City: San Francisco
Duration: 4 nights
Temperatures: 18, 18, 20, 22, 24
Hi everyone, well I’m finally getting around to writing this blog
I’ve been banging on about, yay! OK so our trip so far has been great we are currently in Monterey but
I’ll back track a bit to when we first arrived in the States a little over a
week and a half ago.
The flight to San Fran was standard, we tried to
do everything possible to help our body clocks adjust when we arrived; no jet
lag pills, special flight drink, sleeping pills. The sleeping pills did
not agree with Ryan who was seeing things sitting on his knee during the flight
(CRAZY). We were both extremely tired and irritable on arrival and the
longest line EVER at customs did not help things. When we finally arrived
at our hotel all we had energy for was watching events unfold on the news re
the Boston bombings then it was to sleep. First impressions were windy,
the number of homeless people was very obvious and a tad dodgy coming up from
the underground where a lot tend to hang out and target people like us who are
new to the city. Ryan kindly helped out a guy in a wheelchair with a few
$$ but had we done this with all homeless we saw our
budget would've been blown. A cheap and cheerful Thai meal and
early night saw us right for the next day of exploring.
Tuesday we were up early as our bike tour began at 9.30am.
We walked through a less desirable part of town to get there but found a great
coffee place and picked up breakfast on the way. Our tour led by Josh a
San Franciscian through and through and general nice guy ,was brilliant.
He gave us so much information about the 10 neighborhoods/parks we
visited, the history, cool stories, good places to eat, drink, see music
etc. His apprentice George had a long way to go to becoming in the same
league, every time we asked him a question he never sounded sure of his answer
or sounded like he was making it up or told us we had better ask Josh. He
did however know a thing or two about finding a good burrito. We met two
lovely Aussie girls on the tour who we went out with later that night for
burritos (San Fran has the biggest Hispanic pop. outside Sth America needless
to say the Mexican food is awesome) and beers. We visited a few local
bars in the Mission and then danced till the wee hours at a club not far from
our hotel.
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| Josh our tour guide |
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| In front of the 'Painted Ladies' Alamo Square |
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| Castro, the gay hood |
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| Murals in the Misson - down a dodgy ally way where kids smoke weed |
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| Ryan ordering at the food truck market |
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| There's a street named after us! |
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| Heston Blumenthal-esque ice-cream shop, they make the ice cream to order with dry ice |
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| Our new Aussie pals, Tilly and Anna @ a not so popular Latino bar |
There were two very sore heads on Wednesday and Alcatraz had been
prebooked for 10.30am, no sleep in, ouch. Alcatraz was really interesting
and the audio tour was one of the better ones we’ve done. The weather had
just been getting better and better and today the views back to San Fran and
over to Golden Gate Bridge were amazing. After the tour we walked down to
tourist mecca Fisherman’s Wharf where we sampled the highly anticipated
In-and-Out Burger (made to order all fresh, no freezing, burger
joint). There was a dude dressed like a real pimping gangster who’s table
Kiri helped save and he reckoned ‘hey lady you saved my life!’. After
leaving the joint a checky homeless man hiding behind a tree covering himself
in big tree branches scared the life out of us and then asked for a $1 for the
pleasure and said to Ryan, ‘I bet you aint ever given her a thrill like that
before’. We cracked up and watched a few more people fall victim to his
little prank which was very entertaining. With all the partying and cheap
thrills we lay low for the evening.
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| GGB from a far, we didn't get round to going there but hopefully on our way out we will |
Kiri turns 30 in San Fran, what a great place to see out the
20’s. The day started with room service and breakfast in bed. She
was extremely spoilt and got far too many gifts from Ryan. We went and
looked around the shops downtown in the morning before heading back to the Mission
area for more burritos and tacos (Kiri's getting lots of practise on her
mexican accent.). We tried George’s place and turned out he does know
something about San Fran, they were bloody good. From there we walked up
to Haight Street (the grungy, hippie area). As we were strolling along in
our own little tourist, I’m on holiday everything’s amazing world a girl
sprinted past us holding a whole bunch of clothes still on there hangers with
two shop assistants tearing after her, she was met by her getaway car and the
girls from the shop were left and few pairs of jeans and jumpers down.
Not something you see everyday, but then there were a lot of things we don’t
see everyday (or smell for that matter) in this city. Has anyone heard of
420? It’s a massive event where everyone meets in Golden Gate Park on
Hippie Hill on April 20 and smokes marijuana at exactly 420. That kinda
sums San Fran up liberal, free……That evening we went out for dinner in Nob
Hill, Kiri had done some research on where she wanted to go for her birthday
and Gary Danko rated very highly on all the usual review sites and it didn’t
disappoint (aside for the midly annoying, whiney, loud Asian women next to us
and the man who wouldn’t stop hoiking). We feasted on asparagus, quail
& crab entrees lamb & lobster mains then crème brulee &
chocolate soufflé for dessert. Kiri was also given a little birthday
lemon cheesecake and a selection of petite fours then a banana breakfast cake
to have the next morning! It was a very special day and we both enjoyed
every minute of it.
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| George's recommendation |
Well Friday 19th was the day we started our great American roady
with all the excitement and anticipation we were up early to set off to pick up
the RV (that's what we call them now, not motorhome :-)). A bit too eager, when we called ahead we were told it wouldn't be
ready till 1pm. We killed time checking out art in Union Square and at
the Nike store then when we couldn't wait any longer got on the train to
Fremont to collect our wheels. I think had Kiriana known how stressful
and completely beside herself with fear she was going to be on that six lane
highway during peak hour, end of week traffic she would've taken a bit
more time getting down to the rental place. She however she
did develop a coping technique that involved first tensing and
clutching the chair/door, then yelling at the driver, then sobbing,
crying, bawling and finally disappearing into the back , closing all the curtains
and lying down with her head buried in the seat. However we did make it to our destination, Bothe Napa Valley State Park in one piece albeit a little frazzled and tense. Napa however is one of those places that seems to make everything OK with is balmy climate, mile upon mile of vineyards and peaceful setting in our first campground of the trip.
I'm doing my best to catch you up on everything that has happened in the past 10 days since we've had the RV so stay tuned for the next installment. X
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| Union Square |
Our little RV, 'Grunter'
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