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Published: July 22nd 2009
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Frisco...our first views..Smog, smog and more smog- no golden gate bridge or alcatraz or anything remotely recognisable..so straight to our residence.. the first motel EVER in San Fran. (yes you must be thinking hell its a bit old and rundown now..but NO! it was suprisingly lovely!)
A little walk on the wild side.. past the zoo and onto the beach for a brief ooooh its COLD before heading to a nearby Italian restauraunt owned by a greek family staffed by americans..as you do. They really work for their tips here-flirting with mum and recommending bars and clubs for 4th July celebrations!
First day in town we went for the metro option and headed into town before a quick jaunt around the shops and then hopping onto the san fran traditional tram to tackle those hills we didn't quite fancy walking..or hiking.. up! We took a wander around Fisherman's wharf, a little tacky touristy but interesting all the same especially with a very yummy looking arrangement of chocolate in the chocolate shop and a quirky revolving display of sourdough in the bakery!
Have to say, San Fran was definitely not as 'sleepy' as i expected it to be-although i suppose going
during American holidays would contribute to that somewhat but i had visions of us lazily trundling around on the half-empty tram not hanging on the side for dear-life and jostling for position whilst the conductor yells at you for stepping 1 inch outside the yellow line!
PLus the roads themselves are chaotic.. the trams have right of way and just seem to stop when and wherever needed, pedestrians have pretty equal status-its a case of standing for a few seconds and then just walk out cuz the cars 'should' stop (although they might beep..in fact they definately WILL beep). Then add into the mix millions of bicycles,tandems, trandems, electric bikes, mini-cars and segaways and you have the San Fran roadways.
We hit pier 39 after watching some fairly spectacular breakdancers in the street and wandered around among the hustle and bustle, once again a little tacky but much more unique and quirky shops to take a look at plus some great musicians and things around.
Second day a little more relaxed, mum headed off on her own Alcatraz adventure whilst we tackled some much-needed washing and then headed into town to meet up with her, after we had
a very dodgy-looking caricature done by a street-artist..looks nothing like either of us! We then went back to Pier39 to get a glimpse at all the seals and sea lions basking on the rocks in the harbour and making real shows of themselves!
Day three and obviously about time we headed for the landmark that is the Golden Gate Bridge!! We drove through the Golden Gate Park to begin with and negotiated our way around the walkers, joggers, dogs, children, bikes and buggies and parked at the war memorial before trekking over a golf course to a little pathway and attempting to glimpse the bridge from afar. It was a little hazy but not too bad, plus we got some great views from the top of the cliff includig a little glimpse of a dolphin which was cool.. i contemplated trying out some award-winning diving but gave it a miss..water looked a bit chilly. We headed back and drove on, then parked the mobile before walking across the magnificant 'international orange' coloured structure! We decided to first walk accross to the middle and had some lovely views over the water and luckily a distinct lack of mist which was
the first time since our arrival. We walked right to the halfway point and i have to say i was a little amused to notice the emergency suicide councilling telephones for bridge jumpers.. obviously it's a sensible thing to have on a big bridge especially as there is very little safety railing once you get onto the actual bridge, (unlike Sydney Harbour bridge which had wire fencing all over it, the railings were about chest height) but still i wasn't expecting it to be so..blatent so had a little chuckle to myself about that at any rate! We decided not to walk the whole way accross-it is rather a long way-and naturally walking halfway twice is equal to the same distance anyway!!
We then took to the car and drove accross the bridge just to get a different feel and a different perspective from the opposite side.
We then drove to Muir woods to get a look at some MASSIVE redwood trees. Didn't fancy climbing any but i stopped for a sit down inside a mossive trunk and we also had some fun watching a little chipmunk running around one of the decks.
Naturally the hot-tub at the
hotel came in useful and we spent some time relaxing with a glass of bubbly or 2 listening out for nearby zoo-like sounds but not hearing any!
We headed for a bit of history and decided to take a look at Fort point on day 4, a little gusty within the walls even with jumpers and things on but quite interesting to see how the fort has changed, not that it saw much in the way of war..more of a precautionary place more useful for it's lighthouse than its cannons, still in the process of restoration and updating etc. Safe-to say we didn't spend too much time on the roof..there was a risk of blowing away and thats only slight exaggeration! We went back to the retaurant from the first night and had a yummy meal.
Mum's last day was spent taking a look at some of San Fran's original victorian-esque buildings that remain after the huge earthquake that destroyed the rest of the city, and then drove down San Fran's crookedest street (not hard as everything else is pretty much a straight line going up or downhill) but still it was made into a winding road because
the gradient was too steep for vehicles to drive down and was a bit of a novelty.
Being 4th July we decided to check out what was going on down at Pier 39 and were rewarded with a pretty good band playing. Far more entertaining though were the oldies dancing in front of said band. Several oldies including a chinese man chatting up lots of ladies in the crowd, a man in an electric wheelchair really going for it, an old woman jumping like a groupie at the front plus assorted others provided much more entertainment than the band itself which consisted of a Jack Black lookalike (could sing), a Goldie/Britney wannabe (couldn't sing OR dance) and a Heather Small/estelle type character (could sing)..
After seeing mum off to the airport we chilled out in our room for a while and then walked back to the pier for the 4th July fireworks, quite some feat as the walk was rather a long way! We ended up missing the very start of the fireworks but made it to one of the piers to see most of them on both sides of the South bay bridge..and yet we needn't have bothered
so much clearly everyone else was late too as the sound of fireworks was completely obliterated by the sounds of hundreds of beeping car horns..not unusual in Maerica but seemed a little but unneccessary as nobody was going anywhere until the fireworks had finished!
The following day was the long-awaited trip to Alcatraz to play 'The Rock'. We were quite suprised at how many uses the place has had over the years-naturally our interest was mainly in the prison but was also a home for loads of families, a site for Native American Indian protests and now is a national park!! We did an audio tour around the prison cells which was pretty cool seeing where Al-Capone and some other pretty famous dudes were locked up plus hearing all about attempted escapes (some that may have been successful as the prisoners were never found nor were any bodies) and attacks and riots galore!!
Our final day in San Fran was spent relaxing around town, Matt treated himself to a brand new shiny i-pod touch and we sat and waited with the other odd-balls at the greyhound station and watched news stories aboiut MJ on repeat!! Fun times..
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