During the Thanksgiving vacations, we went on a day trip to San Francisco. In addition to our resident and another colleague from my home, two colleagues and a resident from another home came along. First of all, we really enjoyed the trip to San Francisco, giving the residents the choice of music. Our resident loves opera, especially Pavarotti, and the soundtrack from Rocky 3 and the A-Team. After a while, we asked the other resident for music preferences. It turns out that we both have the same taste in music! Because we both love rock music from the 60s like “Fortunate son”, “Run through the jungle” and “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, “For what its worth” by Buffalo Springfield, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, “California Dreamin” by The Mama's and the Papa's, ‘We gotta get out of this place’ and ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals and, of course, alongside ‘Sympathy of the Devil’ and ‘Gimme Shelter’, my favorite song by The Roling Stones: “Paint it Black”. We listened to these wonderful songs and drove from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. Our first stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the first time in my life that I had ever driven over the bridge! My resident had requested the soundtrack from “The A-Team” shortly beforehand, so we drove over the bridge to the intro melody of the series. An unforgettable moment! Afterwards, we made a stop at Moore Rd Pier, from where I called my mom and grandma to show them the Golden Gate Bridge in a video call. My grandma loves the song “San Francisco” by Scott Mckenzie, so this was a special moment for her too.

Opened in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge at the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco and the landmark of the city and the Bay Area. In 1995, it was declared a modern wonder of the world. The bridge has a clearance height of 67 meters, a total height of 227 meters, a length of 2737 meters and a width of 27 meters. 120,000 cars cross the bridge every day. When it opened, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world! The bridge appears centrally in numerous films, such as “Planet of the Apes” (2011) or “James Bond 007 - In the Face of Death” (1985) and the video game “Watch Dogs 2” (2016), where San Francisco was recreated as an open world. 

The friend of a colleague who recently had her last day at Camphill gave a punk concert in San Francisco. The concert took place in the basement of the record store Thrillhouse Records. It's a community-based, volunteer-run record store specializing in punk and underground music. Before the concert, we looked at all the records in the store. My mother collects records and loves beautifully designed record covers. I understand her fascination and had a lot of fun browsing through the records. My highlight, however, was the arcade machine where you could play games like “Star Wars” and “Mortal Combat”. My Hungarian colleagues and I competed against each other and could hardly tear ourselves away when the concert started. Punk is not one of my favorite genres, but the bands were really good! “Psyched Out!”, the friend's band, played really nice music and we had great conversations with the band members afterwards. But the band “R A B B I T” also blew us away with their music, which we would describe as psychedelic punk metal. 

My highlights on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C_KHzC-pQXH/?img_index=1

The company was founded in 1948, but there is now a lot of hype on social media about the store, which for a long time only existed in California and is now slowly expanding to other states in the west and south of the USA. They only use chilled and non-frozen fresh meat, which must be delivered from the butcher's shop within 24 hours. The kitchen is open plan, you can watch the staff peel and cut the potatoes and the salad is also freshly washed and plucked. In contrast to McDonalds and Burgerking, they have a very small menu with only three different burgers. The Secret Menu has also contributed to the social media hype. My American colleague recommended that I order the “Animal Style” burger. Here, the burger is prepared with a special sauce reminiscent of Thousand Island sauce, grilled onions, mustard-glazed buns and gherkins. I was also recommended to order a “Neapolitan Shake”. Here, the staff mix together a vanilla, chocolate and strawberry milkshake. My colleague showed me how she uses the shake as a dip for her fries. There are many other changing secret items that don't appear on the menu, which get around on social media and fuel the hype. The concept of an open kitchen, fresh ingredients and a limited and focused menu is very reminiscent of Five Guys. Five Guys is another fast food chain that Obama also likes to visit. I tried Five Guys once in Berlin and found the burgers delicious, but the prices far too high. In-N-Out Burger, on the other hand, is very reasonably priced. A cheeseburger costs only $4.19, a meal with free refillable Coke and fries costs $8.45. A cheeseburger at Five Guys costs $6.49, fries $3.39 and Coke $2.29. Order the fries with extra salt, because otherwise they are very sparing with the salt. The burgers are delicious, but didn't convince me so much that I would have to come back next week.

We visited the record store “Amoeba Music”. The biggest record store I've ever seen and a paradise for our resident, who loves listening to records. We went to the opera section together, where he looked at the many beautifully designed record covers. According to its own description, it is the world's largest independent record store. It is located in the former 2,200 m² Park Bowl bowling alley. The company regularly stocks over 100,000 new and used CDs, records and audio cassettes.

After watching the Superbowl with the residents and colleagues on my day off, I drove to San Francisco with my Korean colleague Lim. We attended a concert by Seong-Jin Cho at the San Francisco Symphony (Loiuse M. Davies Symphony Hall).

Seong-Jin Cho (born 1994) is a South Korean concert pianist. He was the winner of the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition, the first from South Korea. He grew up in Seoul as the child of non-musical parents. His talent was discovered as part of a support program for musical prodigies at the Seoul Arts Center, after which he began studying at Sunchon National University and Seoul National University. Since then, he has performed with the world's leading orchestras: Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony. He has worked with major conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Simon Rattle, Kirill Petrenko, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Myung-Whun Chung, and Gustavo Dudamel. He has performed in renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Prinzregententheater Munich, Wiener Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall London, and Suntory Hall Tokyo. In 2016 he signed a contract with Deutsche Grammophon, where he has released seven albums. In 2017 he made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle. I had the pleasure of seeing Sir Simon Rattle live at the Berliner Philharmonie in 2017 when I visited with my grandmother after I finished school. In Triform we regularly watched open-air broadcasts of Sir Rattle's concerts. He is the Berliner Philharmoniker's artist in residence for the 2024-25 season. What makes me very happy as a Berliner: he liked the city so much that he moved to Berlin in 2018. He was attracted by the cosmopolitan culture and the many beautiful parks.

The Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall is the concert hall of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco. The hall with 2,743 seats was completed in 1980 for 28 million US dollars to give the San Francisco Symphony a permanent home. When I entered the building, I thought I was visiting a modern building. Lots of glass, lots of white paint, few historical elements and decorations. Nevertheless, the building is now more than 45 years old! I really like the building and the great atmosphere. I put on smart clothes and felt very comfortable getting out of my role as a supervisor and dressing up for a cultural event. Before the concert, I bought myself delicious strawberries dipped in chocolate and admired the beautiful building. I don't know much about classical music, so it's hard for me to describe why Cho is such a popular pianist. But it sounded very nice! I was amazed that he had no sheet music or notes; he seemed to have all the pieces in his head. Pieces by Joseph-Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) were played. He was a French composer and, alongside Claude Debussy, the main representative of impressionism in music. His best known work is the orchestral piece Bolero.

A German volunteer took two Hungarian colleagues and me to San Francisco, where we went out to eat together. He found a German restaurant, the "Soup Kitchen." There, we finally enjoyed German food and beer again—it was truly delicious! It's also very expensive:

0.3 liters of Hofbräu Helles: $6, 0.5 liters: $10, 1 liter: $18

Currywurst with fries: $22

Potatoe Pancakes: $16

Pork shoulder: $38

Chicken schnitzel: $24

Very tasty, but given the price and the distance, it won't be my regular restaurant.

1848 is a historically significant year for San Francisco. James W. Marshall discovered gold near Coloma on the American River. The gold discovery turned San Francisco from a small outpost (Yerba Buena, founded in 1834) into one of the fastest growing cities in the world. In one year, the population grew from 1000 to over 25,000 people, many lured by the promise of striking it rich with gold. The Wells Fargo History Museum and the California Historical Society Museum provide information about the city's history. The guide told us about Samuel Brannan. When people find gold in a river, they naturally keep it to themselves at first. Of course they don't want to share the gold with many others! He found gold and started spreading the word everywhere. He wasn't interested in the gold - he was interested in the gold seekers' money! He played an important role in starting the gold rush and sold shovels, pans and other equipment to the prospectors who came from all directions. He sold a pan, which normally cost 20 cents, for up to 15 dollars. That's how he became California's first millionaire!

During the American Civil War, Union supporters often gathered here in the 1850s. This is why the square was named “Union Square”. The Dewey Monument (1903) honors Admiral George Dewey for his victory at the Battle of Manila (1898) in the Spanish-American War. The statue of Victoria, the goddess of victory, on the column symbolizes America's rise to imperial power. Numerous protests took place here during the Vietnam War. Today it is the central square of San Francisco.

Alma de Bretteville Spreckels was the model for the figure on the Dewey monument in the middle of Union Square. She rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest women in the city. She worked as an artist's model at a young age and was chosen as the model for the statue because of her six-foot height and local notoriety (court case against an ex-boyfriend in which she received $1250, now $43,000 in compensation). She married the sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels, whom she referred to as “Sugar Daddy”, which is where the term comes from today. Together with her husband, she founded the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, which is often described as the most beautiful museum in the city.

The “Hearts of San Francisco” project was launched in 2004. The name is based on the song “I left my heart in San Francisco”. The 130 hearts, which can be found all over the city, are designed by local artists and auctioned off for charity. San Francisco General Hospital benefits from the proceeds. The beautifully designed hearts are then often found in hotel lobbies or businesses after the auctions.

Maiden Lane was known as Morton Street during the gold rush and was a center of gambling and prostitution. A very disreputable area that was avoided by many citizens. Active was a very notorious gang whose cutesy name seems little match for their brutal methods. The Sydney Ducks were a gang of criminal emigrants from Australia who came from the well-known British penal colonies. They were blamed for the fire that devastated downtown San Francisco in 1849. In 1851, a vigilante group was formed to keep residents safe. 44% of the gang originally came from Ireland. They emigrated to Australia as laborers during the Great Famine and then came to California during the Gold Rush. After the 1906 earthquake, the corner was transformed into a cultural and shopping district.

At my last job, in the office of the education company wortlaut in Berlin, I worked a lot with SalesForce. SalesForce is a cloud-based CRM service (Customer Relationship Management). The platform combines sales, service, marketing and other business areas and is very intuitive to use. The company is based in San Francisco and has had its own high-rise building, the SalesForce Tower, since 2018. Where the Transbay Terminal once stood, the transportation hub has been transformed into a digital hub. The top of the tower is adorned with the nine-storey light sculpture “Day for Night” by artist Jim Campbell. In 2018, it was the tallest public artwork in the world and visible for up to 48 kilometers. The animations are generated by 11,000 LED lights, supported by colored lighting. Depending on the season, different animations can be admired here, such as Sauron's eye from “The Lord of the Rings” looking through the city on Halloween - spooky!

Chinese immigrants have lived in San Francisco since the 1850s. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, which excluded the Chinese community and turned Chinatown into a segregated ghetto. In 1906, many buildings were destroyed by the earthquake. Thanks to strong networks and great resilience, the Chinese community survived and is now the oldest and largest Chinese community outside Asia. Although many buildings look “Chinese”, it has little to do with the architecture you would find in China. A well-known example are the gates to Chinatown, which are more the brainchild of tourist offices than Chinese history. Vox has made an interesting video about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiX3hTPGoCg

What makes the “SFTMA Parking Vallejo Street” (766 Vallejo St.) parking garage so special? That's what we all asked ourselves during the tour as we climbed several floors up the stairs in the parking garage. Once at the top, no further explanation was needed. From here you have a wonderful (and free!) view of the city.

The factory was founded in 1962. While most factories have switched to automated production, fortune cookies here are still made by hand. If you're in Chinatown, you should definitely stop by, as you can watch the people at work and buy many different types of fortune cookies, including chocolate ones.

Coit Tower was built in 1933 in the Art Deco style and is 64 meters tall. In the 1920s, Lillie Hitchcock Coit admired the San Francisco Fire Department and was part of high society. Because of her support, she even became the mascot of Company No. 5 of the Volunteer Fire Department. When she died in 1929, she left the city $100,000 for beautification. The tower was built in honor of the volunteer fire department and was intended to be a lookout point to beautify the city. There is a $10 entrance fee, but the view is worth it: you can see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the entire city. The tower features detailed Depression-era murals. You can even find Austrian history here. A mural shows a man reading a newspaper with the headline “Thousands Slaughtered in Austria”, “February 14, 1934”. This was the beginning of the February Uprising in Linz, where the Republican Protection League and the police fought each other. The clashes spread to other regions in Austria and a total of 360 people died. After a few days, the uprising collapsed, social democracy was banned and Austria slipped into dictatorship. In the wake of the protests following the death of George Floyd, the City Cultural Affairs Commission removed the Christopher Columbus statue that had been in front of the tower entrance since 1957 on June 18, 2020.

The Catholic church stands on Washington Square. The district is known as "Little Italy" and has many Italian restaurants and shops. The church's predecessor was destroyed in the great earthquake of 1906. Construction began in 1912 in the Italian-style Romanesque Revival style. The church, still under construction, was the filming location for the 1923 movie The Ten Commandments. The high altar and other furnishings, such as Madonna statues, come from Italy; the church was a meeting place for the Italian residents. It was not completed until more than ten years after construction began in 1924. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their wedding photos taken in front of the church - but could not celebrate inside the church because DiMaggio had not yet annulled his first marriage to Dorothy Arnold, which had taken place in the church. 20,000 spectators gathered around the church for the first wedding!

From the late 19th century, many Italians moved to North Beach, so that the district between Fishermans Wharf and Chinatown developed into “Little Italy”. The neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and had to be rebuilt. It was the historical center of the beatnik subculture and has developed into one of the most important nightlife districts in San Francisco. As in Little Italy in Manhattan, the proportion of Italian residents is decreasing due to gentrification, while more Asian people and young professionals are moving into the district. There are many good Italian restaurants, bakeries, and cafes here. At the center of the district are the Church of St. Peter and Paul and Washington Square. When I visited Little Italy, the Italian Consul General, Sergio Strozzi, gave a speech to the assembled citizens, discussing the close ties between Italy and Italian-Americans in San Francisco.

I took part in a historical tour of Presidio, a really exciting place! It was a Spanish military post from 1776, changed hands to Mexico in 1821 and was a US military base from 1846 to 1994. One of the oldest permanent military bases in the USA - in operation for over 200 years. During the Civil War it served as a defense post against potential attacks, as it is well suited to protect the bay south of the Golden Gate Bridge. However, there were never any battles against the secessionist states on the Pacific coast. During the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Philippine-American War until 1902, the Presidio was the most important base for the US armed forces. From the Presidio, the US Army provided a great deal of assistance to the inhabitants of San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake. On April 18, 1906, Brigadier General Frederick Funston was in command of the Presidio in San Francisco. The severity of the earthquake destroyed the center of the city. Over 300,000 people were left homeless. Funston immediately ordered the mobilization of troops surrounding military installations. He took command of local relief and law enforcement. Funston also directed the dynamiting of buildings to create firebreaks. He was instrumental in the establishment of communications, sanitation, medical facilities, housing and reestablishing general order to a destroyed city. General Funston was regarded as a national hero,

and the media of the time called him "The man who saved San Francisco."

In the 20th century, it was a command center for the US Army Western Defense Command. In 1994, the barracks were demilitarized and turned into a public national park. The national park was originally not very enthusiastic about the idea because the maintenance of the large grounds and the many buildings would have consumed a large part of the budget. There are 870 buildings on the two by three kilometer site, of which around 470 are considered historically significant. For this reason, a large part was handed over to the Presidio Trust on the condition that they must be self-financing. The maintenance of the historic buildings and the beautiful natural surroundings is financed by renting out the former officers' houses and other buildings, which are now home to 150 companies and 2,500 wealthy people. The largest commercial tenants with around 61,000 m² are the companies LucasArts, Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm (Star Wars), which have had offices for 2,500 employees in the Presidio since 2005. The Walt Disney Museum is also located here. Alfred Hitchcock shot the wonderful film “Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead” (1958) here. The movie “Presidio” (1988) with Sean Connery and Mark Harmon is not the most memorable movie, but it shows a nice impression of Presidio when it was still a military base. In Star Trek, the Starfleet headquarters is located here, as seen in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986). With or without a guide, a walk through Presidio is definitely worthwhile. From here, it is also not far to the Golden Gate Bridge, which can be reached and crossed on foot. After the tour, I received an email from our guide Jeff Schoppert from City Guide Tours. Apparently we had a woman on the tour who has a personal connection to the history of Presidio:

Hi **** , ****, ****, ****, ****, ****, Damon and ****,

Thanks to each of you and your companions (und an ****, **** und Damon vielen Dank) for coming out yesterday to join me in our exploration of the Presidio of San Francisco and its complex and fascinating history. Your willingness to engage with me, and with each other, made my day. 

And I never expected I’d learn in response to my question about whether anyone had personal connection to the Presidio that one of my walkers was descended from a member of the de Anza party (that made the twelve-hundred mile journey north from Tubac in 1776), and a Spanish soldier who came north with Gaspar de Portolá in 1769.  Ysadora Tapia, who was married to the Spanish soldier, Marco Briones, gave birth to Juana Briones (later, Juana de la Trinidad Briones y Tapia de Miranda) at place near what is now Santa Cruz, California, on March 12, 1802.  The Briones family moved to the Presidio of San Francisco in 1812.  Our fellow walker, ****, is Juana Briones great-granddaughter. 

The importance of Juana Briones to the history of the City of San Francisco cannot be overemphasized.  She was a remarkable woman. Although probably illiterate, she spoke five or six different languages, and was a curandera (healer) having learned to use herbs and natural medicines from the indigenous Ohlone people.  She was also a dairy farmer, maintaining her pastures in what is now called North Beach, and may be the earliest non-indigenous resident of Yerba Buena, the village that eventually became known as the City of San Francisco.  An astute businesswoman, she managed to hang on to her title to lands she acquired when others were unable to do so, and eventually purchased large acreage in Santa Clara County where she maintained a cattle ranching operation. 

Thank you, **** for providing us with such a special context for our tour of the Presidio.

I hope you enjoyed the walk and came away with a small sense of the importance of the place in the history of the city, the state and the nation.  In some ways the stories associated with the Presidio serve as a microcosm of the history of our nation as a whole, even up to the present time.  As one-time San Francisco newspaper reporter Mark Twain is credited as saying (without much evidence that he actually did so), “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

All the best,

Jeff Schoppert

This was originally the site of the Letterman Army Hospital, which treated military veterans until the 1990s. Today it is home to the Letterman Digital Arts Center, which used recycled materials from the hospital as building materials. George Lucas transformed it into a center for digital cinematography, where teams still work on visual effects for world-famous films. A Yoda statue commemorates George Lucas' most famous work.

The Recycled Water Pond is a landscaped pond in the Presidio created from recycled water, surrounded by public art. The 17-acre public landscape was designed by iconic landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. He crafted a setting featuring a 500-foot winding stream, stone belvederes, a serene lagoon encircled by boulders, and walking paths with sweeping views of the Bay, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Fine Arts. The stone elements were constructed using repurposed streambed rocks for an authentic, natural feel.Halprin’s plan includes hundreds of trees and shrubs—specifically cherry trees around the lagoon, designed with sweeping branches to frame, not block, the views.

From Presidio you can walk to the Golden Gate Overlook to enjoy the view and take photos in front of the bridge. The Godfrey gun battery was built in 1895 to protect the bay from attack. It was fully manned during the Second World War, but is now decommissioned and a hotspot for tourists.

In 1776, the Spanish hoisted their flag here and erected a fortification to protect the Viceroyalty of New Spain, thus laying the foundation stone for the settlement of San Francisco. Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821. After the Mexican-American War, California fell to the United States, and gold was discovered here in the same year. Fort Point was built in 1861 for a garrison of 300 people and is located at the southern end at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fully occupied during the American Civil War, the fort was never used. In 1900, all the cannons were dismantled and sold for scrap value. It was originally intended to be demolished, but was integrated into the Golden Gate Bridge and is now a historical monument. During construction, construction companies had their offices and warehouses here. During World War II, it was temporarily activated and housed the crew of a steel net designed to protect the entrance to the bay from submarines. An important scene in “Vertigo” by Alfred Hitchcock takes place here. A museum about the history of the fort can be visited here.

The Transamerica Pyramid skyscraper looks modern - surprisingly, it has been around since 1972! It was very controversial architecturally in the 70s, but was praised for its earthquake-proof construction. It was the tallest building in San Francisco from its completion in 1972 until 2018, when the newly erected Salesforce Tower surpassed its height. It was probably bought by Deutsche Bank, among others. The top of the Transamerica Pyramid is clad with aluminum panels. During the Christmas holidays, on Independence Day and on the anniversary of September 11, a brightly sparkling beacon called the “Crown Jewel” shines at the top of the pyramid.

Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is one of the largest urban parks in the world. It is five kilometers long and 800 meters wide, making it even larger than Central Park. The park was built in the 1870s and is a great place to stroll. We visited the De Young Museum and the Free Folk Festival. Other main attractions include the California Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, the San Francisco Botanical Garden, the Beach Chalet, the Golden Gate Park windmills, and the National AIDS Memorial Grove. You can ride bikes, rent paddle boats, and often attend concerts. Golden Gate Park is recognized as the birthplace of the Summer of Love. Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" became an anthem for the Summer of Love. Hippie Hill was a central meeting place, and renowned artists like Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and George Harrison performed free concerts there during the Summer of Love. In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II visited Golden Gate Park during a tour of the West Coast. Her stop included a dinner at the De Young Museum, attended by then-President Ronald Reagan, Willie Mays, George Lucas, Joe DiMaggio, and Steve Jobs.

The Music Concourse is an open-air plaza in the Golden Gate Park. Its concourse is flanked by the de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. Originally excavated for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, it underwent a significant redesign after the fair in order to be repurposed as a venue for public gatherings centered on music performances. Artists such as Pavarotti and Grateful Dead have performed here.Numerous statuary dot the area, including representations of Leonidas, the King of Sparta who defeated the Persians in the Battle Thermopylie, Ulysses S. Grant, Ludwig van Beethoven, Giuseppe Verdi, and Junípero Serra. We visited the San Francisco Free Folk Festival, which has been a cornerstone celebration of folk music’s rich history for the past 49 years. It featured 14  performances on stage in the historic Golden Gate Park bandshell. Also more than 20 workshops and sessions in the Golden Gate Park Music Concourse, including instrumental and vocal workshops, jams, song circles, and storytelling. We made a picnic, played frisbee, listened to the music and watched several groups, who gathered and played their instruments.

The De Young Museum is an art museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Together with the Legion of Honor, it forms the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco group. We looked at the sculpture garden and considered what statement the artists were trying to make with their works. This was a nice activity to do with our residents on holiday at home. With just under 1.2 million visitors, it was the 6th most visited art museum in the USA in 2015. The copper cladding is perforated and embossed; it filters the light and regulates the heat. However, I don't find the design particularly attractive. In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II visited Golden Gate Park during a tour of the West Coast. Her stop included a dinner at the De Young Museum, attended by then-President Ronald Reagan, Willie Mays, George Lucas, Joe DiMaggio, and Steve Jobs.

In Camphill, California, it's a tradition for the entire house to go on vacation together once a year. In past years, ISHI has always gone to Lake Tahoe, but this year the householder and residents wanted to experience something different. The sister of a former resident heard about our search for accommodation and offered us a week at her house in Haight-Ashbury. Haight-Ashbury is known as a hippie district. Musicians like Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane shaped the music scene here. Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to the red house where his girlfriend lived. Our house is huge and looks exactly like you'd imagine a house in San Francisco to look like. A beautifully designed, old facade, a narrow house that's quite deep. Bay window, dining room, living room, kitchen, three bathrooms, four bedrooms, and a small garden. Very comfortably furnished and plenty of room for our group of 13 people; after all, ISHI is the largest house in Camphill, California. Since not all residents can share a room, we came up with the following solution: Three residents got a single room, two residents shared a room, two coworkers slept in one room, one coworker set up camp in the bay window, and we set up two tents in the garden, each accommodating two coworkers. I slept in a tent with a colleague, which I loved. I love camping, especially when you can use all the amenities of the house. It wasn't too cold, and the small garden behind the row of houses also protected us from the city noise. Who can say they've camped in Haight-Ashbury?

We went to the old prison island of Alcatraz. Here you can not only learn a lot about history, but also enjoy a fantastic view of the beautiful city. Alcatraz is an Island in the San Francisco Bay. Originally a lighthouse and military fortification, the Island was converted into a federal prison in 1934. Ice-cold water and tidal currents were supposed to make an escape impossible. It closed in 1963 and was 1969 occupied by a protest-group of Native Americans. Today it is a museum, which you can visit by ferry. Alcatraz appears in many movies. I really like the movie „The Rock“ with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. After we visited the island, our house watched „Escape from Alcatraz“ with Clint Eastwood. It was fun to see all the locations again that we visited together. 

The Twin Peas are two hills in San Francisco and the second-highest elevations in the city. Twin Peaks Boulevard leads to the top and offers many great views of the city along the way. Here we marveled at the fireworks in San Francisco on New Year's Eve:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DETv0AoRMhv/

We saw not just one, but numerous self-driving cars from the Jaguar brand in San Francisco.  There were many sensors on the roof that detect traffic, cyclists and pedestrians. In Germany, we do have some test projects with self-driving cars, but we always have people behind the wheel to intervene in an emergency. There really was no one behind the wheel here! And it gets even crazier: the self-driving cars drive people from A to B as WAYMO cabs! Sometimes someone really is sitting in the back seat and has to trust that their driverless cab will find its destination. It really is very futuristic, but it seems to be a popular means of transportation here. 

During our house break in San Francisco, four of us tried out a Waymo taxi. We used the Waymo app to order a car, which arrived right on time at our house. Three colleagues got in the back, one in the front. When we were ready, we pressed a button, and the car took off. It showed us on a map where it was going and how long the journey would take. We booked just a five-minute ride for $12 to experience the thrill of driving a self-driving car. We were amazed at how smoothly the car navigated through traffic; it pulled away very gently, kept a good distance, and braked for pedestrians at intersections. It was cheaper than a regular taxi, and the ride was more pleasant than some of our colleagues'. Very impressive! By the way, the car is manufactured by Jaguar, so it was also my first drive in a car from the luxury manufacturer.

I visited the Palace of Fine Arts, built in the antique style in 1915 for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. As I admired the imposing structure, it grew dark and the lights were switched on, giving me a whole new perspective on the temple complex, which was inspired by Roman and Greek architecture. Australian gum trees line the eastern shore of the lagoon and many animals can be discovered here, including swans, ducks, geese, turtles, frogs, and raccoons. On one side there is a meadow where you can enjoy a picnic with a beautiful view.

The cable cars in San Francisco are world famous. The German engineer William Eppelsheimer was responsible for part of the design and construction of this, the world's first practical cable car line, which went into operation in 1873. The great earthquake of 1906 destroyed all cable car lines. The streets that were too steep for electric streetcars were once again served by cable cars. The vehicles can be coupled using the circulating cable that runs under the street. When they were built, the cable was not powered by electricity, but by steam engines. It is one of the few movable National Historic Landmarks and the only remaining cable streetcar in the world with detachable cars. Each cable car crew consists of two attendants. The gripman is in the front, open part of the car and drives the cable car. The second person is the conductor, who operates the block brake on the rear truck using a crank at the end of the car and checks the tickets. You have to buy tickets in advance using the app; you can't pay on the cable car itself. The ride is worth it; the conductor (at least the one I had with me on my ride) humorously points out sights and great photo opportunities throughout the ride.

