San Francisco!

I went to San Francisco both the past weekend and the weekend before. In the latter case, I was all by myself! It's been an extremely pleasant and different experience: I'm rarely by myself, especially when I visit places. So being alone for once was a nice change, to just stop wherever I felt like, and decide where to go.. of course, in some moments I would have liked to share the experience with someone else. I walked a lot (about 7 hours, not including the stops), and saw very many parts of San Francisco. I didn't have the digital camera, so I just took some regular pictures that I cannot post. Still, it was a wonderful day and the memories are still vivid in my mind. Two days ago, I went again, this time with 3 more people! Lucas, Jorge and Vardha (Lucas's group mate). It was again very nice! We walked on a path that included parts that I had already seen and parts that were new also for me.
Jorge came to visit us during the weekend and until today, so spending the day in San Francisco with him was really nice. I have some pictures of that trip, so.. here they are!
To begin with, our crew:
Jorge, Vardha and Lucas on top of Alta Plaza.
And this is me!! I really like this picture Lucas took of me.. and it's the first picture I'm posting of myself with short hair!!


Our starting point: Union Square. In the middle of the district full of skyscrapers, it's such a nice place to take a break, in the sun.
China Town - one of the characteristic lights
Some of the skyscrapers, going on one of the many hills
The bay from Coit Tower
From the top of the hill where that nice view was, we went all the way down to the port and the Fisherman's Wharf.. here is the famous bakery 'Boudin', where they make really good sourdough, and they play around with cute shapes:
(For lunch, I had a clam chowder soup served in one of their famous sourdough bowls.. basically a shape of sourdough excavated, and with the soup in it... very good!).
After lunch we went to see the sea lions! Apparently they all stay on some benches in the fisherman's wharf. I was really surprised to see them, I didn't know they lived there! They stink terribly and they seem extremely lazy. They seem almost dead, because they barely move, except to start fights!
A nice view of Alcatraz:
After the marina, we climbed again on Fort Mason Park. I remembered there was a really nice view of the Golden Gate from there last time I walked there by myself. It was quite a surprise to see this view, this time:
The bridge disappeared in the fog!
Down and up some more hills, we arrived on Alta Plaza, at Pacific Heights. Lots of wonderful houses can be seen in this neighborhood, these are just some examples:
We wanted to document how steep the streets are. It's unbelievable the cars don't roll down!
Towards the end of our tour, the weather was getting more and more dark and threatening.. here is the Bay bridge still visible among the clouds:
But luckily it was time for us to meet our friends for dinner. Ellif (Lucas's group mate) knew an Italian restaurant that she wanted us to try. It's called 'L'osteria del forno', and it's on Columbus Ave. It's actually very good! Not everything is really like you would get in Italy, but it's always very close.
This was our dessert:
It's salame di cioccolato ('chocolate salame'). It was very good, although drier and harder than the real Italian one. Still, it was probably one of the best Italian restaurants I've been in the US. If you're not vegeterian, I'd recommend to try the carpaccio (thin slices of raw meat with lemon and oil) as appetizer. It's one of their best dishes.