The San's... home of Anchorman!

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Ok so we made it alive after our hurtling journey to the airport and safely found ourselves a hostel in Dowtown San Francisco.
On the second night of our stay there we went to a Chinese/Vietnamese resturaunt called The House of NanKing, it was seriously good food! There was a picture of Jamie Oliver on the wall and as I say the food was exquisite and came at a very low price considering how much we got... good old American portions!

After two nights in the Downtown hostel we moved out to Fisherman's wharf in a place called Fort Mason which had good views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz based up on top of a hill. Once we'd settled in we walked around the Fisherman's wharf area, which was pretty much stereotypicaly San Francisco-an; Tram shaped buses, Clam Chowder on every corner, great views of Alcatraz and steep hills leading down to the Wharf, all in all a very plesant area. Whilst down there we booked a trip to Alcatraz for the next morning, which in peak season there is aparently a 5 day waiting list, so we were licky in that respect.

At 10am we boarded the tour boat to 'the Rock' (Alcatraz). The place was expectedly spooky and the stories being told on my personal hed-set tour were surprising interesting. Just hearing how rugged the place was and how ridiculously hidious the place was to live in and in some cases survive in, you'll have to wait for the film to hear them. It was certainly quite run-down but it has the feeling that it's been like that for years. I also learnt that native American indians settled there for a few years after the prison closed down and madeit their home.
The tour was as long as you wanted to make it as long as you caught the last boat home. If you didn't catch the last boat home I've heard it's quite a difficult place to escape from, just ask Clint Eastwood!
There were lovely views of the city from 'the Rock', which as I heard on the tour were frustratingly close looking to the prisoners.

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Alcatraz was home to some of America's most deadly and dangeous criminals, such as Al Capone, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Machine Gun Kelly to name a few. It was said to be the hardest prison to escape from ever. Not only the place itself, but then the dangerous rip filled harbour that surrounded it and it's icy cold waters.
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On our return to the shores of San Francisco we decided we must try this thing they call Clam Chowder. From what I know it is only known to me because of the Simpson's because someone always says it. I haven't seen it for over a year so really can't remember who it is?!
Anyway it is a creamy soup with potatoes, vegetables and Clam meat served in a large bowl made from Sour-dough bread. So it's like a ball of bread, very crispy on the outside that is then hollowed out and has the top sliced off and then the Chowder is poured inside. The bread bowl idea is genious if you ask me and it all tasted fantastic and was very filling, for once again a very small price, like most things in the U.S.A.

A spot of shopping in a very cool area by the Mission on Hillcrest Ave filled with vintage clothes at fantasticly low prices... $6 for a jacket?! $4 T-Shirts, crazy, but I didn't want to go over board with the rest of my trip still to go and carrying all new clothes.
That night we went out for a couple of drinks namely $6 Martini's... I can't believe how cheap things are in this country. For the barmen in the world a bottle of Kettle One Citron is in the supermarket for $15 or 7pounds 50?!

We'd tried hard to get tickets to a radio concert in the area where The Killers were due to play, but it sold out almost instantly which was a shame. Un-deterred we got tickets for the after party where we could see Starsailor and then super Chav Lilly Allen live in one of San Fran's coolest clubs. It was an awesome night and to be fair Lilly Allen did a pretty good perfomance and for a live show she was spot on when she sang her known singles #Smile# etc. But I was dissapointed to see such a cockney chav making it big in America, promoting British pond-life. As an encore an American band who won the radio gig with the Killers called Shiny To Guns played a set right at the end of the night, they absolutely rocked it and were awesome! There'll be a CD purchase in the near future... or a Christmas present, hint, hint haha!


THE WORST DAY TO HAVE IN SAN FRANCISCO

We hired bikes with the plan of cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge, as you do when in San Fran. We began cycling but the weather was anything but on our side. Just as we appraoched the bridge it started raining and became pretty cold, the rain got harder as did cycling. It was terrible and the thought of actually cycling across the bridge was anything but appealing! It really sucked it was one of the only things I wanted to do in San Fran and the weather spoiled play completely. In dissapointment and much frustration we returned our bikes after a horrific cycle back that absolutely drenched me through, not good when I only have one pair of jeans. We then had to battle our way through the horrible rain back to the hostel, great! Not a good day at all and I was thoroughly annoyed with it!


TO SAN DIAAAGO - "FOUNDED BY THE GERMANS IN 1904" HOME OF ANCHORMAN!

We caught the AMTRAK to San Diego at 12pm and arrived at 1:10am after 2 buses and 2 train journey's. It was quite a strenuous trip.

There really wasn't much to do in San Diego, even trying to get to Anchorman film spots was difficult with a lack of automobile, everything in the US is so spread out. We were staying out by Pacific beach, which was such a cool spot, but quite far from things and involved some long bus trips.
San Diego has two main areas of it's city; Old Town and Downtown. We ventured to Old Town one day to enjoy an abundance of tourist targetted 'ye olde' Americana gift shops and restaurants. There were shops that were very Mexican orientated and then there were shops like little victorian boutiques and western American cigar shops which housed members of staff wearing the appropriate attire of the era. It was fun to walk around but the pricing of the gifts and food were not in our budget.
We did manage to find a nice eatery called 'The Alamo' where we ate large Burrito's filled with a bit of everything. "that Burrito was good, but it was filling".

