A local Local Guide guiding a Local Guide [Recap] #LGsummit2017 - Part 5 (By Andras)

[Andras_H]

A local Local Guide guiding a Local Guide [Recap] #LGsummit2017 - Part 5 (By Andras)

We are going to have many parts... This is the link for going to the index 

Part 1 here: By Ermest

Part 2 here: By Alejandra

Part 3 here: By Sarah

Part 4 here: By Natalka

10th of Oct

And after the official party, - (which was btw just way too short, ended around 9pm, so) - everybody was planning to have some additional drink, chit-chat, room party, walking through the city, or visiting some pub. We went out together with @Badruddeen, @MariaFernandaS, @AnuradhaP, @SoniaK, @MahabubMunna to place a called Sweetie's Art Bar - I am not sure, but maybe it was @TimBull's idea. @Lachlan_M_Wells was also with us - he left his backup (included passport) in one of the bear lockers in The Valley - so we had a mission as well. The bar was not too far from Hayatt, has a pretty original old SF style mood. We ordered some local beer, talked with locals, played billiard and we had fun. But the next day (11th of Oct) was the first day of the Summit so everyone wanted to be fit and rested, therefore we went back to the Hayatt pretty early, around midnight, maybe.

Let's break the linear story telling! I am going back to the past, to

8th of Oct for a little pre-summit recap. I hope you don't mind:)

That time we were only two of us in the Capri with @Badruddeen. Woke up early morning, the weather was just wonderful (clean air, high pressure, no clouds)

View from the Capri, early Sunday morning, 8th of Oct,had some breakfast at the Motel (only sweet cookies and coffee, no seats or table - but still we were excited) then we prepared for the biking!

Badru is ready for some SF biking

We went to the SF Biking meetup, organized by @KimberlyAnnG. The meeting point was the Justin Herman Plaza, in front of the Ferry Building. We were a little bit late so took an Uber to get there. The second challenge was for us to find the Ferry Building Bike Rentals - which actually had a wrong location that time - so we tried to find it the another side of the Ferry Building. Finally we found it.. (And I fixed the location on map, of course).  

Yes, I want that bike!The original route plan by @KimberlyAnnG was through the city upto the Golden Gate, then back to the Market St. But we changed it due to the Fleet Week at the south direction through some pretty interesting industrial / construction areas and old ferry buildings.

The first selfie is made by Kim at beginning of the bike tripWe were around 15, included JeanRV, IrenaS, AlejandraMaría, SampsonF, CaduF, MuhannadK, Carl, FazZ AnnaBcn JZhan and later JulienH joined. (I can mention only 10 LGs, so in the next post I will mention everybody) The first stop was at the Philz Coffee, we had a sunny coffee break, a second breakfast and a little chit-chat on the sidewalk.

Of course we took a lot of photos and videos. There were several 360 jumpings as well.. 🙂 You can check the LG Bike Tour of Mission Bay, SF photo album for more! By noon Badru and I biked around 15 km in total. Others in the group even went to the Golden Gate, they used the bikes all day long - We would have love that, but we have to drop off the bikes, because in the afternoon we had Yosemite preparation tasks:)

tracklog of the 15km long 4hrs bike trip in South Beach, Mission Bay and Dog Patch area (Runtastic Bike PRO)

So we had a fast lunch at the street (some kind of roasted sausage, hot-dog thing), then we went with the Line F (the historical tram) to the Embarcadero & Sansome St, because we wanted to check the Fleet Week first. That was the last day of the Air Show with the Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornets, which was just unbelievable breathtaking. They've flown very close to the the city and to the bay area. So laud and so fast! Just amazing. 

6x Blue Angels with the Ferry Building

Just a perfect teamwork, everything is in sync

Then we just noticed, there was some kind of electric car / bicycle test event  (don't remember the event name - @Badruddeen pls correct me if u know) So we did not hesitate too much - Let's try it! The electric bikes was fun, we could bike with almost zero power:) I am a road biker so probably I would it, but it can be pretty useful in a bike sharing system. About the cars. Actually I've driven only once in my life an electric car. That was a Nissan Leaf, in 2011 in San Francisco - what a coincidence! So I was pretty excited - because there were around 5-7 different models (BMW, Toyota, Honda) and even a Tesla S! However we could not try the Tesla S, but we got a chance to drive the BMW i3 and then the Toyota Mirai. They were surprisingly strong, both accelerate like a wild animal - we enjoyed both of them. After the test sessions we had even received free meals and drinks 😄 @Badruddeen has created a separate post about it with some photos, check that out!

