First two days in San Fran

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we arrived in San Fran on Sunday after a feat time in San Diego. We had only heard great things about San Fran and were looking forward to it. It's also our longest stay as we are here four nights, mostly because there is a basketball game on the last night. We jumped on the bus and headed to find our hotel. On our journey we accidentally got off a few stops too early And had to walk about 10 blocks to find our motel. Unfortunately we got off in the poorest part of the city. Due to San Frans weather it has the highest homeless rate in the country, something we witnessed first hand on that walk which was confronting and intimidating at times. We were told that there were a few but didn't expect this as the homeless use the sidewalks as their own personal toilet and hassle you for donations, including one waliking right up to Theresa as we crossed the road trying to sell something for a dollar and wouldn't accept no for an answer. We made it to our motel and checked in not sure if we wanted to go out again. When we digested what we had saw we headed for the tourist area and Fishermans Warf and Pier 39. We got there by cable car which was super fun hanging off the side with a rather funny tram controller, who informed us that ee were going down a big hill with bad breaks and to 'tuck and roll'. Fishermans Warf anad the Pier were nice as we looked around but it was still fairly dirty with less homeless. Here we had stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. We stopped at an old dinner for lunch and kept looking around. After a good look we walked to Lombard street, the crookedest street in the world. That's there description of the street which was pretty cool, it again had great views over the bay before we jumped back in a cable car and headed for home. For dinner we visited the Cheesecake Factory where we had a small snack followed by a massive dessert. We were still not sure we wanted to spend four nights here or start in highway 1 early but wer going to decide the following day.

On Monday we woke up knowing we would be visiting Alcatraz today. We headed down to cash in our tickets and head to the island. When we cashed in our tickets we were told dr also had 48 hours on the hop-on-hop-off bus and a few other touristy things. Our boat to Alcatraz wasn't until the afternoon so we did a tour of the city on the bus which ws very interesting as the city has a lot of history. It took us to the dodgy street we walked down the day before were they informed us that it was the poorest place in the city with lots of crime and tourists are advised to stay away after dark. It was the setting for the Will Smith movie, the Pursuit of Happiness. They tour took 2.5 hours and we saw all the great things about the cit and the different activities and places you could visit. We decided that we could easily do the 4 nights as we still had a day to visit Sausalito, a small beachside community Ryan's aunty said you must visit. As we did the bus in the morning the whole bay was covered in fog and although we went over the Golden Gate Bridge you could hardly see 5 metres in front of you. We also didn't dreaz for the cold as the bus top wasn't coverred and by the time we were finished we were absolutely freezing and needed a hit coffee/chocolate to beat us up. After that it was close to our ferry for Alcatraz so we went and waited our turn to visit the hardest prison in US history. The trip over was very nice as he fog had created and we had beautiful views of the whole pay, every direction you looked there was something which stood out. On the Island we took the audio tour around the gaol which gave great detail of what is was like. There were a few major events including a 3 day riot from the prisoners after a failed escape bid. They told the story of 3 people who got out and were never recovered, they are unsure if they made it to land or disappeared in the water somewhere. The gaol was quiet busy when we arrived but by the end the island was quieter which gave a spookier feeling of the place.

On the Monday night was the final of the college football competition. College football is almost bigger than pro football here so it was a massive game. This year was also the first time they had a finals format a before we think the best team was just awarded the trophy without winning a final as such. Ryan was keen to get to a sports bar and watch it with some atmosphere. This seemed like a great idea until we reached our firat, second and third bar. In town during our visit there is a variety of conferences, which it appears only middle aged men in suits have been invited to. They dominated every pub so we settled for a quiet diner with he football on a small TV.

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