Trains and Boats and Planes

Welcome, fearless reader. This week has been a busy one - I've been over to visit my colleagues at Google Zurich, which reminded me how wonderful Europe is, and Helen has been squeezing in yoga classes in addition to an extended volunteering schedule.

But that's not the subject of this week's blog. Instead, I'm going to tell you the story of the little adventure we had last Saturday, which involved two of the three modes of transport in the title.

Now as I've mentioned before, for those not familiar with the geography here, San Francisco itself is on the tip of a peninsula which encloses the Bay to the East, with the Pacific Ocean on the left. I keep thinking that it's a bit like Poole Harbour, with the city built at Sandbanks, but to give you some impression of size, the interwebs tell me that Poole Harbour has an area of 14 square miles, whereas the Bay is somewhere between 400 and 1600 square miles, depending on how you measure it. Our adventure last weekend was to venture to the North Bay for the first time since we arrived here. Specifically, we took the train up to San Francisco, got on a ferry across the Bay to Larkspur, then took what is a very new train service from there up to Novato and back. The goal was really to experience that new train, but as they often say about these things, the journey is the reward.

The Bay Area is the home of tech, and that means you should be prepared to see some whacky things out on the streets. Scooters (electric or not, you choose) are ubiquitous; those little electric unicycle/hoverboard things are relatively common; but until last Saturday, I'd never seen an autonomous security robot. Well, there's a first time for everything:

At the bottom of Market Street is San Francisco's famous Ferry Building, which really is next to a ferry terminal. From here, you can take the ferry to various places, including Larkspur in the North Bay:

We took the ferry, which was pleasant enough, then reached the other side, where the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) now terminates. This is a relatively new commuter rail project, which has been planned for years, but has only just reached Larkspur. It's mostly single track, reusing the alignment of one of the many old railways which were active in this region but ripped up post-war as car and plane travel took hold. For some reason, when they reinstated it they didn't bother to electrify, so as a result the line is worked by these rather fancy diesel railcars:

The population density isn't particularly high up in the North Bay, and the trains aren't that frequent; the ferries don't run all that late either. So we took a quick ride up to the town of Novato, had 20 minutes there (which is about 7 minutes more than you need to see all of Novato), then came back. The train runs all the way to Sonoma County Airport, and has plans to run further still:

The ferry ride back from Larkspur to San Francisco was the real treat. We chose to sit on the outside deck, and with the sun setting into the Pacific, were treated to amazing views of the Bay (i.e. the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz island). The only downside is the speed and spray: the GPS on my phone says the ferry does about 40mph, and standing up in a constant 40mph wind on a January afternoon is pretty chilly even here in California. But it was worth it for views like this:

The Golden Gate bridge, with Alcatraz island sneaking in on the left

Downtown San Francisco from the Bay. The Transamerica Pyramid is prominent.

The ferry ride is a great and relatively cheap way to quickly see some of the sights here and get your bearings and will definitely be recommended for the Summer months!

Finally, I can't close without mentioning the continued success of the 49ers. In last week's playoff match, they had a convincing win over the Green Bay Packers, and now have a couple of weeks to recuperate before the Superb Owl in Miami, which is next weekend. We did our best to sit through the whole game, although attention did start to wander in the second half. As a result, I think we've got some vague idea of what's going on, and actually experiencing the Superb Owl in real time seems like a thing we need to do as part of the American experience.