Our flight from San fran to Frankfurt was pretty uneventful.

We just took an airbus A380…

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its a huge plane, two full decks. and there was a video camera in the tail so you could see the whole airplane.  and the flight felt super stable.  its just a massive airplane cutting through the air.  have to hit some pretty big turbulence to shake that bad boy.

we arrived and our friend mathias picked us up from the airport, which happend to be the same week as a year ago when i went for Marie & Sebi’s wedding.

i did manage to snap a nice sunrise over the atlantic

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mathias dropped us off at his dad’s house in mainz, we had lunch with him, and then we crashed for a few hours. Charlie came home, we had a great dinner and lots of wine with him.  Therefore we (I) passed out that evening, managed to sleep through the night, and woke up the following morning with the plan to go visit Wiesbaden, my childhood home.  the idea was to show noa around for the afternoon, to see where i lived and some of the places i went to school, and then return to mainz for dinner.

mainz is just across the rheine from wiesbaden, so we took the train across the river to the hauptbahnhof.

its a pretty impressive train station.  Wiesbaden was mostly not bombed during the war, so a lot of the grand buildings are still around.

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from there we walked up the hill towards the house i grew up in for 8 years.  we had the second story as our apartment.  the building looked very newly renovated.

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from there we walked the one block to my kindergarden.

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and then onwards to where i went to elementary school.

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its weird.  i remember a lot more about my kindergarden then elementary school.  i can clearly picture the classrooms of the former, but of the elementary school, all i can remember is the outside and the courtyards.  theres nothing indoors.  its like one of those dreams where everything is normal, and then you walk through a door, and its just black inside.  thats how i feel.

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and from there we walked towards downtown, to see some of the sights.  i mostly knew my way around.  there were a few new buildings here and there, but overall not too much changed.  mostly my perspective on things i suppose, since i have not been back in a long long time.

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my parents saw a lot of opera here.

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we found one of the Kochbrunnen, or smelly rotten egg springs, or if you prefer sulphur water.  as we got up to it and smelled the stink, i told noa people drink it, and she looked at me like, don’t f with me.  and just then, a woman walked up with a plastic cup, fills it, and takes a giant swig.  i just got a smug look.  but yuck, i dont know how that can be good for you.

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this is what they look like over time

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continuing our journey to downtown, we saw some more sights, and stopped somewhere for lunch

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we had a really nice day walking around, and it was great to show noa a little bit of my childhood.  i dont know if it was the jetlag, or what, but it was odd walking around there again.  also, i know theres always been a huge english population, but in the past no one spoke english, and this time i felt like the city was overflowing with english speaking teenagers who were on their summer break.  it was really odd.  but it was nice to be back.

The Last day in San Francisco we wanted to ride bikes around the city some.  we also had a few last stops we needed to make, so i roughed out a plan in which we could ride to the bakery we wanted to see, and then we would ride through the golden gate park, up the coast, past the golden gate bridge, and around back to embarcadero!  easy peasy, right, most of it is riding along the coast, which must mean its along the water, so there cannot be much change in altitude….

but first to  Tartine bakery which noa had heard a lot about.  apparently there is always a line, so it must be good, right?  so we got up early and got on the bard in order to head downtown to rent bikes.  from there we started on our trip, and navigated our way towards tartine.  we were not disappointed.  there was a huge line.

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i think we ended up waiting about an hour.  but boy there were some tasty treats inside

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i of course had to try a petit pain au chocholat

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we snacked on some pastries, and waited for a grilled cheese and broccoli rabe sandwich.  which apparently takes them 30 min to make.  and i have never particularly liked rabe, or i have never made it well.  either way, the sandwich was delicious.

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after that it was a jaunt around the corner for a taste of ice cream.  and then onwards to golden gate park.

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typical street we were riding along.

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so at some point we finally get to the golden gate park, and are riding along it, and we pass a lyon st.  we pass it, but then think better, and decide to take a photo of me under it.  i tried to recreate a certain picture of my childhood from memory.  i think i got pretty close.  all im missing is a kick ass frown!

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onwards into the golden gate park!  now, we had heard theres a pretty kick ass botanical garden and museum there.  but i think by this point it was like noon or 1, and i was looking at the map, and the ground we still had to cover, and decided we better not stop at the moment.  plus we had just had a pretty long break at tartine, so we continued on.  it is pretty though.  and i would love to go back to actually see the plants.

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and some people didn’t believe me when i said theres bison in golden gate state park.  well here we go.  they totally caught me out with the wrong lens.

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and then BAM, we finally hit the coast.  another super overcast and windy day.  and its at this point we see where the road is heading…  ohh crap.  thats not flat at all.

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but there was a nice view from up there,  and then we rounded the corner, and we were confronted with the hill of DOOM!  it just never stopped.  i think we ended up walking the bikes up.  BUT, what goes up, must come down, so i was looking forward to the eventual downwards hill.  which we did get too eventually, then it over some surface roads, and eventually we hit the coast again after about 45 min or so of riding.  and we had to climb another hill.

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and then we got our first real glimpse of the golden gate bridge.

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at this point i snap a picture of where we came from, and that peninsula on the right is the big hill we first saw and had to climb!

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and then there was some confusion about how we get under the highway, but then we were under the bridge, and got this amazing view.  we took a break, and had a photo shoot with the bridge.

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us with high spirits after the death ride to get here in freezing cold head wind.

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but once we got past this point, the rest of the journey was indeed along the water, and this time, we had a tail wind.  we felt like we were flying along the road, it was so glorious.  stopped for some photo opportunities of alcatraz along the way.

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im not sure what time we dragged our behinds back to the rental place, but it must of been before 7 or something.  either way, it was a long long day of pedalling.  when we got back the apartment, i google mapped it, and it ended up being 20 miles, or 32km.  now, i know for some people this is not a lot, but while on holiday, in one of the hilliest cities around, it was enough.

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but really, it was an amazing final day.  even though the weather did not cooperate fully, i finally got to get a picture of the golden gate, we had some tasty food, and exercise.  it is a pretty city after all.