Can I buy some legs?

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Another crazy full day in San Francisco....I could get used to these bagels with cream cheese and jam for breakfast, yum! We rounded out our diet for the day with pizza for lunch, leftover chinese takeaways for dinner and irish coffee for dessert....wow tomorrow its salad and water for me! Having said that, I think we can be excused. We spent over 5 hours solidly walking and made further use of San Francisco's fantastic bus network, which we found gets a little more interesting on Sundays.

Alright I'll give you some chronological order here, much as I enjoy recounting my life in all its culinarily ordered glory. After a semi quiet night in the Mission area, in a divine little bar Ju will tell you more about (although quiet is relative...most bars close here at 2 it would seem, we made it back to the hostel a little after 1), we slept in this morning and woke in time for late Sunday breakfast which is served at the hostel till 11, such sinful decadence!

Being the Puritan I am, and cleanliness being next to Godliness, I then spent an hour or so in the shower (I can't get over the showers here! I was expecting all manner of fungal encrusted horrors and I find clean tiles, good water pressure and no one yelling at me that its nearly dinner time!) before we headed to Haight Ashbury with a few friends from the hostel, the hippy area from back in the 60's. Amazing clothes shops, gorgeous street paintings, and the cafes all looked great, way too many yummy foods to choose from! I was tempted to check out the tattoo expo and bring a souvenir home but resisted the temptation ;D

Much as I would have loved to spend the day shopping we got distracted by a festival of sorts in the park (after some skillful avoidance of gang members and drug pushing bums, it's a colourful area alright), where members of the public show up and join in playing drums, wailing loudly and playing saxophone etc...some aging hippies shaking their groove things and capoeira (oh god how do I spell that??) made an entertaining afternoon. And that's when we made our first mistake.

Well ok maybe not. But we certainly picked a ciruitious route through the park. Warning: the enormous botanical garden here is easy to find your way into, but getting out again is a little more tricky! To cut a long story short, we had a very long trek to the bison enclosure...decided that bisons are about as interesting as cows in a paddock and made our way to ocean beach 20 minutes further walk, by which time it was getting pretty cold and there were many tired feet. We made it there in time for a gorgeous sunset, and some nutters (I can only assume it must have been the drug pushing bums from the park, can't imagine anyone else would be crazy enough to swim in this weather) were kite surfing in the sunset. We made our way to the bus stop.

And had to transfer buses twice to get back to the hostel! I think they give drivers rests on Sundays and have 'pick your own route and finish whenever you like' days....we returned victorious however and fell upon our dinner like ravenous wolves (according to Ju I howl when she kicks me in the leg. You should try it some time, apparently it's fun!). And were coaxed out to Vesuvio again...we love this cafe to bits, divine Irish coffee, despite the waitress, with a chronically blocked nose judging from her nasal tones, whose vocabulary consists of 'auugh haaugh' (try saying uh huh and hold your nose while you do it. That's close.)

So anyways I sit here updating after that, excuse my few days of laziness and thank you to Ju for filling in some entries! Thanks everyone for your comments too! And I am going to again go and enjoy a hot shower and go get some sleep...the plan is pier 39 and some shopping tomorrow, and we're sad to say bye to our new friend Becky who's headed back to Ohio, hopefully we get to catch up with her when we're in the general vicinity!

Night all!
Jenny

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Photos

At Ocean Beach
After our epic journey through Golden Gate park we arrive at Ocean Beach to catch the last rays of the sun. From front to back Ju, Adam, Sophie, Christoph.

On the bus
Enjoying San Francisco's public transport....only took us half an hour to find the stop for this one! Christoph (Germany), Ju, Sophie and Adam (Scotland)

Hippies n stuff
Ok so I didn't get the aging hippies dancing because I wouldn't want to be photographed waving a broom over my head myself (don't ask), but here's a girl. And some bubbles. Bubbles are pretty and pop when you touch them!

A lesson in flower arrangement
Christoph shows us a new and improved daisy chain making method...being in San Francisco and all, we decided stopping to pick flowers was appropriate.

Bison.
Need I say more? We weren't entirely sure whether they were actually alive or just paper cut outs. But we got hungry watching them and had to move on.

A well deserved stop at Vesuvio
After dinner Becky wisely talked Ju and I into joining her for a liqueur coffee at Vesuvio...very well deserved might I add!

Comments

[Lindsey]

about tipping
Noticed your question about tipping a few days back. I'm a student and also work as a waitress in NYC and get alot of Aussie and European customers and though you guys tend to be very nice, your tipping skills are horrible. Waiters in America get a low hourly wage and are not provided things like health insurance, and thus depend on their tips to live. 10% is a horrible tip, 15% is ok, 18% is even better, 20% in a restaurant is proper. And if you thought your waiter was great, gave you good tips, directions, etc. definitely tip them over 20%