Test driving the BMW i3

We were soooo late. We had to take the rented mini van by 3pm for Yosemite, but we finished with the test around 4pm. We took the Line F again to visit the Sixt Rent A Car. At that time the fellow LGs, @MariaFernandaS, @SoniaK and @AnuradhaP were almost ready at Capri, so we hurried up. At the Sixt I got the following discussion: (..while @Badruddeen was creating a 360 panorama inside the office...)

-"Unfortunately there is not any available mini van for you guys" said the agent. Whaaaat?! I almost got a heart attack. What we will do with the 14 people tomorrow? How can we get to Yosemite? What will I say to the guys? What will I....? But the agent continued:

-"We can provide you a bigger category for free of charge, is it good Sir?" - What a relief, OMG! Of course it is fine!

-"But you have to wait around 20-30 minutes, because we need to clean it" - Okay, we were already late, @SoniaK called us couple of times - she will kill us, I am sure, even if we have that vehicle. So we got a bigger category, a GMC Yukon XL 2017 - considered as a full size SUV. That isn't big, that is HUGE. But we needed that, because we didn't have any accommodation in SF, so we needed to bring our suitcases with us. And THAT car had enough space for 7 LGs and 7 huge suitcases - I was impressed. One more thing - they forgot the toddler seat for @AinurZ's little daughter, Zeyneb. We just noticed it in the parking lot (it is a different place) So I had to go back and ask them - additional 15 mins delay.

only for the photo: 2 days later, after Yosemite we were leaving our Airbnb House in Oakurst. Mahabub did the logistics and the little Zeyneb has helped himBUT finally we got everything from Sixt, so we could drive to the Capri to meet @MariaFernandaS, @SoniaK and @AnuradhaP. Then we went to the dinner which was organized by @SoniaK. Check the recap of the Pre Summit Food Crawl here! Afterwards we bought foodstuff for the Yosemite trip from Safeway. It was very late when we were in bed. Actually the Capri had two queen beds for 6 persons, (their pre committed spare beds were just not available) - but we somehow managed it 😄

9th of Oct, 3:00am, wake UP! Get ready! Let's start for the road trip!

 Heading to Yosemite, early morning sunset after around 3 hours of driving while everybody was sleeping in the car - it was so ZEN and relaxing

Early morning we had to...

Part 6 will be continued by.. @MariaFernandaS 🙂

[Andras_H]

And the missing mentions from @KimberlyAnnG's bike meetup:

@JeanRV, @IrenaS, @AlejandraMaria, @YK1001, @CaduF, @MuhannadK, @Carl, @FazZ, @AnnaBcn, and

[Andras_H]

 @JosephZhan and later @JulienH joined:)

[Andras_H]

And @ErmesT / @AlejandraMaria / @SarahKa / @NatalkaR, my local Local Guides were:

• @KarenVChin - She guided us during the Yosemite planning e.g. car rental, toddler seat, insurance:) She was always available and support us in those topics - Thank you Karen!

additional insurance - just in case

• @KimberlyAnnG - She organized that wonderful Biking SF on a Sunday Morning - gave us a lot of advice before the trip (where we can rent a bike, breakfast/coffee places) during the trip she was leading the tour, told stories about the places which we touched - Thank you Kim!Kim's advises & tips

• And the 3rd one is not really a local guide, at least he doesn't know that. He is actually one of my former work colleague, back to 2011. He lives here, in Brisbane. He picked me up from the Airport and we did a hike w 300+m elevation (even If I had such a huge jetlag). He guided me during that hike. We had a 360 degree panorama view from the San Bruno mountain to the whole Bay Area and to the Ocean. That was wonderful - Thank You Danny!5km hike to the San Bruno Mountain with 326m elevation right after 16hrs of flight and 9 hours jetlag - still wonderful

[ErmesT]

Thanks @Andras_H, what a beautiful post. I love the story, and the photos you added. Definetly, as I said maybe 100 times, next year (if I will be so lucky to be included in the list) I must stay longer.

I've linked your post to the index.

Thanks to @KarenVChin, @KimberlyAnnG, and Danny for being so local Local Guides. @KimberlyAnnG, would you like to share your story (from a local point of view) to the long story that we are sharing here?

Ermes

[Andras_H]

I am glad that you liked it @ErmesT. Thanks for adding me to the index:)

[Carl]

Loving the pictures! Great article 🙂

[MahabubMunna]

@Andras_H love you bro . share great moment . till now i feel it's a dream . just wokeup 

[NatalkaR]

@Andras_H wow! I like your recap! And your trip before summit was amazing! 

[Andras_H]

Thank you @Carl 🙂

I loved your Fleet Week video (too) you were pretty close to them. Let me insert it! 🙂