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May 7th we left for a four day trip San Francisco, a slightly mad idea but a good use of airmiles! We landed in San Francisco at about 2.30pm, checked in and wandered up to Union Square for some shopping and a beer and a bagel.  After trying out a sample of SF's finest we caught a cab over to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. Fisherman's Wharf is an area of the northern waterfront facing Alcatraz and is a popular tourist destination for its restaurants, bars and attractions such as the seals which have made the marina here their home, they started to appear in January 1990 shortly after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. At first they numbered from 10-50, but due to a plentiful herring supply, available dock space and the marina’s protected environment, the population grew to more than 300 within a few months. Each winter, the population can increase up to 900 sea lions, most of which are male. During the summer months, the sea lions migrate south to the Channel Islands for breeding season, but in recent years a small group stays year-round at PIER 39's K-Dock.  Friday starts out with of course breakfast followed by some cable car surfing up to Fisherman's Wharf.
San Francisco's cable car system is an interesting solution to the challenges of the hilly streets of San Francisco. The first cable car line was brought in to service in 1873 by the creator of the concept Andrew Hallidie a wire-rope manufacturer. Hallidie witnessed an accident where a heavily loaded horse drawn street car slipped backwards on the cobbled inclined street and dragged 5 horses to their deaths. this gave him the idea of a cable car system where every car is drawn along the street by an underground cable. The cable is gripped with a vise-like mechanism that is operated via the grip lever in the front of the car.  Once we arrived at fisherman's Wharf our first stop was to buy tickets to Alcatraz and we managed to get on the 10.30 boat to"The Rock". Alcatraz served as a lighthouse, then a military fortification, then a military prison followed by a federal prison until 1963 and finally became a national recreation area in 1972. The trip around the prison is conducted by a well designed audio tour which has been created with the voices of ex-inmates and guards. This was one of the highlights of the weekend and there was a great temptation to call home with a "Hi Mum I'm in jail!" it probably wouldn't have surprised her too much!.  One of the main ideas of the trip was to check out the San Francisco circus scene of which more in a later post but we managed to get out to the Circus Centre each day for some training. So our first day including jetlag ended at the Circus Centre with a couple of lessons with some of the worlds best! Saturday's breakfast led to a little shopping, a trip to the hippy area of Haight Ashbury and a midday flying trapeze class.We then caught the bus up to the Golden Gate Bridge.  The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge when it was opened in 1937 and is still the most popular place in the US to commit suicide. Since we were not feeling too suicidal and thought it was definitely too long to walk across after the training we'd been doing for the weekend we'd walk along the coast back to Fisherman's Wharf. This led to the discovery of Jack's Cannery bar with 68 different beers on tap with a very knowledgeable barman to help us navigate our way through.  Sunday was a little difficult to wake up to for some reason! So more breakfast and our last flying class. We spent the afternoon renewing our aerial wardrobe and met up with Emily whom we'd met at the Circus Space in London and attended her conditioning class and toured around some of the other circus schools in the bay area. Monday we rented a convertable and toured down highway 1 coastal road to Monteray and took the "17 Mile Drive" down to Carmel The 17 Mile Drive is a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, California, United States, much of which follows the Pacific coastline and passes famous golf courses and mansions. It also serves as the main road through the gated community of Pebble Beach. There are stopping points along the drive which include the lone Cyprus and a view of the seals and some very tame squirrels.   From here we drove back to tthe airport and the flight home
San Francisco
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Elana was born in Russia and is a graduate of Moscow’s Circus and Variety College. She won the Gold Medal at Paris’ Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in 1987, and the Gold Medal at the 1988 All-Union Circus Artists Competition of the USSR for her ground breaking swinging trapeze routine. For twenty years she has performed in major circuses and variety shows all over the world including the Moscow Circus, Circus Knie, Paris’ Cirque d’Hiver-Bouglione, and the Big Apple Circus. Elena started teaching at Circus Center in 2004.