Another side of San Fran and the Napa Valley

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Golden Gate park is a freeway! The green area is criss crossed with roads and everyone bloody drives through here ruining any tranquillity that one would go to a park to find. There are two museums in the park but the Art Gallery queue extends out of the door and the Science Museum queue is longer still, trailing back out into the car park probably due to it just re-opening. We skip both and walk on through the drizzle to the lake thinking of hiring a boat but decide against given the daylight robbery prices and rain that comes and goes. We take a few wrong turns trying to escape the tarmac and grass verge 'park' and loop the long way around back towards Haight Street. Alternative hippies, crusties, rockers and dropouts hang out on Haight Street in the record stores, smoke shops, sex stores and clothing shops. There is a really cool graphics magazine and toy shop called Big Robot and a chaotic rambling music store called Amoeba Music. Most of the walls in Haight Street are decorated with graffiti and there is a real alternative vibe to the place. We have a few drinks at a bar where a Scottish bar woman gives us double strength vodka's and orange juice on the grounds of us being from back home, well near enough. Kevin is cooking for us and we return a bit pissed and relieved that they have already drunk a bottle of wine. We help them polish off another couple of fine reds and a sticky desert wine to finish off an excellent meal.

We cook a curry the following evening for which the ingredients cost an arm a leg from the healthy, organic and fashionable supermarket around the corner. It's a pleasure to cook on their six ring gas cooker and well equipped and spacious kitchen.

The next day we visit the Napa valley a region well know for it's vineyards and wine making. It's great fun visiting many different vineyards and sampling their wine. It is unfortunate that they choose to charge around $15 for three or sometimes four sips of wine It's not a very cost effective way of getting drunk but good fun nevertheless.

We visit Alcatraz. Beware if you book online there is a $10 per person mark up on the site we were unfortunate enough to book our tickets, which is kind of ironic as we felt we had been robbed on the way to Alcatraz. The crammed ferry took about fifteen minutes to get to Alcatraz island where we were given a brief talk on where to find things before walking up the hill to the prison. We took the audio tour where prison officers and old inmates of the island talk about their experiences and describe the day to day life on the island. They tell tales of the notorious inmates and events that happened there. One of the more bleak stories was that of an inmate who invented a game called 'Hunt the button' to stem his boredom when the lights went out at night. He would stand in the corner of his cell and throw a button up in the air then crawl around on his hands and feet until he found it. He would then throw the button again. We throughly enjoyed the visit it was very interesting and almost worth the mark up that we paid.

The next day we went to the cinema to watch Friday the 13th which was a dreadful excuse for a horror movie full of beautiful people being hacked up in various grizzly ways baring lots of breasts as they die. After the film we head for a vegetarian restaurant that turned out to be a cafe with no license. We consulted the map and find another vegetarian restaurant a few streets away. We walked through a district called Tenderloin where there is about two raggedy homeless people to every corner. They stagger around babbling semi coherently and shouting at each other or no one in particular not. It's a desperate and depressing scene and a darker side to San Francisco that we had no seen around Pacific Heights. We arrived at the restaurant after a twenty minute walk to find it closed. We walk on down the hill and duck into an Irish pub avoiding the attentions of a beggar at the front door. Inside we sup Irish cider and eat the best fish and chips we've had since leaving Old Blighty. We grab a taxi out of Tenderloin to a comedy club arriving about ten minutes before the show is due to end at nine which seems very early for a comedy club to close but I suppose people do have to go to work in the morning. We cut our loses and hail a cab back to Kevin and Susan's place. I am not sure that the driver is very familiar with the streets of San Francisco he is definitely not on friendly terms with the controls of his car and we feel luck to arrive in one piece.

Sadly the next day is time to leave San Francisco and our wonderful hosts and head for Sydney. I hail a cab from the corner while Lou waits at the front door with the bags. I explain to the driver that I would like to go to the airport but need to stop around the corner to pick up some bags. He drives off past Lou and the bags 'Stop here please I need to pick up my bags' I say, he keeps driving. 'Stop here please' he pulls over fifty yards up the road. 'I need to pick up my bags from back there'

'We go to the airport now?' he replys.

'No, I need to get my bags first their back there' . The driver huffs irritably. I don't mind the misunderstanding but I am a little annoyed that he is being grumpy with me about it. I count to ten. It's a one way street so we have to go around the block. There is an opportunity to cut through the super market car park which I point out and the driver either ignores me or does not understand. I count to twenty. Eventually we get back around to Lou we say a final farewell to Kevin and set off for the airport. We manage to get dropped off at the correct drop off point after a only a couple more misunderstandings and much to my displeasure Lou tips the driver. San Francisco airport is well laid out and a breeze to navigate. We board our plane and do our best to settle in for the thirteen hour flight.

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