San Francisco

We arrived in the early afternoon and found a motel straight away.
We are starting to get quite good at getting rooms. I went in to the office and told the guy that we wanted to stay two night and didn't want to pay more than $100 a night. He complained like mad saying that he could charge $170 for a room on a friday. I just kept quiet and he eventually relented and said ok. It wasn't the best place to stay but for $200 we wern't going to complain.
We unpacked and the walked down to the fishermans wharf. We had a wander round and found out where to catch the ferry to Alcatraz.
After all the walking we caught a taxi back to the hotel.
The next day we started on the 49 mile scenic tour of the city. As we couldn't work out where it went we did our own version. The switchbacks at the end of lombard is absolutely great. I got loads of points and shouted at for trying to run over Japanese tourists. We then went up and down some of the hills with me trying to emulate Steve Mcqueen in Bullet. The girls thought that it was great and that we were on a roller coaster. We then stopped in the golden gate park and had a walk up strawberry hill. coming down the side is a waterfall to a lake that goes all the way around the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a wonderful pagoda that was donated from the sister city of Topai.
We then drove back to the fishermans wharf and parked. We then walked down to pier 33 to catch the ferry over to alcatraz. When we got there the next available ferry was at 2.20pm the next day. We were a little disapointed, It took us a while to calm Ellie down. Oh well, the lesson is if you wish to visit Alcatraz is to book in advance. Only one ferry company are allowed to dock on the island.
We then walked back down to Pier 39. This is very touristy and also very expensive. We walked down to the end of the pier and could here this din of barking. We walked over to where it was coming from and found about 12 or 14 wooden platforms covered in sea lions all trying to being the loudest. it was deafening. We sat in the seal lion cafe and had food. I asked the waitress if she could claim for paracetamol as a perk to help with the headaches. I don't think that americans understand the british sense of humour. We sat there for about 40 minutes and I had to go as it was starting to get too much.
We walked down to pier 47 and sat in a bar called lou's that played live blues. It was fantastic. We sat outside and had a beer or two, whilst listening to some great funky blues music.
we have decided that it is the best city that we have visited in the states so far. There is far too much to see and do for a two day visit. The vibe is very layed back and almost european. We definately intend to go back.

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