First day in the Bay

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After a decent but brief sleep we were awake at 5am on Wednesday, the hostels free breakfast opens at 7am so we were first in the que for that. The meals are in a big ballroom with a kitchen on the side, bizarre set up but works well. Plenty of juice, tea/coffee, bagels, fruit and that, filled up then headed out for our first day on the Bay.

We took a walk down through North Beach to Fishermans' Wharf, went through Telegraph Hill, a really nice area of San Francisco, loads of trendy houses and those mental streets you see on the films, zero danger I'm going cycling here.

Fishermans' Wharf is the touristy part of the city, where Alcatraz is on the one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other, both are impressive to see. We went to get a boat trip and tour to Alcatraz but it was sold out, we booked one for Monday morning.

Now I'm not the worlds best swimmer but I can't believe that only Sean Connery escaped from Alcatraz, it looks about 500m from the Wharf, I know there would have been people shooting at you and that but come on? A quick 10 minute front crawl and your home free, I don't think they were trying hard enough, more time needed at Tough Guy School I think, or maybe it wasn't as bad as people make out and they really wanted to stay? I'll confirm on Monday.

We wandered down towards the Golden Gate thinking it was just around the corner, 20 minutes later we were at the top of Fort Mason and could see it was about another 40 mins away, "want to leave this for another day" Fiona suggested, "I concur". Went for a wander around the Bay again then decided to take a Cable Car up town, it wasn't quick or comfortable but the Yanks love them, what felt like a fortnight later we were in Union Square, just like all American major city centre, big shops, huge buildings and a collection of freaks shouting stuff while pushing a trolly full of empty soda cans, what the funk do they do with them? Build an aluminium house?

The infamous pub, The Edinburgh Castle, is in an area called the Tenderloin, this is dodgesville USA, not a place to go at night we were advised, but is just outside the centre so we wanted to take a look while we were in the neighbourhood. Now I was told this pub was just outside our hostel before I went, all I can say is thank the great lord we're staying far away from here.

Anyway after walking about 10 blocks in the wrong direction we finally made it on to 1st Street, the pub is off 7th Street so we started to wander, 1st - 3rd was the Financial District, really nice, sky scrapers (SP?) and that, 3rd - 4th was studentville, a couple of Universities but getting a wee bit uncomfortable, 4th - 6th was murder, full of brothers on street corners rapping and that, one dude took his shirt off then started dancing in front of us, I didn't know whether to put a couple of bucks in his pants or walk around him, we took the second option. We were starting to feel pretty intimidated, we hadn't seen a white face for a couple of blocks and everyone was making a point of checking us out, the pace quickened and we decided to abort the search for the Edinburgh Castle.

After a couple of quick turns and a lot of luck we were back on Mission Street, the trendy street around Union Square, we got back on the Cable Car and headed up to China Town, a walk down through Little Italy and back to hostel, we were out all day and had a great time, took a few photo's today so will hopefully get some on here in the next couple of days.

It was battering down with rain at night so we walked to an Italian round the corner, nice meal and a couple of bottles of wine then back to the hostel, we were shattered so went to bed about 10pm, I think I'm still on UK time though as it's 4am as I write this, Fiona seems to be sleeping fine (as usual) but I'm already waiting for breakfast and planning another day. It's still raining so Fiona's plan to walk the Golden Gate Bridge might have to be put on hold, there's loads to do though and I'll fill you in tomorrow, hopefully at a more sociable hour but I'm not counting on it.

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Photos

Fiona at Pier 39
Fishermans' Wharf

Andrew at Pier 39
Fishermans' Wharf, Alcatraz in the background