THE DAY WE DIDN’T GO TO SAN FRANCISCO

So we had to be back on the ship by 1530 for departure at 1630. So we saw the ferry schedule and saw we needed to take the 1100 ferry to SF, and the 1400 ferry back. So, we watched the 1100 ferry leave as we got there.

Oops.

Well, next time. We decided to see what Oakland had to offer. The answer is, not much. I’m pretty sure we saw all 4 things in Oakland today.

We went over to Jack London Square, which borders on a marina and is the center of the nice part of Oakland. Not many people around, but they had a lot of restaurants. We hadn’t had breakfast so we went for an early lunch at Kincaid’s. We were the first ones in, so they gave us the corner table right over the marina, which was awesome. Also, all the staff was really friendly, which was a little surprising since we definitely weren’t fancy enough for this place either. The lady at the next table totally gave me side-eye the entire time. Hey lady, I’ll do what I want with my money and you can’t stop me.

Afterward, we decided to go back to a shop we had glimpsed during our walk from Cody/Satchel’s apartment to the square. “World Market” promised food, art, and furniture from all over the world and we were interested to see what they had. While it took us an embarrassingly long time to find it again, we got there in the end.

Oh man, if I had a way to transport stuff home, I would totally have bought furniture. It was super neat. They also had stuff like musical instruments from Asia, wood carvings, wind chimes, dragon kites, and other folk art and clothes. Unfortunately, the store wasn’t very big, and we ended up at Jack London Square again maybe an hour later. But there was a Ben & Jerry’s store, so we weren’t sad for too long.

We also visited Jack London’s house, which has been transported from the Yukon to the middle of the square. Actually, it is half of Jack London’s house. Actually, it is a house built from half of Jack London’s deconstructed original house. What? And the other half built another house somewhere else. But they had a wolf statue, so that was nice. And that took up maybe 10 minutes. Left with really nothing left to do, we ended up back on the ship.

At this port stop, we went through a crew change. We got a new chief and 1^st engineer; the 1^st and 2^nd engineers we have been working with went back to being 2^nd and 3^rd engineer. We also have a new radio operator and new cook. So, we went to meet our new engineering bosses, and then went to the bridge for departure.