Gettin' laid-over, San Francisco style

So my flights from Dallas to Australia went something like this:

• Dallas -> San Francisco. 4 hours flight time, leaving around 7am. The guy next to me kept snickering in his sleep.
  
• San Francisco. 10-hour layover to explore the city. Awesomeness.
  
• San Francisco -> Auckland, New Zealand. 13 hours flight time. I had some very weird sleep. I think at one point I dreamed I was a penguin. Yes. It was excellent.
  
• Auckland, New Zealand. 10-hour layover. A.k.a. hell. I was hoping to wander around the city, but the weather was shit. Cold and rainy. So I sat at the airport and read The Help. (Dooooooooon't make fun of me. It was a good book.)
  
• Auckland -> Melbourne, Australia. 3 hours flight time. I was officially fed up with planes and flight attendants and airports and screaming babies and people who recline their seat backs practically into your lap. I was about to have some SERIOUS plane rage, but I couldn't find any suitable weapons. (Censored in case the TSA sees this).

So! Even though the journey was long and exhausting, I did have an excellent time getting laid-over in San Fran. This was my first trip to the city, and I really enjoyed it. (Although, people who like to compare Seattle to SF, you're dead wrong and obviously Seattle is way more excellenter than SF.)

In my 10 hours, I basically did this:

• Took the BART from the airport to the Powell Street Station.
  
• Hopped on a historic cable car (the Powell/Hyde line) and rode it over Nob Hill and Russian Hill, getting off at Lombard Street.
  
• Wandered up and down Lombard Street, the world's twistiest street. (It has eight really sharp turns on a single city block, due to the steepness of the hill it's on.)
  
• Walked along Fisherman's Wharf/The Embarcadero to the San Francisco Ferry Building.
  
• Took a ferry to Alcatraz, the infamous island prison, and spent a few hours touring it.
  
• Walked back along Fisherman's Wharf, checking out the noisy sea lion colony at the 39th pier as the sun set.
  

Alcatraz was by far my favorite part of this layover. It was a really fascinating place. I took a zillion pictures of Alcatraz alone, so I'll put those in a separate blog entry.

But here are ze photos from the rest of San Fran!

View from Lombard Street:


Boats in the bay:


Cars negotiating the hairpin turns of Lombard Street:


Historic cable car:


A girl on the beach, with the Golden Gate in the distance:


Marine mammals in the bay:


Warehouse on the pier next to the ferry terminal:


Approaching Alcatraz:


A cool old ship:


Yum!


What sort of strange, rare bird is this?!


Sea lions at Pier 39:


Happy and passed out:


Life's rough: