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Published: February 13th 2008
I randomly decided to take a trip down to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. I was completely unprepared for the trip : I arrived back from Mont Tremblant (having skied faster than ever before to make the bus) and then went straight into a house party that ended at about 4am when I needed to be at the airport by 6am!! Luckily I arrived to blue skies and 20 degrees celsius so I didn't need really need much in the way of clothing and I luckily found a random piece of paper that happened to have the hostel address on it as I had forgotten to note it down.
I arrived at the Green Tortoise, a hippy hostel with interesting roommates including a 30 something who wanted to discuss how she'd found spirituality and God, a 50 something with a boyfriend in every town, and a couple of other randoms, one of whom seems to be forever applying body lotion and one who has just given me some trousers so she is my favourite so far 😊
On Saturday I went for a walk and got stuck with some dodgy Londoner who seemed to want to follow
me all around the city so I rid myself of him by deciding to hire a bike for the day (he wasn't exactly the sporty type) and he went off to the irish pub! So i took the bike, went down to Fisherman's Wharf and along the bay front in the glorious sunshine. I then went up a few hills and eventually got to the Golden Gate bridge and cycled over (I later found out that i was on the wrong side - i wondered why there were so many pedestrians in the way!) Anyway a couple of chains coming off and oil stains later, I made my way to Sausalito, a touristy kind of beachfront town that reminded me on Sandbanks in Dorset and then got on the ferry to come back to San Fran itself with my bike.
In the evening I met up with Jude, a girl from Girton who is working out there and went to a dinner party - very proud of being awake after 40 hours with no sleep! On top of all that I got up in time to meet Jude at 10am again to cycle most of the city - around
the coast from the brdige, through Presidio and Golden Gate park and then up to the highest point, Twin peaks. San Fran is pretty hard on the old legs and the fitness as it is so hilly, so 7 hours of cycling and 22 miles later, I was quite pleased to have a chilled dinner and DVD with Jude before getting a good night's sleep!
San Francisco is a really cool place and I can't decide whether it is just over-excitement about the weather, but i really love it here! If only it weren't part of the US, it would be a really amazing place to live. It is very chilled out and has a nice vibe about it - in a similar way to Montreal, it seems to have all kinds of crazy things going on and plenty of 'alternative' personalities. We stopped off in Golden Gate Park to watch a load of roller bladers and cyclists dancing to music and generally enjoying the sunshine and it was quite a show. We considered gracing the stage with our own bikes, but couldn't quite master the wheelies well enough to compete with the rest of the performers!
On
Monday I went for a Muir Woods and Wine country tour that I had pre-booked with a tour company. We first walked through Muir Woods National Park where some of the oldest redwood trees are 1000 years old. After that we visited 3 wineries where they gave us between 6-8 wines each to try out and I soon ended up with a bag of three bottles! Surely just a calm introduction to South America!! On the way back from Somona (wine country), we stopped to take photos of the bridge again because it had been surrounded by fog (which usually happens in the warm months of summer) and the sun was going down. It was absolutely stunning and I took about 20 photos within 5 minutes!
TBC.....Yosemite 12th feb
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