Back in Saaaan Fraaaan Ciscoooooo! There was the same conductor guy on the Caltrain today with that hilarious voice! I have missed him. Today Aroon and I explored the last bit I didn't get round to of the things I had planned to see last time: Golden Gate Park. It's huge and we went to see the Tea Gardens with all these neat bonsai trees, took a couple of symmetric pictures for the fun of it :-) and had a green tea served by Japanese girls looking like Geishas. We went to visit the fairly new De Yong Museum right next to it - worth it just for the architecture: Herzog & De Meuron created it, the same that are building the new Hamburg landmark, the Elbphilharmonie. Up the tower we had a great city view despite the marine layer. Want to come back definitely, for the Chihuly exhibition, an Italian glass sculpturor. We didn't have time for that today. And this is BECAUSE... we are leaving for Yosemite park tonight! I've been invited to join Aroon and 6 friends on a r\three day hiking trip. I am so excited about it! And glad I have got my foot and shoe problem solved. As a matter of fact my right leg is longer than my left and that was the cause of all the muscle aches I've been suffering for a year now. I found this out last week with a great physiotherapist in SB. Now I will wear a lift in the left hiking shoe.

Ok, I use the time to keep up on what we did in SF the other week... where did I leave off? In the middle of the week. Wednesday I met a friend from my time in Italy. Aaron works in the financial district of San Francisco now. His family lives here. The world is so small - he also went to UCSB but I never got a chance to visit my cousin in SB while he was still there. It was great to exchange what we've been up to over the last years and what we plan for the future.
Going to Alcatraz is not so easy. I didn't book in advance so I bought a Bay Cruise ticket for the next day. The Bay Cruise was nice but freezing cold! The Golden Gate Bridge from below was a new impression for me as well as getting so close to Alcatraz. Dude, it's falling to pieces, so old and shabby. They circled around the island three times just to fit all the exciting escape stories in the time, also featuring that famous one in 1962 about which nobody can tell if the people did actually survive and manage to hide to the end of their lives. Because their bodies have never been found. They made several movies out of that one: The Rock with Sean Connery as well as Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood.