The San Francisco Zip

On Saturday Olly had a football match at 9 o'clock in the morning (which meant we had to be there at 8:30) in a place an hour away from Davis.

The first element of novelty in this day was the use of a ZipCar. This novel way of getting hold of a car to go somewhere is based on the rental experience we are familiar with from engaging with companies such as Hertz, Avis, National, etc., but fundamentally different in that it is more of a car-sharing experience. It was recommended to us by the Head of Department here and worked quite well once we got the hang of it. Basically, you can rent the car for an hour or for a day, you pick it up from the street (you have an app similar to the one used for Uber, to know where the cars are), you 'open' it with your magnetic card (sent to you in the mail when you sign up), the key is locked to the wheel. Other than that, it is exactly like a rental car. The car does have a ZipCar sticker stuck on its side, which clearly designates it is what it is, but we are not bothered by those image issues, so that's find by us! Ah, the other great thing about these cars is that you don't have to bother getting separate insurance or even paying for petrol because they come with a gas card you use at the station to refill. You have 180 miles a day to drive free of charge and then they charge 45 cents a mile. To rent the car for an hour it's $9 and for a day $80 (not including promos which can make it even cheaper).  
You pay for tolls, but the car has equipped with a tag for electronic tolling (the cards on the right in this photo are waiting to pay with cash, we sailed through!) BEWARE! If you rent a car that does not have these tags and 'sail through' the un-barriered toll anyway you face a fine of 250 dollars, ouch!


The football was not, as we had expected, in a club or some similar institution, but rather in playing fields that were literally in the middle of nowhere. The address was Hidden Lakes Park (aptly named) - main field Morello Ave & Chilpancingo Pkwy, Martinez, CA 9455, which, when you look it up on Google maps, takes you here, which rightfully shows the field as being on the edge of  or some urban area. On close inspection, you may notice that the infrastructure is restricted to a large parking lot, the playing fields and what in the map looks like a built up structure, which is in fact, the toilets. And that was it. Being used to discovering football clubs behind the most unsuspecting facades but that include cafés, sometimes even restaurants, various changing rooms, offices, training rooms and possibly even a swimming pool, this was an unusual situation for us as there was nothing, and I mean nothing, other than the beautifully kept pitches and courts (soccer, basketball and baseball), the space for parking and the toilets aka "Restrooms". Not even seats for the parents/supporters, which explained why they brought down from the vehicles all manner of equipment including chairs, carts for carrying flasks, etc.
Here's a picture of the place I found online from a sunnier moment of the year (on the left) and one I took on Saturday:



I was particularly taken with this cart (apparently called a beach wagon, although I can't imagine how this would work on sand) and started wondering if it would be feasible to fold it up and stick it in a suitcase, until Ray told me "What do you want that for?" And it hit me that I really didn't have any reason for having it, I just liked it so much! Again the seductive power of US consumerism.

Both trainers had one (as well as the mandatory bag with 15 balls, still wondering why this is!) but also many parents, to carry bags, coffee, water and other "necessities". It made perfect sense: once you were there there was no question of popping to the shop to get a coffee or a bottle of water, so you had to equip yourself with whatever you might need during the match, in that resourceful, individualist American way, everybody a 'prepper'!
Because the match was fairly early, the mist had not yet lifted and the sun was struggling to come through a thin layer of clouds. When it did, it felt comfortably warm, but when it disappeared, it was a bit chilly.
The match consisted of two 35 minute halves and had three referees dutifully dressed in day-glow yellow, black socks, and all the trappings of professional refs, although, as I understand it, they are parents who have received a short and "academic" training complete with "quiz" and certification.
As we intended to head on to San Francisco after the match, we had managed to get Anabel to get out of bed and accompany us, although we hadn't managed to get her to bring appropriately warm clothing, so she was wrapped in a blanket, one of her favourite acquisitions this trip, on account of its softness. She stoically stood with the parents (being the Away Crowd we were fewer than the Home Supporters) and applied her newly-acquired photographic skills to taking pictures of the boys. It was interesting to get her take on the proceedings as the match progressed. She was amazed at the courteousness of the parents towards the referees and the other side, e.g. parents would complement the goalie of the other team when he caught a ball kicked by our boys.
The match progressed as these things do and, although our side appeared to dominate, they couldn't actually score. That is until five minutes from the end of the first half when Ray decided to go back to the car to get Olly his water and coat (they would, after all have to spend the half-time sitting in the cold), and Olly scored the first goal of the match! I wasn't on filming duty (it is far too difficult to film these big pitches with my phone), so it didn't get recorded for posterity. But, as if to compensate for that, a couple of minutes later, Olly scored the second goal of the match. Again, it took us by surprise, so we didn't film it, but at least, we saw it. And so they went to the half-time happier than they had spent the beginning of the match. Some of the parents on our side started calling Olly "Little Messi" (on account of his skill and his size, although in his case this relates to the fact that he is two years younger than his team mates). To clarify, and avoid confusion ("a little messy"), I explained in England they used to call him "Mini Messi". In the course of the discussion I realised that Messi could be "Mess-messy", if you translate his name "Lio", i.e. "mess" in Spanish. Sorry for the "Senior Moment"!
Anyway, they ended up winning 5 or 6 - nil (and being told by their trainer to lay off scoring goals so as not to humiliate the other team) and at the end, they stood in line the other team and the referees (and everyone politely thanked each other).
We did capture a few clips of the second half, which you may find of interest if you want to see what the field looked like (BTW, during the match we even spotted deer on the hill behind the pitch, that appeared to be interested in the proceedings).
Clip 1, Clip 2, Clip 3, Clip 4
Here's the highlights of the whole match (including Olly's goals!).

Here are a couple of photos too:

This is the post-match talk from "Coach Eric":

This post is called "San Francisco" and I haven't yet said a word about his town. The idea was, after the match, to drive on to San Francisco (we were already halfway there) and walk around the city a bit. This we did.
We drove to Presidio National Park, a bit of San Francisco neither Ray nor I had been to before. To get there, we drove over the Golden Gate bridge:

 (see here Anabel's fast-motion version of it)

and caught a glimpse of Alcatraz from the road.


Presidio National Park, doesn't have very positive associations for the Spanish-speakers among us, but is in fact a very nice area.

Here's what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like from the Presidio Park.

It is a former military base turned national park with a large number of centers and museums to visit, a large parking lot (of course) and a shuttle bus that takes you into downtown San Francisco leaving every half an hour. We walked around the park for a bit waiting for the next shuttle bus and then promptly hopped on the bus with 3-4 other passengers. The bus only has a few stops and drives along Broadway, which in San Francisco means across Chinatown, and delivered us to the Financial District right in the heart of the city.

These are some of the sights you see on the way:

And here, some typical San Francisco houses:

We even went past a local school

We made our way back to Chinatown because we had a few dim sum establishments to visit.



We didn't take many photos because the dumplings seem to disappear rather rapidly, so here is a professional picture:

After feeling satisfied we had appeased our dumpling craving, we had to move onto ice-cream. Anabel familiar with ice-cream rolls, but we first came across The Baked Bear, a place that combines cookies or brownies to make an ice-cream sandwich, and so we had to make a stop.


Walking on (and attempting to walk off some of the calories) we came across shops with dried seafood and all kinds of exotic fruits and vegetables and dancing dragons

What else did we find? Well, another ice-cream shop, ice-cream rolls this time! It was the Magical Ice-Cream shop.

This video shows how these ice creams are made.

We slowly made our way in the direction of the downtown to head on to the Embarcadero to view some of the many ships and seagulls, and the, also many, tech companies that occupy this space.

Here's some pics we took on Pier 1

Finally, we ended up at the Ferry Building, an interesting combination of a gentrified transportation building with the most chi-chi shops under the sun anything from exotic chocolates to oysters and, yes, you guesses it, more ice-cream! By this point, we were feeling almost sick due to the continous-stuffing-of-our-faces, and decided to pass.

Emapanadas	6 dólares la unidad!
This, believe it or not, is pudding!	and these, cheesecakes
Chocolates as jewelry	Grow your own mushrooms

It was also beginning to get dark, so we thought it was best to get to the shuttle bus stop and head back towards our car. And we were right! We got to the stop as a shuttle had just passed. Fortunately, the traffic was such that he hadn't been able to move more than a few metres, so we knocked on his door and, wonder of wonders, he let us get on (again, there were only two other passengers). We then proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes virtually on the same spot (true gridlock), with an increasingly exasperated driver. After we managed to pass the key spot, we went faster and arrived back at Presidio once the sun had set but only some 20 minutes later than scheduled.

From there, we got the car and headed back home making a brief stop to do some shopping feeling good about a day well spent.