15 July: San Francisco  (cont)
Today was bookmarked for Day 1 of our hop-on-hop-off bus trip which we had organised many weeks ago. The trips have to be taken on consecutive days so careful planning was required.Peter decided to join mid-way around Haight Ashbury which he knew was where the Hippie movement began in the 60s. Jimmy Hendrix lived there then. All news to me. So we disembarked from our # 7, crossed the road and scrambled onto the waiting hop-on-hop-off  bus getting the last two seats. Gradually we worked our way upstairs and towards the front. We had been warned to wrap up and after getting caught  out yesterday, I did just that. The weather was sunny enough but sitting up there in the open seats was pretty cold. So now, with the tape of the tour playing in our ears, we could start to appreciate the city we'd been in for a couple of days. And then the commentary warned us we were approaching the Golden Gate Bridge and the temperature dropped to sub-zero. We caught glimpses of bridge-structure, but needed to concetrate on opening the eyes and breathing!!! However we had crossed the Bridge and then returned. It was such a relief to be able to unwrap by the end of the ride at Fisherman's Wharf. I still kept my down jacket on though.

Everyone had to disembark at the terminal and join the back of the queue so we decided to take a lunch break. Where to go? We were prevented from crossing to the restaurants on the Bay because of some endless Falun Gong parade, so had to walk along the side the bus tipped us on to. Humph. We stopped at something called "The Rain Forest". Well, that was worth our whole trip. It was all planned as two floors of a tropical forest complete with animated beasts and intermittent storms. The only missing link was Jacqueline Caisley .We felt guilty being there without her. Something we have noticed here is that so many of the tourist staff are students from the University of Dublin. There must be some immigration policy to take these fabulous people during the summer vacation on an annual basis. Of course with each one we had to tell our tale. They just loved us knowing their home towns, Galway, Kilkenny, all over. And of course our 5 days residing at Trinity College made for great conversation.
We did not board the hop-on-hop-off bus again until 3.55pm because we were too busy playing in the Forest. The full round trip is 2 1/2 hours . After standing in yet another queue for far too long, we fluked the front seats upstairs this time. Perfect ! Off we went through all the contrasting districts with their own contrasting architectural styles including Tenderloin populated by the homeless. We stayed on the bus to cross the Bridge in the hope that it would be there this time -and it was!!!! What a difference. Still cold but the fog and frigid conditions had cleared. And then, the greatest excitement, a whale spout, then the curving body and then the fluke. Outrageous!!! We saw either another, or the same one in a different place some time later and Peter managed to get a photo of it.
We disembarked at Union Square where crowds were gathering for a concert. Over the road to Macey's for a take-away salad for tea, caught our #7 bus and wandered home to our glass of wine. The perfect end of a perfect day.