3 Days in San Francisco

Day 1

Have just discovered a "Yum Yum guide" to San Fransisco - cool... we are going to eat our way round - from cafe to cafe!!

Had breakfast at a great little Crepe House.  To walk off the crepes - we had to do lots of walking in the form of shopping!  San Francisco has heaps of shoe stores and I spent lots of time wandering (and buying) much to Wingy's groans about the other 42 pairs of shoes in the cupboard!

Caught the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf where it was time to eat again.  Wingy had the legendary Clam Chowder in a Sourdough bread roll.  Not for me - everytime I hear of Clam Chowder I think of Wingy's uncle - no thanks!!

Weather was pretty ordinary and was raining on and off.  We had planned to hire some bikes and ride around the bay - but the weather was terrible.  Wandered around Pier 39 for a while before heading back into town to do some more shopping and catch a movie "The Inside Man".

I think we are staying in the worst possible part of San Francisco (The Tenderloin).  There are homeless everywhere and drug deals are happening on the streets.  In the morning we wake up to hear them arguing and shouting.  The location is pretty central and the hostel is quite nice though!

DAY 2

The weather is much better today and it has stopped raining.  Caught the cable car back to Fishermans Wharf to get the Ferry to "Alcatraz - The Rock".  The old prison was really interesting.  Apparently the prison was the only one at this time where they allowed the prisoners to have hot showers - because they didn't want them to get acclamatised to cold water in case they tried to swim back to shore!

In the afternoon we hired the bikes and rode across the length of the bay, across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito (which was a great little town - a bit like Subi) and then caught the ferry back.  We only just made it on to the ferry - as the ferry can only take a certain number of bikes.  We were the last two allowed on the last ferry for the day and at least 50 people with bikes were left behind!

DAY 3

Today was a day of disasters.  Firstly we decided to catch a bus to the ferry terminal - a 15 minute ride from downtown.  I should have know when we got on the first bus that it was not a good idea.  The bus driver had a scarf covering her nose and mouth and when we sat down on the bus we knew why.  There was a guy on the bus that was so pewtrid that we had to get off at the very next stop.  I thought I was going to throw up!! Then we had only just sat down on the second bus when we were ordered to get off as a result of a bomb scare!  ... After that we walked to the Ferry Terminal!

In the afternoon we decided to hire a motor bike to ride around the city - which was great fun until it absolutely started pouring down with rain about 10 minutes into our trip!  Not to be beaten we were determined to make the 2 hour round trip - rain or shine.  We were absolutely drenched, freezing cold (we had to keep getting of the bike to rub our hands together because they were so cold and Wingy even asked some construction workers in the Botanical gardens if he could have a pair of their gloves!!  (...I don't know why he was winging though - he had on jeans, boots, a thermal jacket , glasses (and borrowed gloves) - I was wearing a denim skirt, flip flops, and a cotton jumper - no gloves and no glasses!)...  Anyway, we did get to see a lot of the city - the Botanical Gardens, the old Baths, the Six Painted Ladies, the Haigue and the Worlds Crookedest Street (which I didn't tell Wingy about until we turned down it - just to test his motorbike skills and to see if he could still do those figure "8"'s!!!).  This crookedest street is on such a steep slope that any cars that park on the side of the road have to park perpendicular to the street so that they don't roll down!!).

To warm up after our ride we ended up in an Irish pub.  We were so annoyed at the presumptious waitress that added a $5.00 tip to our credit card bill that we scribbled it out and literally ran out of the restaurant.  Our visa card statement showed that we weren't charged for the tip - cheeky #$%&8.  Last stop before heading to LA -  the laundromat - our clothes were so wet that we couldn't pack them and needed to put them in the dryer!!