Lots of fish, carousels and lousy photos...

That's mostly what I saw/did in California. Not a lot of pics to be shared this time, as most of my photos were incredibly blurry. I blame the shakiness on jet lag. Yeah. That's it. Jet lag.

Anyway.

We flew into San Francisco and explored the town for a few days before driving down the coast to Carmel by the Sea, where my brother was getting married. SF is a great town, with an astonishing number of carousels. But it's DAMN cold there. Seriously, Iceland was warmer.

The first day we arrived, we checked into the hotel and wandered down to Pier 39. Holy cheezball tourist trap. But still, lots of fun.



The Aquarium of the Bay was our first stop, and it was SO much fun to go through the tunnels and gape at the sharks swimming over our heads.



As you can see, the kids enjoyed themselves too. Perhaps in different ways...but there were still many giggles. After that, we wandered up and down the pier, watched the sea lion sunning themselves (stinky!),



ate our way through the wharf, watched a pirate magic show, and the kids had their first ride on a carousel. After that, we crashed at the hotel. We were staying on Fisherman's Wharf, and the view was stunning.



Though, just looking at Alcatraz gave me the willies, day or night.



There's some seriously bad vibes coming out of that place.

The next day we visited Golden Gate Park, and the California Academy of Sciences.



I think that this was my favourite of the aquarium/museums that we visited. It was AMAZING. Highly recommend it if you're in SF, above all other options.



Honestly, we could have stayed there all day and night.



Here are some of the denizens of the Academy:







and after we left the Academy, guess what we found? An awesome playground, complete with carousel.



Next post, the Exploratorium and *that* bridge.