Against the will of the woman who worked at the Hostel, who we guessed was some sort of animal rights activist, we headed to San Diego Zoo to see the, made famous by 'Anchorman', Panda's. It was actually a really good Zoo and was both very large and also offered a plethora of animals to scope our goggles on. The Panda's were very cool, I think it's the first time I've ever seen Panda's and I've been to a lot of Zoo's around the world, so that made San Diego Zoo very good in my opinion, which I'm sure would upset the woman at the hostel. Promoting the place after she tried so hard to stop us going.


"WHAT GOES IN TJ STAYS IN TJ"

A day trip to Tijuana, Mexico with a lad called Kenny who was also from Manchester and was our guide through the much talked about tourist trap and crime and corruption capital.
We'd heard so many stories about 'TJ' that the place was close to being forgotten about and dissmissed from our travel plans, but when we saw that the hostel does weekly tours to the city we thought we may as well check it out and add another country to our extensive list.
At 11am we left the hostel and headed on the tram to the border where we simply walked across at ease, without even showing a passport.

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From the advice by the staff at the hostel I travelled light. My pockets consisting of my Passport, $40 in 5's and 1's and my Digital stills camera. No cards, no other I.D, nothing overly expensive or crucial to the rest of my trip.
Stories about Tijuana nearly always involved the incredibly currupt Police force, such as one guy whop was sat on the beach and a police man came over, pointed a gun in his back and took him to the nearest cash machine where he got him to take out all of his money. Kenny's advice: keep hold of your passport no matter what.
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Once crossing the border the cultural difference between America and Mexico was imediately apparent. People hassling you to go to their bars, people hassling you to sell you bits of tacky Mexican tack, it was incredibly different. the buildings and streets were dirty, the people shouted at you from across the street instantly noticing our white, tourist faces. There was a main street that we walked along, after stopping for a 99cent Corona and an omlette, which was lined with shop after shop of Mexican souvenir's, form sombreo's to hot sauce, each with their token loud Mexcian outside telling you that their store was the cheapest. We browsed for a while to find something to take away from the crazy place as a mexican memory.
Kenny then lead us to another bar were $2 Margarita's began to flow as did a shot of 1800 Tequilla, sealed off with a cold Corona and then a go on an mechanical bull.

Kenny lead us around the city to a couple of other bars before taking us backtowards the border. As we walked up and along he gangway leading to the border we passed to Policemen sitting casually on an un-used market stall. We calmly and confidently walked passed them until we got some way passed then "Hey you guys, top there!"
I tried to ignore it at first but the repeated a couple of times and then came our way once we'd all turned around. They asked us if we were carrying any drugs, which we weren't then they wanted us to put everything in our pockets on one of the now empty market stall, tables. I held onto my Passport and my camera showing and telling them that I wouldn't let it out of my hand and that there was certainly no evidence of drugs within either of them, which they eventually agreed to. Kenny explained to them that he worked for the hostel and that he knew a certain couple, who apparently were well connected with the police, then police seemed instantly confronted by this and after much searching and asking and hassling let us go on our way. Whe they were only wearing hoody's with POLICE printed in big letters across the front, it was hard to believe they were genuine, but when they tell you "we're the police, you must do what we say" you can't really argue. It seemed corruption was the way forward and knowing a certain family name, I believe, helped us.
we crossed the border after buying some ridiculously cheap spirits - $8 for abottle of Appleton Estate Rum, roughly £4. Taqueray Gin - $7, it was insane.
We were then picked up by one of the girls who worked at the hostel and we were soon back in Pacific Beach where the place rocked due to one of the Swedish girls birthday's who worked there. We had already been drinking so it only seemed fair that we joined in and celebrated with everyone.

I can't really believe that we're still doing things like TJ late in the trip, I just thought all the craziness would be over now, but nope, we're still getting ourselves in risky positions and the old adrenalin still runs fast and thick.

The next day was spent enjoying the hot sun at 26 degrees in my boardies and vest... and I thought those days were gone. I was crazy sat there in December, once again, in hot weather. That night we headed out with our new friends from the hostel as they insisted to have one more San Diego frolic!

Sadly we didn't see or do as much 'Anchorman' as we'd have liked, but we did see the bridge where Baxter is kicked off the bridge by Jack Black "that's how I roll etc." and the bar that Ron sits in towards the end of the film when his life is a ruin and calls "news team assemble" was at the end of the street where we were staying.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

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Photos

Union station L.A.
we stopped here on way to San Diego, it was awesome!

A Zonkey
a donkey painted in black and white to look like a Zebra??! only in TJ!

Hold on!
the mechanical bull