The other "big sight" at Pier 39 were the many sea lions frolicking on wooden docks, making a racket in the process. It was surprisingly entertaining watching the obese mammals flop in and out of the sea. There was an informational billboard nearby that mentioned how many of the female sea lions live there year round, while the male came by as "visitors." I used this as an opportunity to teach Francois what quotation marks, or "bunny ears," are used for, which was actually a very difficult thing to do without using complicated words like "insinuate."

We had lunch at one of the many restaurants specializing in clam chowder and sourdough bread, which are apparently specialties of San Francisco. I know a few of my relatives in New England would have a few words to say about the idea that clam chowder is a "San Francisco thing," but in fairness the sourdough bread was better than I expected.

For the afternoon's activities we headed North to tour a couple of "factories," both of which serve very different consumers in the food industry: the Jelly Belly Factory and the Budweiser Brewery.

Apparently, the Jelly Belly Factory is a popular place because there was a 45 minute wait before we received our free tour. I felt bad about suggesting we visit this place because we were the only ones over the age of 16, barring the parents and grandparents who were waiting alongside their children and grandchildren. There was a definite Chuckee-Cheese feel to the place with all the loud kids running around, parents helpless to stop them.

The tour lasted 20 minutes, although with the poor microphone system most of the learning came through looking down through the glass windows onto the factory floor. Pictures were outlawed, but I snapped a quick (and somewhat crooked) photo capturing thousands of stacked crates full of jelly beans (shown to the right).

At the end of the tour everyone was given a packet of jelly beans. I have never been crazy about the candy, so after trying ten or so I was finished - they are simply too sugary. Besides, some moron at Jelly Belly thought it would be a good idea to mix in flavors like vomit, rotten eggs, ear wax, and boogers so that people never know what they will be eating. While this sounds interesting in concept, it isn't exactly a good marketing strategy. Maybe anything is a better marketing strategy than the 50 year old picture shown to the left. It is a wonder anyone bought such candy back then!

Next on the agenda was the Budweiser brewery, which serves California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii. Pictures were not allowed here, and it is just as well because large steel tanks are not very interesting to look at anyway. Besides, the tour was a mere inconvenience that people endured before receiving their choice of two free beers in the tasting area. I opted for Budweiser on tap (the freshest I will ever taste) and then worked my way through the other specialty beers on offer. In all, I ended up having five or pints of beer because Dorothy and Yvette gave me their complimentary tickets and I also volunteered for a "beer freshness tasting." One of the glasses contained beer that was left out for a week (or some such duration) while the other was "fresh off the production line," and my job was to determine which one was which. (Of course, I succeeded, but in truth the difference in taste was not as significant as one might imagine.) What is important is that by the time I left the beer brewery, I was feeling sufficiently buzzed, and all of it was free.

I would be spending the night at the apartment of a friend of mine, Eric, but as he would not get off work until 7:00 p.m. we had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop by UC Berkeley, which is only 30 minutes away from San Francisco.

We walked around campus for a bit before Dorothy took us to a famous pizza place called Blondie's. Much like the clam chowder thing, I don't think California is known for its pizza, but the pizza was still pretty damn tasty. I capped off the Chicago-styled slice with a Bubble Tea from a nearby shop called Sweethearts.

Francois and Yvette rode San Francisco's public transit network to get home while Dorothy and I drove over to Oakland where Eric lives. He arrived at the same time as us, so after chatting for a bit we headed out to grab some food for dinner. I insisted on genuine Mexican food, which I am more likely to find here than anywhere else in the United States. We ended up driving a few minutes to where the nightly Taco Truck sets up, and I ordered a pork burrito, a head taco (meaty parts of the head are used), and an insides taco (using heart, liver, stomach, etc.) Obviously, the pork burrito tasted the best, but I could not resist trying the others.

I passed out on the couch of Eric's apartment while watching the US women's volleyball team escape a scare against Belgium, bringing to a close the longest August 14th of my life.