Day 4: San Francisco

Alcatraz
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We woke early this morning to meet our flight to San Francisco. We were surprised again at how long everything took, I’ve flown before in the States on numerous occasions and the waiting had never taken this long, we assume it’s because of summer holidays. We left our hotel at about 7:30am and reached our gate as the plane was boarding (a 10:30am departure), then waited in line for about 30 minutes to claim our prepaid rental car at San Francisco airport.

Once we got to our hotel (the Ramada Limited on Lombard St) we were extremely disappointed. We had booked the room about two months earlier and specifically asked for non-smoking, but when we checked in we were told by the two teens behind the desk they were booked solid and there weren’t any non-smoking rooms available. Hopefully we don’t all smell of cigarettes. The hotel is pretty ordinary anyhow and we definitely wouldn’t stay here again.

There was a busker outside who was crouching down and holding a small tree branch in front of him, he would scare unsuspecting passers by.

Busking!
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We then went for a walk along the waterfront to Fisherman’s Wharf and had some lunch/dinner at Joes Crab Shack which was good fun. There was a busker outside who was crouching down and holding a small tree branch in front of him, he would scare unsuspecting passers by. He provided the entertainment and was seeing plenty of cash as well.

After our walk I had to go to work for a while and Kim and Bill retired to the room, I got back about 10pm. None of us slept all that well the night before so looking forward to our sleep tonight.

Gum Trees...What the?
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Tool of the Day

Ramada Limited for putting us in a smoking room. Also, loud inconsiderate Americans, at about 2am we were woken by a family arriving from a night out, the teenage son yelling at the top of his voice down the stairs to his father in the car park…’Daaaad’…’Yeah, hang on a minute’…etc. etc. It took the family approximately 15 minutes to make it inside their room and shut up!