Our First blog from the USA!!

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Hey there everyone, this is officially our first blog from out here in sunny San Francisco. We arrived safely in the afternoon of the 17th Jan.

I will try not to run through every detail but getting around in San Fran has been exceptionally easy with great public transport, but also our own fair legs have done quite a bit of walking!

The weather here is nice and it has been a great place to come to break us into this travelling malarky gently. We had the travelodge booked for the first two nights and we are now typing this from our first stay at a hostel in the centre of San Francisco.

Sooooo, we have been to Alcatraz on the ferry yesterday morning. Due to the time difference we have been up at 5am each morning and going to bed early as have been dead on our feet. To be honest this has suited us as we can't get enjoy the night scenes with our budget, and our travelodge was in the dodgier side of the city with lots of homeless ppl that can look quite scary. Loads of them walk around with supermarket trolleys and root through the bins and seperate all the rubbish into bags. Now know that in California you get money back on bottles if you take them to a recyling drop off so hence people in need of a buck are trawling through trash collecting up the bottles.

Anyway Alcatraz was amazing, it was a beautiful sunny day and the views from the ferry across the Bay were stunning. We did an audio tour around the cell blocks which was really interesting with info on the Battle of Alcatraz and the Great Escapes. They island is quite big so walking around took a couple of hours, but we wanted to see it all. We didn't realise that the Indians tried to settle on the island and use it as a reservation camp. Looking inside the cells was cool as i have always wanted to go into a prison for a look around (not as an inmate) so this was great!!!!!

Yesterday afternoon/evening we went to Castro District which is the Gay area of San Francisco. It had a friendly, relaxed atomsphere and we stopped off for one drink in a cool bar and ppl watched.

This morning we got to Golden Gate bridge by 8am and enjoyed a nice stroll across enjoying the view to Alcatraz and the bay etc. It is so huge and made me feel a bit quesy looking down. I think the experience was made even better by listening to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on the ipod as we strolled across.

For those that know San Fran we have also been to:-

Fishermans Wharf
China Town
Financial District
Nob Hill
Got train over to Oakland

We have reserved a car for tomorrow and we will be hitting the Pacific Coast Highway down to LA!!!!!!

I hope everyone is ok back in the UK, and we will be in touch soon. Wish us luck driving out here!!!!!

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Comments

[Kit]

pics
Nice blog glad you got there ok can we have some pics though please :) xx

[Mum and dad]

Hi
Hi Karen and Ross So pleased you are having such a good time. Looking forward to the pics Love from Mum and Dad