Month: December 2018

We house and dog-sat in San Francisco in December for our friends Matt & Galina who took advantage of some work travel to Sydney to explore Australia and New Zealand. We lived in San Francisco for a year (and lived in Oakland as well) and fell in love with the city. It was so much fun to spend a month there. We caught up with lots of old friends – Mark and Leslie, Shannon and Damon, Kenny and Evelyn. We even saw Kathleen and Kelly, Portland friends who moved to Ohio who came to town over Christmas to visit their daughter. Sometimes social media is great for helping find those connections. And we had many visitors. Alex came down from Portland for a few days, then Aaron also came down from Portland. My (step) brother Steve and his partner Kate came through town and we headed over to his cousin Brett’s place for dinner. His parents Dave & Kathy drove in from Ripon to join us. My aunt and uncle, Anne and Brian, drove up from Carmel for a weekend and took us to see A Christmas Carol at the theater. (Thanks!) We were joined by my cousin Katie (their daughter) and her partner Cameron who live in Oakland. Travel is great and rewarding, but it was really nice to spend time with so many good friends and family.

Matt & Galina’s place is near AT&T Park (home of the SF Giants) is on the 16th (and top) floor of the building. It includes a deck and amazing views of the city. Like this:

Turning west for the sunset.

The deck even had a fire pit.

“Our” place was across the street from Mission Creek Park along Mission Bay. We walked the dogs here daily.

We should introduce the dogs! We dog-sat the odd couple of Dexter, an 11 year old Yellow Lab, and Sterling, a 7 year old Toy Poodle. We took them to Baker Beach a few times where they endlessly chased tennis balls up and down the beach.

We set out on a long walk along the bay towards our old North Beach neighborhood passing under the Bay Bridge along the way.

We lived a block from Coit Tower for a year. It’s at the top of Telegraph Hill in the northeast corner of the city. We climbed the steps from the Embarcadero.

Alcatraz.

A view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A view of the Bay Bridge.

We stopped by Greens Sports bar one day but unfortunately it was closed. We watched a bunch of March Madness games here and made some lifelong friends.

And here’s one of them, Kenny, along with his wife Evelyn. We got together for dinner in North Beach one night and later visited them for lunch in Moss Beach, just south of the city.

Seals on Moss Beach:

I planned ahead and shipped my clubs to Matt & Galina (thanks for storing them!) before we departed for Europe and Africa in September. I used to play a lot at Harding Park when we lived there. It was cheap for residents, though often in fairly rough shape. Since we left, it’s become TPC Harding Park and underwent a massive renovation that primarily removed trees from the property. The course has since hosted a Presidents Cup, one of the WGC Match Plays, and will host the PGA Championship in 2020. I got in a round there as well as several rounds at the renovated Corice Park South Course in Alameda and a round at Wente in Livermore with my friend Wally. Here’s a look across the 18th fairway at Harding Park.

This is San Francisco’s version of a “white” Christmas. (This was actually Christmas Eve.)

And here’s a few more shots from the deck. You can tell I loved the view!

London served as our gateway in and out of Europe for this leg. We’d found a really cheap ($200 each) one-way non-stop from Gatwick to Oakland that we will take on December 4th. We’ll be house and dog-sitting in San Francisco until the end of December.

We’ve been chasing the sun for over a year though Madrid and Barcelona were certainly more autumn-like temperatures. London was cooler yet. And rainy. So we didn’t venture out too much over our long weekend here and don’t have any pictures to show for it.

We did get together for dinner with our friends Tom and Val that we met while on safari in Africa five years ago. We had fun catching up with them over delicious Indian food. We walked to and from dinner that night mostly along the Thames. We went to a pub near Chelsea’s home stadium, Stamford Bridge, and we enjoyed a couple of pints while we watched them beat neighboring Fulham. We saw Bohemian Rhapsody which seemed like an appropriate thing to do in London. I enjoyed the movie – I’ve liked Queen’s music for years – and there were some tears shed towards the end.

We took a high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona for our last week in Spain. We started exploring with a walk to the beach. We passed the Arc de Triomf.

A hill on the south side of the city gave a nice panoramic view.

The Olympic Stadium is on the hill on the south end of the city.

Some views on the walk down the hill to the city.

There’s a famous fountain here, but it wasn’t on when we went by.

A couple of views from Park Güell, a park designed by Antoni Gaudi.

Speaking of Gaudi, we stopped by for a tour of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. I suppose you’d call it his masterpiece. Constructions began in 1882, Gaudi took over the design a year later, and worked on it until his death in 1926. The current goal is to complete construction in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi’s death.

I learned that the word gaudy is derived from Gaudi, and I can see why. To me, it’s an awful-looking building on the outside.

But I found the inside stunning. The stained glass windows create incredible lighting, and the columns have an organic quality as they rise from the floor. They’re not all the same size; they’re not symmetrical. It’s like being in a forest.

A few views looking out after an elevator ride up.

We took a day trip from Barcelona to the mountain town of Montserrat, a Benedictine monk retreat. Monserrat is part of the Catalan Pre-Coastal Range. History says that shepherds saw a bright light descending from the sky in 880 AD and decided to build a monestery to capture the spirit.

After a couple of hours of train rides, you have this view just a short walk from the station.

We hiked through the small town and out on a trail winding along the side of the mountains.

We headed back to town and took a funicular up a few hundred more meters in elevation and hiked some more. The landscape and scenery were incredible.

Heading even further up!

Selfie at the top.

Heading back down to town on the funicular.

A final shot from the first change of trains further down the mountain from Montserrat.