Friday/Saturday

Friday was another long and busy day.  I have so enjoyed this class and all of the people that I've met.  It has been so much fun to learn about the sustainability initiatives at their companies.  Just at my table I had Darsey who works at Adobe headquarters, Tiffany who works at SunMicrosystems headquarters (they have actually been bought out by somebody else, but I can't remember who it is), and P.Patel who worked for President Bush! 

We finished up about 6:30.  It wasn't dark yet, so I walked across campus into town.  The campus is just so pretty with all of the huge trees.  The weather is so cool that it feels like late fall.  The cool temps really make a difference in your day-to-day activities.  There are sidewalks and trails all over the place so people walk to get their groceries and ride their bikes to work, etc.  Darsey lives on an island that is about 2 miles by 4 miles and you have to take a ferry to get to it.  She doesn't even own a car.  She rides her bike to the ferry, takes the ferry to the mainland and rides BART (Bay Area Rail Transit) into town and then rides her bike the rest of the way to work.  I was discussing my options for getting into San Francisco with someone and she said "It's only a couple of miles from the BART, so you can just walk (this is with luggage in tow)."  Can you imagine someone in the south walking a couple of miles carting luggage?  No way...no sidewalks and its too hot.  AND women don't wear makeup here...really!  We need to get that started in the south.

I got up this morning and took BART into San Francisco and walked to my hotel.  My hotel is really nice...and I have my very own bathroom! :)  I checked in about 10:30, dropped my stuff and headed to the Embarcadaro.  They have the market place on Saturday so it was packed.  I walked, shopped, ate and took pictures all the way down to Ghiradelli Square and then circled back around to my hotel.  Its been a fun day and I'm exhausted.  I better get some rest since tomorrow is the big bike ride! Oh yes - high temp today was 59 with a low of 51!  A repeat is expected for tomorrow!

This is a picture of some of the vendors set up at the Embarcadaro - Saturday is market day:

Although it looks similar to the Golden Gate bridge, this is not.  This is the view of the bay from the Embarcadaro:

This fountain is at Ghiradelli Square.  The last time that Phillip and I were here, we got a hot fudge sundae made with Ghiradelli Chocolate....yummm.  I was looking forward to having another, but apparently everyone else was too.  The line was too long for me....

This is Lombard street.  I took a picture of a family from France and they returned the favor by taking my picture.  The exchange rate must be really good for the Franc...I saw/heard a lot of people from France.