A small step for mankind

...but a decent step for Mr Daddy. I am not the first, and certainly not the last, but it feels great anyway - I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge biking! Silvia made me the greatest Christmas gift even when she gave me the bike. It is not only really cool, which is really the most important feature of anything, it allows me to start exploring San Francisco more freely. But hey, you might ask, isn't San Francisco awfully hilly? Yes my child, it certainly is. But as Bruce Lee would put it, don't go over it, go around it. This is the route I have done today, 8.6 miles, or about 14 kilometers as normal people would call it:

I found some surprising things, like the fact that there is a beach in San Francisco. It is not big, but very long, and really nice. A lot of people just hanging out, but no one goes into the water of course, not even the dogs. It is cold, freezing, and it is dangerous as the torrents are very strong.

You go along that beach and you end up at the Warming Hut, which has a kind of funny name, and it certainly seems a bit silly a day like yesterday when it was incredibly hot. They have a little pier where people are fishing for crabs, and while sitting there something made a loud noise just under me. It was a seal that came up and stared at me for a moment, and when he, or she, realized I had no food, he, or she, was off again. They are big.

Then it was actually time to cross the bridge, the best part of the trip, supposedly. It goes uphill, all the way (almost killed me), the wind is strong, and if you decide to stop and you get off the bike... The bridge moves. A lot. Too much. It vibrates all the time, and from time to time it moves a bit. Mr Daddy like stuff that are still. So I went over it quite fast.

Then when your legs are about to give up, when you are sweating and about to give up, when you can't take another hills (how many are there?!?), you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It is not Nirvana, it is even better, it is Sausalito!!

So I did it, so I was well deserved at a lunch at the Lighthouse. The plate looks big doesn't it? It was. I finished it all. I would have licked the plate if there wouldn't have been more people in the restaurant.

Then I took the ferry back. I had some thoughts of going back biking as well, silly me. The ferry ride is very nice, you get to see San Francisco from a boat, the Golden Gate and Alcatraz very upfront.

How do you finish off a day like this? Going down to Mario's at Washington square for a beer and the Super Bowl of course!!