14.07.12 - Rockin' The Air Guitar

The plan had been to take a tour of Alcatraz but when we did some investigating we discovered that all tours are booked up until August! So we went to the Ferry Building to see if we could find anything there but the answer was the same. We decided to take a bus tour instead and booked ourselves in for one at 2.30pm which gave us time to explore. We ate lots of free tasters in the farmers market and took the old tram along the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf. Emma’s friend

from California had hailed In-n-Out Burgers as a West Coast legend so we decided to try it. Not quite what we were expecting, a fast food joint rather than a restaurant, but we gave it a go anyway. They make all of their burgers to order so it is slower than somewhere than McDonalds but your burger hasn’t been sitting around waiting for you either. We ate our take-outs on a grassy slope over looking the bay, watching people compete in a bi-atholon with Alcatraz in the background. For a fast food burger it wasn’t bad; I could actually look at the meat without feeling repulsed. Two things that I have subsequently learnt about eh chain are: The In-N-Out restaurant chain has been rated as one of the top fast food restaurants in several customer satisfaction surveys. And In-N-Out prints discreet references to Bible verses on their paper containers. These consist of the book, chapter, and number of the verse, not the text of the passage, in small print on an inconspicuous area of the item.

We tried to catch the cable car up and over the hill but it is so busy; at peak tourist times there are long queues to get on it at the bottom and if it’s full it doesn’t stop for passengers half way up. So we walked instead, I thought Emma should have aching calves if she wanted the full SF experience. We found the windy road by accident so at least that was a tourist attraction ticked off the list. We wandered down Columbus Street which goes diagonally across the grid system, walked through the financial district, found a parked cable car to pose on for free and discovered this amazing fountain/sculpture by the Ferry Building. It is huge and made up of large, square pipes out of which spurts water. You can walk underneath like a waterfall or climb a few steps and look through the water from above.  It was really exciting for such a simple thing or maybe I’m just easily excited by a simple thing.

I had only realised after booking that we were on mini bus with huge windows rather than an open topped bus as I had imagined. We had seen loads of great looking open topped buses on our walk around and I was getting more and more annoyed with the fact that we were going to be cooped up inside (it was a sunny day), I was even considering ditching the booked tour and paying again to go on another. Then we turned up at the collection point and the rep was the most bored looking woman ever; we decided that the only saving grace would be if it was so bad that it was funny. In fact, being inside was fine and was actually preferable when we headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge which was hung with fog. We could see people on the open sided buses shivering and the opened topped buses were rammed full on the lower deck as everyone headed for shelter. I felt rather smug inside.
Things we learnt on the tour:- There used to be 23 cable car lines in SF, now there are 3. The dog shaped cranes that I mentioned before were supposedly the inspiration for the AT-AT walkers in Star Wars. I said that you could imagine them walking around. The Golden Gate Bridge is painted International Orange, even though it looks red.
We passed Mrs Doubtfire’s house too. Then the guide started reeling off some dubious facts; he said that Chinatown had been quarantined because of a tuberculosis outbreak. ERROR, as we know it was bubonic plague. Then he said that Bruce Lee had fled Hong Kong because gangs were after him but the bus drivers corrected him saying that he had actually been born in America. The more our guide talked the less he seemed to know!

Headed home to pause before the evening’s entertainment of...US Air Guitar Championships.  I had spotted that it was on and would never have gone by myself but Emma is the perfect person to go with, she’s always keen for random things like that. She loves karaoke and would happily do it on her own so I thought this would amuse her. We had dinner at a Mexican place first and had Beetroot Margaritas which were interesting. I don’t think that you can improve on the originals though.
The venue was quite small and full but not crowded. The crowd was a mix of definite groupies, long time fans and randomers like us. By chance we ended up sitting on a little raised section to the right of the stage which turned out to be an amazing place to watch. You didn’t really get anything extra from being in the crowd, it was definitely better to have full view of the artists.
Having thought that it might be quite fun, I can now say that it was the best performance I’ve ever been to. It was such a great night out. We were watching the SF division, a week before the American finals. The winner of which goes to Finland for the international championships. There were some pros and some real shockers who had competed for years. There was a half time performance from the 2008 American finalist. Each contestant got 60 seconds of their on tune then the top five all had 60 seconds to perform to a track picked by the judges. There were outrageous costumes and comedy names. Each bit was marked from 4.0 to 6.0 like figure skating. I never thought that someone could be bad at air guitar but it is a real skill. One of the nicest things was the camaraderie and bon homie of the event; everyone was having a good time and just in it for the hell of it. At the end they invited everyone up on to the stage for a huge air guitar fest so we joined and riffed with the pros/really really keen amateurs.