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25th Sep 2011 - 10th Oct 2011 - USA - Again Fleet Week in San Francisco Fleet Week again in San Francisco! and brought with it the sun - well, for part of this time at least. San Francisco at the moment is over-run by sailors and also the many tourists who have come to town. So it is unusually busy, especially up where I am as it seems that every visitor to San Francisco also comes to crooked Lombard St. But, oh my goodness, how young those sailors are - they all look like they have just left school (and probably have) - it really brings home how young the military are, who are fighting in Afghanistan and other places - still young boys with their whole lives ahead of them - I was quite shocked - some of them hardly look as if they have had their first shave! Fleet Week has brought with it some rare sunny days, which has been a wonderful treat. So, I was very lucky this week - not working was a great advantage, as the Blue Angels did their practices on Thursday and Friday in preparation for the weekend Air Shows. They are simply amazing - flying on formation of 6 planes, 3 feet apart, upside down too at times!! With wonderful and scary low altitude flying and sudden fly pasts - they are soooo fast at such close range. A rare treat and I thought this was a wonderful reminder of where I am living. Funnily enough, many people complain about the noise and the planes as they are practicing all their fly past and manoevres each afternoon. I thought it was fun, but I have to admit it is a little bit un-nerving to be driving over a hill on one of the steep streets, only to be confronted by a jet of some kind seemingly about to dive-bomb your car coming over the other side of the hill!! Notwithstanding this and the traffic jams caused by drivers paying more attention to the skies than the traffic lights, and the car alarms constantly going off every time one of the jets whizzed by, I thought it was fun. And this is one of the few times we are allowed on to the roof deck of our apartment block, we also had the rare opportunity to see the city from this very exciting - and high - vantage point. The Blue Angels actually fly directly over our block in some of their fly pasts - the noise is deafening and they are so close we sometimes thought we would have to duck!! A rare treat to see them over and under the Golden Gate Bridge and doing all their amazing flying manoevres. I have taken so many great videos - Chris is going to set up a drop-box for me to put them on the net as they are too many megaBytes to send. On Saturday, my friend Deb Faust was in town, so we spent time at the wonderful Ferry Building markets before heading home for the first of the Air Shows. We were lucky enough to see the full show complete with commentary from one of the men living in my block, who used to be a Navy airman. This is his great week and during the week, he has his old navy flying buddies over to watch the shows and drink whisky, all resplendent in their navy gold-buttoned suits and medals. A few minutes before 3pm, he goes downstairs and comes back up with his flying overalls on, complete with Top Gun logo and his Navy cap. What a sight!! But he was able to talk us through all the manoevres and provided interesting commentary, that is for sure. On Sunday, I had some friends over for lunch and we intended to watch Sunday's show - but the day took on a life of its own. Gilbert came over and our colleague Arthur with his new wife who comes from Thailand. We had planned to have a lovely lunch, which I prepared from all the lovely fresh produce from the markets the day before. However, Arthur arrived at the apartment right on time for lunch, only to find that everyone else had descended on Russian Hill and that there was no parking in our street. He drove off to find a spot and disappeared for an hour!! He had to park the car 2 miles away and catch a cab back to the apartment. So we only had time for a quick appetizer before we headed up on to the roof for the show. However, the fog was rolling in fast and furious and by the time it was 3pm Blue Angels time, things were pretty grim. Fat Albert, the plane that comes ahead of them, painted like a duck (!) flew over the city a few times, checking out the situation and the Blue Angles did arrive soon after. However, they had to go to higher altitude and as fast as they were circling the city, the fog was moving in!! The Coast Guard, meanwhile was busy moving all the boats in the Harbour to prepare a new clear zone (due to their low altitude fly pasts the Coast Guard had previously confined boats to certain areas) By the time they had done a few fly pasts, it was clear that it was too dangerous for their close flying and sadly, they had to fly back home (in formation, which is still pretty impressive!) So, we all went back downstairs, had a wonderful afternoon late lunch - early dinner which stretched on to almost 7pm. It was an interesting but fun way to while away our Sunday but imagine our surprise - when we went out later for a walk to Lombard St, we were amazed to see that the fog had completely disappeared, the sun was shining and the skies were clear!! Short lived - today, we are back to rainy October, which will pretty much persist for the rest of the month. Oh well, we will have to wait until next year's Show. Next:  Only in San Francisco! Previous:  Me Again - Checking In

7th Oct 2011  Blue Angels

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7th Oct 2011  Blue Angels

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7th Oct 2011  Stuart Kuhn, Deb Faust and myself - Fleet Week

Stuart lives in my block and every year, he wears his Top Gun suit for the Blue Angels display, seen so amazingly from our roof. As we are on the very top of Russian Hill, we are very close to the action as they fly overhead. Stuart used to be a Navy airman.

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7th Oct 2011  Blue Angles over San Francisco

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8th Oct 2011  Fat Albert - the Herald Plane for the Blue Angels

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8th Oct 2011  Blue Angels

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8th Oct 2011  Blue Angels - only 3 ft apart

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8th Oct 2011  Blue Angels over San Francisco

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8th Oct 2011  Blue Angels

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