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Published: December 23rd 2006
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Thursday 7th December Paul - Greyhound gets a bad reputation in America and our first bus was over 40 minutes late which is a cracking way to be introduced to it's delights. You have to bear in mind that EVERYONE drives in America so the people left to take the Greyhound must be desperate...
A woman who couldn't stop dancing, a group of people who decided to sit at both the back and front of the bus in 15 minute intervals and the smelly guy made up our troop.
Our bus made its' rather obvious stop at Burger King halfway through the journey so we could all have some food. If you didn't want Burger King then tough shit because I literally couldn't see another building on the horizon, never mind food place. The driver had his food for free which I thought was nice as Laura and I snacked on the Pringles we had smuggled aboard.
Our arrival into San Francisco was beautiful, passing over one of it's huge bridges (not the Golden Gate Bridge). It was early evening, the sun had just set and the lights were coming on all over the city. Even Alcatraz
looked romantic sitting pretty on its island. It was a great introduction to it all.
Sadly we were checked into our hostel by yet ANOTHER rude git (this time Irish) continuing our run of "rude people in US hostels". Ah well at least the hostel itself looks clean and nice.
Friday 8th December Paul - As we're only buying Christmas presents for two people this year (despite their protests) we didn't do much today other than wander round the HUGE array of shops here. We amused ourselves for far to long laughing at the West coast American accent ("Like oh MY GOD, she was like all over him and he was LIKE all there!") and checking out the cute kittens that you could adopt from Macy's. Had fun watching the cable cars and trams scooting around the streets and generally loving the city vibe here.
Laura - There are so many nice shops here, mainly located around Union Square. I'll have to come back here on a shopping holiday one day! The Christmas decorations are so pretty aswell, it's really getting me into the Christmas spirit. Paul got bored being dragged around all the
big department stores. For some reason, it doesn't excite him to be shopping in Bloomingdale's or Macy's. Men just don't understand! It's a great city to just wonder around in though. It's got a good vibe and is so 'American', just like the movies. We particularly like the vents steaming out from the underground system, and the fact that everyone is saying "Happy Holidays".
Saturday 9th December Paul - Every single shop I went into today I had to give in my bag. This would have been fine but Laura got to keep hers! I told her she should just steal something to spite them. She declined! Women eh?
We headed out to the Haight district today which is the "cool" part of town with second hand clothes shops and people with skinny jeans on.
Laura - Yes Paul was in his element with another day of window shopping. The Haight district is lined with 'retro' shops selling a variety of second hand apparel and various 'cool' stuff. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it passed the time. It's quite different to the area around Union square, that's for sure. You can replace the
'luvvies' with the 'scenesters'.
In the evening we went for some delicious burritos in the Mission District (the Latin quarter) and then had fun trying to book the Greyhound bus and speaking to possibly the worst customer service in the world. After being given the wrong number three times I finally got through to ticket sales, only to be told that the call centre was in a different time zone and I should call back in 30 minutes?!
Sunday 10th December Paul - San Francisco's a great city! Really it is! I can't pin down what excatly is so great about it, maybe the funky hills with the cable cars and Victorian houses, maybe the huge array of things to do or maybe it's because Alcatraz stands off the shore looking VERY ominous! Which is where we spent our day today.
Had a walk through North Beach to get to the pier where the boats left and it's another fun little district consisting of little cafes and Italian bakeries. It had just started to rain and Laura complained that I wanted to go to the top deck of the boat but I dragged her
up there anyway. It was great to get out on the waters of San Francisco bay and see the city this way. Golden Gate bridge looked lovely and the city scape was sublime (although the views from Alcatraz were better!).
On arrival some guy tried to bore us to death with some 'safety information' (Guys, please DO NOT go beyond any barriers. They are for your own safety guys! Also you will HAVE to walk up a hill so if any of you GUYS find this tiring we do have a safety car for you. Again I have to emphasise SAFETY...). And so on like this. The 'hill' took about 2 minutes to walk up. Bless the Yanks.
The prison itself is fascinating. The audio tour that you are given is really well done and it surprised both Laura and I. Basically we looked around the whole complex and saw where Al Calpone and The Birdman lived. From what we could see they had life pretty good! Fabulous views of San Francisco and bay and 3 meals a day. What more could you ask for?
Laura - Yes Alcatraz was really cool and interesting, but a bit
creepy I have to say. I certainly wouldn't want to be locked up there! After Alcatraz we went for a walk around Fisherman's wharf and was shocked to find hundreds of sea lions barking on floats in one of the piers. They were very funny, scrmabling over each other and fighting for sleeping places. Not very elegant creatures, but fun to watch!
Monday 11th December Laura - Today we got the famous cable car to Fisherman's wharf. Paul was in his element because he got to hang precariously off the side of the car. We had a walk around the wharf and took some photos of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. Rather bizarrely we saw a number of people swimming around in the harbour. Now it really is NOT warm here! They must be crazy!
After that we walked up a few steep hills to see 'Lombard Street', a really wiggly street. Don't know why it's so wiggly really, but it looks pretty cool. But there isn't really much you can do at a wiggly street once you've walked down it and taken some photos, so we walked back into town, taking in
the cool city sights on the way.
Tuesday 12th December Paul - Today we were approached whilst crossing the road by a guy. He informed us the bridge was closed today and would we want to buy his gloves for $10? Later on we were asked, by another lovely stranger, who we were going to be voting for because he'd voted for President Jackson and he couldn't believe what crazy old Jackson had done...
Those lovely crazy Americans. The only thing we actually accomplished today was walking to the place that was copying our DVD and back. For some reason the guy working there kept telling us it would be 'here in 5 minutes' only to be still waiting an hour later. In Vietnam we could fire rocket launchers whilst waiting for our DVD to be copied. AND that only took 10 minutes.
Ended up seeing the famous San Francisco mist rolling around the tops of the skyscrapers at night as we whiled away the afternoon and evening over at Fishermans Wharf.
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Marr
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You failed to mention...
...The Rock, which I was going to attempt to re-enact when I visited Alcatraz, but I couldn't find any radioactive green stuff