Fleet Week and the America's Cup

We've been spending most of our time unpacking boxes and building furniture, but we finally got out of the house this weekend to enjoy Fleet Week, a multi-day affair of air shows and other military demonstrations. Ben had been twice before (in 2006 and 2007), but I'd never seen it, and this year it coincided with the America's Cup sailboat race.

Most of the events were centered around the marina, on the city's northern edge and a solid hour away from our apartment. So far I haven't been impressed at all by San Francisco public transit, and trying to get to Fleet Week did nothing to improve my impressions. The subway covers only a tiny fraction of the city, leaving the buses to do most of the work of actually moving people around. But there aren't that many lines, the buses don't come that often, they often don't show up on schedule, and they're usually too crowded when they do appear. I've been pining after the Buenos Aires colectivos, which seem chaotic before you get to know the system, but which can get you anywhere once you figure out how to use them.

In this case, our very crowded and slow bus kept turning people away all route, until we got about halfway there and a man in a wheelchair wanted to board, at which point the driver emptied the whole front half of the bus. Figuring this was going to be a long ordeal, we decided to walk the rest of the way. The upside was this very nice view:

We got there just in time for the beginning of the America's Cup race. The U.S. teams came in first and fifth out of eleven teams. The boats are catamarans with "fixed wing" hard sails, making them look unlike any other boat in the marina and making them insanely fast (and dangerous).

(The A.P. has much better photos than we could get.)

Next up were the Navy Blue Angels, the elite F-18 squadron famous for performing precision maneuvers in close formation. (First photo from 2006, others from now.)

(More posts coming soon about our road trip, new apartment and woodworking projects.)

- Steph