San Francisco

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San Francisco is a really cool place. Like Venice Beach in LA, it was pretty much how I imagined it (which is surprising as almost everywhere else in the US has been different to what I thought), the ex-hippy center of the world Upper Haight and Golden Gate Park especially so. I think I saw more male couples strolling down the street holding hands here, than I have in the rest of the US put together (winning by about 4-1 :p). I stayed here with Tamsin (a cousin), who lives in a nice 3 bedroom apartment pretty close to downtown. The public transport here is amazing, it seemed like you could get just about anywhere in the city from anywhere else in under an hour.

I can't remember how many nights I stayed, it was either 2 or 3, but however many it was I could've definitely spent longer (although the same applies to every single place I've been to so far, stupid time restrictions). As with alot of the places I've been, I spent my time just wandering through the city and exploring the places that sounded cool. Golden Gate Park was the first place I visited, and is absolutely massive (20% bigger than Central Park in New York City). There are a few museums in the park, but I didn't go to any. I checked out the huge botanical gardens and the Japanese gardens there, which were both very pretty, but I was mostly content with just the park itself. I ended up meeting another traveller at a bus stop there and we ended up going in search of a Jewish Music Festival that she'd heard about. However, when we got there it had either already finished or hadn't started yet, because there was a stage, but alas, there was no Klezmer.

The next morning me and Tamsin went for a walk along the waterfront so I could see the area she lived in (as well as the famous Golden Gate Bridge, from a distance), then I went on to catch my 19 hour bus ride up the West coast to Oregon, which unfortunately does not take the scenic route up Big Sur (but was fine anyway, it was overnight and I slept most of the way)

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