sally and Monica returned to the Cal Academy for a lecture, while Ellen, Margaret and I headed off to The Marine Mammal Centre to look at the volunteer work that Tera does there with harbour seals.  It is a big operation there and when you look at the number of volunteers needed for both her crew and the crew looking after the elephant seals, you realise how much they rely on their volunteers.This was not the end of our day however.  Having made it back to Sally and Monica's place, we settled in for our Pajama party with a viewing of Lost in Austen, essential viewing for anyone seriously into Jane Austen (and who wouldn't be!).  I finally crawled into bed at about 2am after a long but enjoyable day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243121100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243121100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1243121100/tpod.html Sat, 23 May 2009 22:49:48 -0400 Going coastal!

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Big Sur, California, United States

Finally, not one but 2 sunny days!!  Indeed, we had wonderful weather for my first weekend here, which was really good timing for our drive on Saturday along Highway 1 to Carmel, Big Sur and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.  What better way to spend a lovely summer day than driving down the coast, enjoying the scenery and having a picnic lunch!Our first and last stop of our trip was Carmel.  Carmel is a posh little seaside town like the provincial towns of Southern France.  It is indeed cute and the beach is lovely.  It also has some amazing houses, none of which would be remotely affordable for the average person!We attempted to go to Pfeiffer beach for lunch, but it appeared that everyone else had had that idea too, so we continued on down the coast and had lunch at one of the look-outs and soaked up plenty of sun, making up for the serious lack of warm sunny days to date while in Northern California.We continued on through Big Sur country to Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park where we were afforded an amazing view over the McWay Waterfall and the associated bay.We broke the drive back up the coast with a stop at Rocky Point restaurant for a little appetizer and drinks.  The view was amazing and we had a clambour over the rocks, avoiding the poison ivy, investigating the local fauna and getting another angle on the view!  Dinner that night was a BBQ out on the balcony and it was only slightly chilly!  What a wonderful day!On Sunday, we farewelled Tera's Mum and headed back up the Coast to Tera's house for a gathering there.  We arrived just in time (20 minutes) to put a few things together before guests started arriving for afternoon drinks and snacks.  It was lovely to meet so many of Tera's friends who I had heard of.  Afterwards, we chilled out with another BBQ prepared out on the patio.  We were both exhausted from our busy itinerary!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242828900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242828900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242828900/tpod.html Wed, 20 May 2009 13:58:57 -0400 Going coastal!

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Monterey, California, United States

It is the end of Spring here, coming into Summer, but you wouldn't really know that if you just judged it by the temperature around here!  The average temperatures for the month of May in San Francisco are 10-18 degrees Celcius.  (It is about 10.15am here and although it is a lovely sunny day it is only 12 degrees Celcius).My second full day here in Northern California was spent on the Monterey Peninsula.  We went for a lunch on the beach which was lovely but we were wearing 2 jumpers each!!  The view was lovely with harbour seals and birds out in the bay, the windswept trees decoratively dotting the shoreline, and a yummy lunch which we enjoyed as a picnic on our blanket on the beach.Following lunch we walked along the shorefront to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  I had already been click-happy with my camera here on this trip, but in the Aquarium I really went all out!  You would be surprised how many photos of jellyfish, seahorses and fish schools you can take.  I have still not managed to face the complete editing of this collection!The Aquarium used to display only those creatures in the Bay of Monterey, but they have now expanded and have a huge collection of sea animals including penguins from South Africa.There were many highlights!  I spent ages in front of the Kelp Forest - loved the school of anchovies, the hermaphroditic fish and the feeding display (where towards the end, one of the small sharks actually stuck his whole head into the fish bucket!).  The Octopus also created some very diverting entertainment.  He had been given a plastic container, and I don't think they planned on him keeping it!  Suddenly we saw a hand entering the water over the octopus, but with the reflection it looked like the hand was emerging from the inside of the octopus!  There was also the most amazing collection of jellyfish and an incredibly impressive exhibit of seahorses.After a wonderful afternoon at the Aquarium we headed out into weather reminiscent of the Arctic and walked back to the car.  Luckily we survived the walk, and we headed home for a classic American dinner of a burger, baked beans and potato salad!  Looking out into the fog we sent our prayers to heaven for warmer weather the following day for our trip the following day down South along Highway 1 to Big Sur.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242679020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242679020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fifoota/2/1242679020/tpod.html Mon, 18 May 2009 21:14:36 -0400 Going coastal!

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Pacific Grove, California, United States

My friend Tera managed to get a couple of days off from work, so after our sleep in we packed the car and headed off down the coast along Highway 1 towards Monterey.It was a cool day in Northern California, but we had a nice drive and dropped in at Harley Farms Goat Dairy to sample and then purchase some amazing goats cheese (yum!), and also visited the Pigeon Point Lighthouse for a look around.  It was very windy at the Lighthouse, and judging by the trees in the area, that is not an uncommon state of affairs for the area.On making it to the Monterey Peninsula, we took a brief drive along the waterfront of Pacific Grove, even briefly braving the weather to step outside the car and take in the view along the coast.Tera, her mum (Carol) and I then headed out for dinner that evening to a scrumptious Italian restaurant where the food smelled and tasted great!  Tera had a blue cheese gnocchi, while I had a wonderful creamy ravioli.  A glass of wine over here seemed more like 2 standard drinks than 1, and when Tera queried her Mum's slightly less generous fill of wine, the Italian waiter fixed it in a jiffy so that she had almost 3 standard drinks!!  Lucky she wasn't need to drive.  Meanwhile Tera enjoyed a beer.  The meal was a delightful end to a pretty laid back day.Although, the day wasn't quite over... before retiring for the evening, we watched a tape of the final show of season 4 of Gray's Anatomy (so cool that they both watch this too!).  We are way behind in Australia, but they updated me on the new characters and what had recently been happening.  Not surprisingly, the season has ended on a cliff-hanger, with the potential for the loss of 2 of our favourite characters (Have I lost some people with this little paragraph?  Sorry!).
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