Blame the Mythbusters, I do

There’s no escaping the fact that we are geeks. One of the reasons we decided to visit San Francisco was that we are without doubt die-hard Mythbusters fans. The boys spent the day expecting to see Adam and Jamie round every corner. Instead they saw Yoda.

But first we had to visit another iconic US concept – the mall. The US managed to perfect and export consumerism as exemplified in the mall. But now others have taken the idea and run with it – so an Australian company seems to own half the malls around the world. We stopped in at a major mall on the outskirts of San Francisco with one goal in mind – the Lego store. An entire shop devoted to Lego is, without doubt, a thing of true beauty. And the Lego shop sits opposite the Apple store, so I got to look at toys too. The boys came away with a deeper appreciation of the Lego range and a kit each (I did not come away with anything Apple). But that was far from the whole geeky Lego experience for the day.

We drove on into San Francisco, and our car filled with screams when we recognised one of the often-used Mythbusters locations. I doubt a disused runway often generates that level of enthusiasm.

So we found our new home in a lovely wooden building on a classic San Franciscan street and then drove into the very center of town to dispose of our car. As always I breathed a sigh of relief to get rid of the car – useful beasts, but just not a thing I love.

Then we walked round the corner to Union Square. There was a lovely big Christmas tree, and an outdoor skating rink, and… a twelve-foot high Yoda Santa made from Lego. Well that’s not quite true, at the point we arrived Yoda’s legs were all that had been built. So we all settled down to Lego building to help create A Twelve Foot High Yoda Santa made from Lego (see, I had to repeat those words).

As we walked back to our house, the heavens opened and the rain poured down. We got to try out our own version of a classic Mythbusters episode: do you get more wet walking or running in the rain? Our conclusion? It makes no difference, we got comprehensively soaked no matter what we did. To finish the day we had pizza in front of the television and watched… well, Mythbusters of course.

But you know the really weird thing about San Francisco and Mythbusters and American consumerism? There’s not a solitary, single Mythbusters themed activity or tour available in the entire city. And that’s, sadly, no myth.