NFL - NY Jets vs. SF 49ers @ Candlestick Park

Yes... after a MBL game and a NBA match I finally attended a NFL  game last Sunday. (Everyone who doesn't know this acronyms should google it :D)

American Football is quite unknown in Europe, but as far as I got known to this sport so far, I'd tell it's really entertaining and more exciting to watch than most soccer matchs.

The rules are complex and difficult to understand, at least compared with other sports, but if you want to learn something new just click here. 

As I spent the past couple months in SF I consequentially supported the 49ers, the team of San Francisco. Although they're didn't do that well this season, they won on Sunday against the favoured NY Jets with a final score of 24 - 14.

But as you probably aren't that interested in this sport anyway I just post some nice pictures and stop telling about American Football.

The red ones are the 49ers, the green and white guys the NY Jets, the other two guys referees (there are even more of them) and the brown thing in the air the football. :-)

Panorama taken fron my seat (of course it's distorted, in fact I had a really good view over the field) The problem by taking panoramas at such crowded places is that most people just can't hold still... :-) You see what I mean if you take a closer look at the picture.

And guess how the Americans travel to the game? Public transport, yes, exactly! :D

BTW, it's just a part of the parking area...

As always, click on the pictures if you want to see them larger.

The Rock

Finally we got round to visit one of the best known attraction of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island.

This little rock in the middle of the bay has a long and fascinationg history.

First used by the army which built a fort on the island, it later became a military prison. It was America's "gangster era" (during the the of the time of prohibition in the USA, approx. 1920-33) which raised the peoples's demand for a maximum-security prison for the most dangerous and faulty criminals. However, just a couple of the 1545 prisoners who did time on the island were notorious, the most famous ones were "Al" Capone, "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz".

For everyone who's interested in the fascinating of the island, especially of the prison can find additional information here and here or google it themselves.

We took the first ship to the island, at 9.00 am, with this "early bird" trip you can make sure that the place isn't that crowded.

Once on the island you can walk around without guide, in the prison you can get an audio guide for free and make an intriguing tour through the building and discover the cells, recreation yard, library, dining room and much more.

Here you have some pictures:

Cells in the main tract (remember "The Rock" with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage)

"Inmate" walking around at the recreation yard during the weekly hour outside. :-)

The cell of one of the three famous escapees, who successfully fled from the rock and since then never have been seen again. In the picture you see the dummy head which fooled the prison warder. Also notice the hole in the back of the cell and the improvised piece of wall to hide it.  Here you find a summary of the thrilling story of them (and here the FBI report :D).

That's the view you have from the island, prisoners could see the city, just out of reach.

Short review for a looooooooooooooong weekend - "regular" part of the weekend

Short summary:

Saturday: Learning and hanging around

Sunday: Learning and hanging around + Twin Peaks

Yeah... actually nothing really exciting... but visiting the Twin Peaks was really cool. The view was breathtaking... combined with the setting sun and the cloudless sky (with Jupiter and Venus clearly visible as far as I'm right) it was absolutely amazing...

Here you a have a little panorama of the scene, it's really worth enlarging it (click on the picture).

Take a closer look at the two "stars" next to the moon... Venus and Jupiter?

San Fran @ nighttime... maybe a bit overexposed, but looks cool :-)

The brightest street is Market St.

Short review for a looooooooooooooong weekend - Happy Turkey Day + Black Friday

... which has been over for quite while. Maybe (or probably) this has been overlooked by most of the non-American readers (consequently by most of them): Last Thursday we had Thanksgiving, also known as "Happy Turkey Day... it's one of the most important American holidays, click here if you want to know more about it.

We had no school on that day (and same for Friday). The majority of Americans use to have a big feast on Thanksgivings Day, with stuffed turkey and so on... We just spent the day hanging around in SF and went to the cinema (Four Christmases.... Angelika wanted to see this movie, but in the end she agreed with what i predicted... that the movie is crap)

The day after the Turkey Day is called "Black Friday" (on this day all stores operate in the black). As a lot of presents are made on Thanksgivings Day there are usually thousands of special offers on the day after... though it seemed to be a bit different this year, probably because of the economic crisis... unlike than in other years there weren't any really fantastic or special deals.

Weekend review (I'm becoming a faster poster ^^)

Saturday's gone... though it remains in our hearts, lol.

Ok, short summary: We checked out the Golden Gate Park... I already drove through across the park with the bike, but I actually didn't see much of it... First we got to the Japanese Tea Garden, the name is self-explanatory... it's a cozy place to hang out. Well, to be exactly you can't actually hang out there... just walking around and taking some pictures is possible... not to forget the 5$ admission fee.

Nevertheless it was nice to see all the little trees and streamlets. We also saw the M.H. de Young Museum (from the outside) as it is just near the Garden.

After hanging out in the Park for a while, we went to Chinatown and bought some groceries... yeah, actually nothing really exciting, but it was a cool day... and btw, I nearly forgot to mention that we went to the cinema in the evening, "Role Models"... nice movie, but not more than that.

Today is more an easy day... a bit learning and stuff like this.

Here some pictures from Saturday:

 
Japanese Tea Garden

 

    de Young Museum

...

And... I nearly forgot: We saw a nice little squirrel...

Religulous

Oh yeah... this is a great movie! I've no idea wether non-Americans ever heard of it, but I really recommend to watch it! (You know, there are ways to see it... even if the movies isn't showed in a cinema near your place)

Religulous is a kind of documentary, but very entertaining! As the name impliesl, the movie is all about religions, their believers, wrongs, human stupidity and conflicts which arise from the different beliefs. Although there is sometimes a lack of some more scientific arguments or specific points, the movie is brilliant!

Sometimes there is some resemblance with Dawkins "The God Delusion", but more entertaining and maybe a bit less clever... which in my opinion is good (as it is a movie and not a book)

This is a must for everyone who's interested in the topic of religious beliefs and their aberrations.

It's probably the best movie I've seen this year.  Click here to see the trailer.

Weekend review Part II

Saturday we finally came around to visit the Coit Tower while there wasn't any fog... The weather was awesome... it was nearly 30°C. Seeing the sunset from the top of the tower was nice, but not as breathtaking as when we saw it two weeks ago from the other side of the bay.

Afterwards we headed to (s)Nob Hill, together with Claudia and Sandro, who're also at the same school. The showed us a nice little Italian Restaurant... which gave a bit variety to the traditional American food (Mc Donalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Jack in the Box, KFC, Wendy's...) ;-)

Still not tired (we slept quite long that morning) we went to Lombard to see how it looks at nighttime. Before going home I went to Border's where I found some nice comic books (Get Fuzzy and Pearls before Swine , check it out if you've never heard of them before) 

Here some pictures:

View from the Coit Tower

Coit Tower at night, seen from the end of the crooked part of Lobard St.
(used a parked car as tripod :-D)