Last year for Richard’s birthday his parents gave him (or rather, us) membership to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. We have been, ever since, pondering when to get down there, except that they’ve been in process of doing a massive building project, actually replacing the previous building with a bright and shiny new one, chock full of all sorts of sustainable design features that I have been following (mainly because that is part of my job) as it’s been built.

So as the year has been creeping to a close we decided that we had better get down there if we were going to at all, now that the bright shiny new building is open. Naturally, we picked the Saturday after Christmas. Even better, as we managed to score one of the last parking spots in the little underground parking garage for the nearby museums, and hoofed it across the central plaza, so did most everyone else in the greater San Francisco area.

I did not take any pictures of the lines, although I should have because they were just that impressive. The line for the regular ticket holders stretched out past the building and trailed down the street as far as we could see, and they started giving regular announcements saying that they would actually stop selling tickets at 11:30 because it was that crowded. By the time we arrived (having gotten a slightly late start due to final piece for stairs FINALLY coming in, so contractor came by to install, yay), they were at capacity inside the building, so would only let people in once people inside had left.

Luckily for us, the line for membership holders was significantly shorter, so we were only in line about half an hour before we were finally able to get inside. And then once inside we realized that we had better stay and see every single thing possible because if we left, there was no going back.

We had fun, despite the insanity of the crowds everywhere. We wandered around the aquarium. We read all about all the green parts of the new building (and that amused me, mainly because having Educational Outreach is one of the points a project can earn in order to reach LEED certification). We went up to the roof and looked out over all the solar panels and the green roof full of skylights and growing things. We shuffled our way up the circular ramp all the way to the top of the rainforest dome and then took the elevator down to the bottom and walked through a tube made of glass, while huge fish swam lazily in circles overhead. We ate lunch at a rather nice little restaurant buried in the basement, where all the food was organic, or locally grown, and absolutely delicious. And of course I took a bunch of pictures.

Tis the season for Holidailies!