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Published: February 22nd 2010
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Hello from a very wet San Francisco! The heavens have opened and there has been a lot of rain! Still a good few days though. Have been staying at the Green Tortoise Hostel in down town San Francisco on Broadway. 'Interesting' area, but still safe and in a good location. Best thing is there is a free breakfast everyday so we have fully taken advantage of that (except for Saturday when we slept through it...the bus journey had pretty much taken it out of me). On Friday we had a quiet day, headed into town for a look around and enjoyed a free dinner courtesy of the hostel. We had a few drinks with some people we met that night including some Canadians, English, Germans and Americans. On Saturday we went for a long walk around the city. We saw the island of Alcatraz but didn't make the trip over. The island was originally a lighthouse post, then a military fortification, then a military prison, now it is a tourist attraction and recreational site. We wondered through a fairly up market area of San Francisco and the views from up the top of one of the city's many steep hills were brilliant. On that note, there are so many hills here. Even in the city centre there are main streets on a really steep angle. We saw all the old trams that run a round the city and I also found out that nearly every bus is run electronically therefore emitting no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Pretty good. We went through town again and I found a cool little bakery (bakeries and sunsets being my favourite thing at the moment) and finally got my hands on some cheesecake. I have literally been waiting months to get some good, proper and fresh cheesecake and San Francisco delivered. I devoured that as Dan continue his donnut craze. The city strikes me as quite a trendy place. Lots of American's I have met have said it is different compared to many other Californian cities and they were right. There is more of a coffee shop and book store vibe to San Francisco as opposed to the fashion and surf scene of LA. We caught an early night on Saturday as we were up early on Sunday to hire bikes and ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge...and cross it. Now...the plan itself was sound; cheap bike hire and we had the whole day free. However, the weather did not really play ball. We set off at 10am and it was cloudy but not raining. We hired the bikes and it started raining and we got to the bridge and it was pouring down! Still good fun though, a proper little adventure and we weren't the only ones braving the rain! We cycled down to Beach Street at Fisherman's Wharf (we didn't actually make it to the famous Pier 39 though) and headed towards the Marina Blvd. On that road there was an impressive building that I eventually found out was a Palace for Fine Art and an Exploratorium. We were on the bike path at the start but something must have gone wrong because the path soon disappeared down to the water's edge and we found ourselves heading northbound on the 101 free way! After finding a way off the busy motorway we stopped of (to dry out) and get a few photos. Luckily we got there when we did because the mist, cloud and fog was rolling in pretty quickly. Despite the weather, Dan and I, along with our new Canadian friend, got on our bikes and headed for the bridge. It is huge! I'm sure with clear skies it would look even bigger. The plaque said that the length of cable was 7650ft, one cable has a diameter of 36,5in, there are 27.6 wires in each cable, the total amount of wire used was 80,000 miles and the weight weight of the cable was 24,500 tons. There was also a good little surf spot by the rocks under the first tower of the bridge and even though it was freezing cold, people were still in the water. We also saw what we think were seals swimming under the bridge. We reached the other side and caught the view of the bridge from Vista Point. However by this time the fog and mist had fully come in and you could only see the road going onto the bridge and the rest of it was in the clouds. Still good to ride over it though and it really is a huge landmark that fully commands the whole horizon from a long way away. Soaking wet and very cold we cycled back and in a weird way, it didn't even matter that it was raining and cold, it was still good fun and the weather just made for an even better memory (albeit quite a cold one!) The hostel has a free sauna so I gave that some serious attention when I got back, then packed up my bag (all the wet gear will have to wait until our next stop) and went for some food at a cool little place below the hostel. You can get a massive burger for just $4. Awesome. It is a shame we have to leave tomorrow because it would be good to see the city in a slightly better light but apparently the rain is hanging around for the whole week so we would have to stay for quite a while if we wanted to see the sun! So...1pm bus tomorrow out to Salt lake City in Utah.
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Ted
non-member comment
Thanks for staying at the Green Tortoise
Love your Blog, would like to copy it into the Green Tortoise blog, email hostel@greentorotise.com and a short message to Ted saying that is ok. Thanx Tz