Monday, October 09, 2006
5 Years!
Last Saturday Samantha and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in San Francisco. Fleet Week was happening so we checked out the Blue Angels air show at Fisherman's Wharf. The noise from those jets seemed like the world was going to end. They were moving so fast and so close together that everyone in the city just stared in awe. It was hard to get a shot of them but here is one:
San Francisco was packed. It took us an extra 45 minutes to get to the city (we should have taken BART) but then we walked from our hotel past miles of idling cars so I felt a little less dumb. It was probably the most people I've seen walking around the city (except for when I saw the immigrant rights marches in May). Here is one picture that shows the crowd:
I have never seen so many boats in the bay. I honestly think there were 1,000 boats out there. It's hard to see them in this picture but they go on for a while and this is only one narrow view of the bay:
At night we went on a Hornblower dinner cruise. We dressed up (for us) but there were some people there in shorts and sweatshirts so it didn't really matter. It was all about waiting in lines! 45 minutes to get on the boat, 20 minutes to get food, 15 minutes for drink coupons, 20 minutes for drinks! The food was so-so but there was plenty of it (buffet) if you wanted to wait in line again for seconds. The desserts were actually pretty good. Each floor of the three story boat had a DJ who played a cruise-worthy mix of music. I actually never appreciated the true genius of the disco hit "Rock the Boat" till I was actually on a boat that was rocking... Everyone was having a pretty good time. I asked a nice old lady to take our picture and told her a few times what button to press. It didn't come out that well but I didn't want to bother her again:
The highlight of the evening was when the boat stopped right next to the barge that launched the evening's Fleet Week fireworks. It's not really possible to take good pictures of fireworks without a tripod and a really good camera but here is one mediocre pic:
The show definitely wasn't that big but it was awesome to be in the bay and see fireworks with the city in the background. Here is a video of the finale:
San Francisco was packed. It took us an extra 45 minutes to get to the city (we should have taken BART) but then we walked from our hotel past miles of idling cars so I felt a little less dumb. It was probably the most people I've seen walking around the city (except for when I saw the immigrant rights marches in May). Here is one picture that shows the crowd:
I have never seen so many boats in the bay. I honestly think there were 1,000 boats out there. It's hard to see them in this picture but they go on for a while and this is only one narrow view of the bay:
At night we went on a Hornblower dinner cruise. We dressed up (for us) but there were some people there in shorts and sweatshirts so it didn't really matter. It was all about waiting in lines! 45 minutes to get on the boat, 20 minutes to get food, 15 minutes for drink coupons, 20 minutes for drinks! The food was so-so but there was plenty of it (buffet) if you wanted to wait in line again for seconds. The desserts were actually pretty good. Each floor of the three story boat had a DJ who played a cruise-worthy mix of music. I actually never appreciated the true genius of the disco hit "Rock the Boat" till I was actually on a boat that was rocking... Everyone was having a pretty good time. I asked a nice old lady to take our picture and told her a few times what button to press. It didn't come out that well but I didn't want to bother her again:
The highlight of the evening was when the boat stopped right next to the barge that launched the evening's Fleet Week fireworks. It's not really possible to take good pictures of fireworks without a tripod and a really good camera but here is one mediocre pic:
The show definitely wasn't that big but it was awesome to be in the bay and see fireworks with the city in the background. Here is a video of the finale:
