Merry Christmas to us! It’s finally our turn now haha.
We woke up at 3.30am and caught an Uber to LAX for our flight to San Francisco. We figured the flight wasn’t very full when the boarding announcement asked for group one, and then asked for each subsequent group every 20 seconds after that. Once we boarded, including us there were only about ten people on the flight. We were treated like royalty for the next hour. We got offered snacks twice, they brought me a coffee in a mug (on a plane - wow!) and we got to move to the super roomy exit row with three seats for each of us. It was a very comfortable flight with American Airlines, we were impressed. Christmas was off to a good start (apart from getting up at 3.30!!!).
Due to heavy cloud, we had to loop around the Bay Area before landing. Fortunately for us, this meant we experienced some great views as we descended. I could even see a tiny Golden Gate Bridge in the distance when the clouds parted slightly, and Alcatraz!
When we landed, we got the BART (metro) to Powell Street station and walked to our hotel. Again we were allowed to check in early which was great. Our hotel is nice and in a good location. The breakfast pastries look good too.
We decided we should do something before the basketball, so we walked the 30 minutes to Lombard Street. Due to it being Christmas and hardly anything being open, there were heaps of tourists here! But we still managed to walk up the crooked part of the street and take it in. It’s been coined ‘the world’s crookedest street’, but apparently this is wrong! Nevertheless, its sweeping views and pretty houses draw big crowds. The reason it’s bent is because once the car was invented and became commonplace, it was decided the street’s gradient was too steep to drive straight down. Many tourists were driving down the eight bends today - badly, I might add!
After this, we decided to get the cable car from the Powell-Mason turnaround for its entire length. We both held on to the outside and even though it was cold, we had lots of fun going up and down the hills hanging off the edge. The cable cars were first started in 1873 and today are an iconic SF symbol. Some of them are even decked out in Christmas stuff at the moment. Our car dinged and clanged its way past lots of tourists taking photos of us. We got off the cable car and were shocked to see a 50m queue at the southern terminus, especially since we had walked straight on - lucky us!!
Then we walked the 30-40 minutes to the Chase Centre, the present home stadium of the Golden State Warriors. On the way, we could see the baseball stadium that Mum, Dad, Adam and I went to in 2005.
Though the Golden State Warriors won the title in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 seasons, they’ve had a lot of misfortune this season. Imagine Collingwood only being allowed to have ten players in their game day team (five on court and five on the bench) and Pendlebury and Grundy both being out injured. Steph Curry and Klay Thomson have both sustained lengthy injuries this season, and as a result the Warriors’ season has been in tatters. My Year 10 boys told me that the Houston Rockets would smash them. So we walked there with not much expectation. But like any true Collingwood supporter, I held out a small hope that they could put on a show. We had paid $250 AUD each after all!
...and a show we got! It was close most of the game, with the Rockets getting out to an 11 point lead at one stage if I remember correctly. GSW clawed it back and ended up winning 116-104. The crowd went nuts as it’s now only their 8th win for the season out of 32 games, and it was the first ever Christmas Day NBA game in San Francisco. One to remember for sure, we had an awesome time. Watching Russell Westbrook and James Harden play for the Rockets was amazing, they are both such talented players. I liked D’Angelo Russell and Damion Lee for the Warriors. Lee was wearing one red and one green boot for Christmas too!! We saw some epic slam dunks and three pointers as well.
The only downer was that when we arrived we were told we would have to either throw out my perfectly good drink bottle, or pay $15 Aussie to check it. Thinking “stuff that” to both those options, we instead hid my drink bottle in a bush and it was still there afterwards! Yay for beating the system.
Like last time I came here though, the basketball has a crazy atmosphere. There is never a spare moment of silence, with dance moves, competitions and loud music filling the space. I hope AFL never becomes this overrun, because I love our family chats at the game. There were even indoor fireworks and bursts of fire during the national anthem. Very over the top!!
Afterwards, we got to ride the Muni (tram) for free with our game ticket, so we took it eight stops to near our hotel. We had dinner at a local restaurant where we each had a yummy meal and we watched the LA basketball derby. Now we are back in the room, we have done some washing and are watching Denver play New Orleans. On the half time show they just said "the Warriors were the biggest upset on Christmas in 30 years" - there you go!!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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