Happy Thanksgiving!

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ok so its taken a while to get started but here goes... first stop San Francisco

I arrived into San Fran at 9am on 23 Nov - Thanksgiving! I was a bit worried everything would be closed as people celebrated at home however the airport was definitely buzzing with everyone flying in to visit family. I got a shuttle to the Green Tortoise hostel, the biggest backpackers in San Fran, which turned out to be an awesome place to stay!! It was really central to the city and the bay so I spent my first day thoroughly jet-lagged as I wandered around the area.

It was a glorious day (particularly for San Fran) - clear blue skies and sunshine and a crisp 17 degrees... quite refreshing after the recent heat in Sydney. I walked down to the bay and all along the waterfront - its a very touristy area and was really busy. The bay is beautiful and I didn't realise there were so many other bridges there besides the Golden Gate bridge. I caught a cable car back up to my hostel and got ready for the big Thanksgiving feast that the hostel was putting on that night, and met a lovely Irish girl Joanne in my room so was glad to have company! Downstairs I met another girl she'd met that day, Emma from the UK, and we all had our dinner together. The dinner catered for about 100 people from the hostel and included the full works - Turkey and cranberry sauce, Yorkshire pud, gravy, veges and then pumpkin pie, pecan pie and cookies. Was amazing... and free!! The hostel is in a really old building and the dining room is called the International Ballroom and seems to actually be an old ballroom so is very big and grand with high ceilings, stained-glass windows and a parquetry floor. Had an excellent atmosphere with candles on all the tables. i struggled to stay awake through the night then somehow found my 2nd wind and 8 hours and quite a few beers later we'd made plenty more friends and were still kicking on in the ballroom! slept well that night...

We all got up fairly slowly in the morning but then went and hired bikes and rode all around the bay and across the Golden Gate bridge then down into a little seaside village on the other side called Sausalito. Was another magical day and was an amazing way to see the bridge and more of the bay area. After a big American lunch (a cheeseburger of course), we rode back down to the bay and caught a ferry home to San Fran. Felt so good to have been out exercising and were all exhausted however the hostel had a pub crawl organised that night so we all napped, showered and headed out again! it was a fairly uneventful night - the pub crawl only consisted of 3 pubs?? i expected as least 5!! however was in good company so had fun. slept in late in the morning and was up just in time to get to the airport and catch my plane to Vancouver!

Definitely need more time in San Fran so hopefully we'll come back after the season. Need to go to Alcatraz and head up into the Russian Hill area and the Mission district. lots to see and do!

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