On one tour, the guide recommended a Chinese bakery. The original is called "Good Mong Kok Bakery," and after its success, numerous other bakeries have popped up on the street, using the same orange design and similar names to attract tourists. The prices are ridiculously low (most under $4!). I tried a Chinese donut, a BBQ pork bun, and a deep-fried meat dumpling. Delicious!

The Painted Ladies are Victorian wooden houses in Alamo Square. The houses were built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh. The houses were painted in bright colors and are a popular photo subject because of the San Francisco skyline. The term “Painted Ladies” is 19th-century slang for prostitutes, as society ladies at that time did not usually wear noticeable makeup. During World War I and World War II many of these houses were painted battleship gray with war-surplus Navy paint. In the 1960s artists like Butch Kardum started to transform dozens of gray houses into painted houses. By the 1970s, the colorist movement, as it was called, had changed entire streets and neighborhoods. The houses appeared in an estimated 70 movies.

Fisherman's Wharf is San Francisco's most famous waterfront district, having originated in 1900 with the settlement of Italian fishermen. It has been a popular tourist destination since the 1950s. You'll find many attractions here, including Pier 39, The Cannery mall, numerous seafood restaurants, the Pampanito and Jeremiah O'Brien museum ships, and Ghiradelli Square, a chocolate factory that you can visit. From here, you can also take the ferry to Alcatraz. Chinatown and the end of the Powell-Hyde cable car line are nearby. At Pier 39, you can visit a year-round amusement park with an aquarium, observe a sea lion colony near the pier, and visit many interesting shops. Following an earthquake on October 17, 1989, the pier underwent reconstruction. During this boat-free period, the first sea lions settled at the pier. From 6-10 sea lions living permanently on the jetty at the end of 1989, the number has grown to 400 sea lions today.

An acoustic sculpture on the Marina breakwater that uses the movement of the tides to create sound. Through a series of 25 PVC pipes, the Wave Organ interacts with the waves of the bay and conveys their sound to listeners at several different stations. The effects produced vary depending on the level of the tide but include rumbles, gurgles, sloshes, hisses, and other more typical wave sounds. The sound is best heard at high tide. It was constructed on the shore of San Francisco Bay in May 1986. The Wave Organ is located at the end of a spit of land extending from the Golden Gate Yacht Club. The stone pieces used in its construction were salvaged from the demolition of the Laurel Hill Cemetery in San Francisco.

Every morning, before the house woke up, I went for a run. One morning I was in Buena Vista Park. It's the oldest park in the city (1867). In the morning, shrouded in mist, the park looked like a forest in a fairytale, and from the lookout point, you had a fantastic view of the city. There, I was able to watch the beautiful sunrise over the city.

A 60-foot outdoor sculpture of a bow and arrow by Claes Oldenburg, symbolizing the city’s romantic spirit. The piece resembles Cupid's bow and arrow, drawn, with the arrow and bow partially implanted in the ground; the artists stated that the piece was inspired by San Francisco's reputation as the home port of Eros, hence the stereotypical bow and arrow of Cupid. Leydier and Penwarden wrote, "Love's trade-mark weapon naturally evokes the city's permissive and romantic reputation, while formally its taut curve resonates wonderfully with the structure of the famous suspension bridge in the background."

Lombard Street is a 4.5 kilometer long, east-west street in San Francisco connecting Presidio and Telegraph Hill. The street is famous for its steep, winding street with eight sharp turns, earning it the nickname “crookedest street in the world.” It climbs 33 meters in elevation within 145 meters. The street was, among other things, the location for the film "The Great Outdoors" (1969), in which Herbie drove down the street at great speed. The street is parodied in GTA San Andreas. In the fictional city of San Fierro, based on San Francisco, it is called Windy Windy Windy Windy Street.

A public art installation of suspended books “flying” over the street, symbolizing the neighborhood’s literary heritage. You find at a pedestrian plaza linking Chinatown and North Beach. Passing under the flock, pedestrians will notice words and phrases embedded in the plaza floor, which appear to have fallen from the pages above. On closer inspection, the fallen words are in English, Italian and Chinese, and were selected from the neighborhood’s rich literary history. At night, LED lights embedded within the books create visual patterns.