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Friday 13 August 2010:
We entered the misty city of San Francisco by crossing the impressive Bay Bridge. The Bay Bridge has one of the longest spans in the world. The middle column consists of enough concrete to build a freeway from San Francisco to New York! That's a lot of concrete!
As we excited off the bridge we passed the baseball stadium, home to the San Francisco Giants. We also passed the old Ferry building with the clock at the top.The clock stopped at 5.12am on the 18th of April 1906 as a 7.7-8.25 magnitude earthquake rocked through the city. They re-started the clock again a year later to show that the city has rebuilt itself after the devastating earthquake and resulting fires.
We stopped for lunch at Pier 39.A major tourist attraction with lots of cool shops and restaurants. We had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. It was awesome!!Lots of yummy fresh seafood.The restaurant is based around the film Forrest Gump. Every table has number plate type signs, one saying "Run Forrest Run" for if you don't require a waiter. The other says "Stop Forrest Stop" if you need a waiter to stop. The tables were also set with a bucket and a roll of paper towels for in case you decide to get the whole crab or lobster.
After lunch and a quick stop at the souvenir shops, we drove over the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately the top part of the bridge was covered by a low mist. Apparently the low sea cover (mist) is a normal part of San Francisco life. We also took a quick tour through Golden Gate Park. One of the previous ground keepers at the park didn't agree with statues being in the park and planted trees around them so they'd be obscured from view. These days all the statues have a half circle of trees surrounding them.
In San Francisco about one in eight people are homosexually orientated. According to the tour guide this is partially due to the war. Men that went to war and were discovered to be gay were sent back to the port where they boarded. For most of America at that time it was San Francisco. Most of these men were too ashamed to return home and ended up staying in the city. With time more people heard of the growing gay population and more people flocked to the city. Castro is now considered the "gay" neighbourhood.
We also drove past the neighbourhood of Pacific Heights where the writer Daniel Steel lives. Her house has 55 rooms and is worth about $55 million. She also has about 3000 pairs of designer shoes. Maybe I should start writing sloppy romances too.
We stayed at the Hotel Whitcomb by Civic centre.After checking in we went to explore and ended up walking to Union Square. Every corner of Union Square has a large painted heart. The hearts where painted by Tony Bennett who wrote the song "I lost my heart in San Francisco". From Union Square we could go up to the top of Macy's and have a partial view over the city thanks to the mist. The mist was really funny because it didn't cover the whole city. It only settled in patches.
Walking back to the hotel from the square we noticed that there are quite a few homeless people around town. Apparently this is also due to the war with people returning back to San Francisco and struggling to get back on their feet. Some of them have really honest signs. In some cases honesty might not be the best policy. Some signs read......."Money for beer" or "Money for weed". Hmmmmm!!
Saturday 14 August 2010:
We took the F-line trolley car to the Farmers' Market by the Ferry Building this morning. It was fantastic.Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and heaps of interesting food stalls. We had a yummy breakfast sandwich with bacon maple sausage. I also bought a gigantic peach. It was bigger than my fist. Expensive but yummy!
After the market we hopped on the big red "Hop on/off" bus and did a guided tour through the city. We saw the Filipino Parade from the top of the bus along Market street. It held up traffic for a long time!
The weather was absolutely stunning so we took the open top bus over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and took lots and lots of photos. Sausalito is a small sea town just on the other side of the Bridge. We had a lovely lunch sitting over the water with the city in the background.
Once back at the hotel we joined the Contiki group for a walking tour through Chinatown that ended with a yummy Chinese dinner at Hunan's Home Restaurant. The gate to Chinatown is marked with the words of Dr. Sun Yat Sen "Everything under heaven should be free". I kinda like that!After dinner the group had a few drinks at "Kell's Irish Bar". Didn't get back to hotel till after 3am but I had a fab time!
Sunday 15 August 2010:
We managed to crawl out of bed at 7am even after we had a big night. We had breakfast at the hotel and hopped on the F-line trolley car to the Alcatraz ferry. Alcatraz was completely worth it and I'm so happy we booked tickets in advance as they sell out super quick. The island is really just a rock with a lot of history. First it was a military base, then a federal prison, in 1934 the prison known as Alcatraz opened and when that closed in 1963, the hippy era happened, with Indians occupying the island trying to reclaim land.The audio walking tour was very well done.The commentary on the tour was given by people who actually survived Alcatraz. Both prisoners and guards alike.Of the 1,545 men who did time on Alcatraz, only a handful were notorious - among them, Al "Scarface" Capone, "Doc" Baker, Alvin "Creepy"Karpis, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Floyd Hamilton, and Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz".
Once back at the Pier I had the famous San Francisco clam chowder in a sourdough bun.Needless to say it was yum!After lunch we took the "hop on/off" bus to City Hall and walked from there to Alamo square.The six Victorian ladies are along Steiner street bordering the square.The six Victorian ladies, for those who don't know, are the six houses from the TV series "Full House".The afternoon was lovely so we enjoyed lazing on the grass in the sun overlooking the city.Alamo Square is on one of the many hills in San Fran.The square is also in the hippy area of town.On one side of the hill there is enough dooby smoke to make you high!
We walked back to the hotel through Haight which is part of the hippy area.Haight is very unique with a lot of cool shops.There are no chain stores allowed along the main street so all the stores have something new to offer.Most of San Fran is pretty unique.It is like they strive to be just a little bit different and as a result add a great individual feel to the city.
We went out to dinner again with Contiki in the Italian part of town which happens to be in Castro.The whole group hopped on the underground subway to get there.Our first time travelling on the subway!Very exciting!Our contiki tour leader kindly reminded us not to gawk at the eccentric people we might see while on the Castro side of town.And boy, were there some goodies!The restaurant was called the Sausage Factory (haha!).The food was amazing though and the serving sizes were huge.I had the Mahi Mahi (fish) and pasta.We even got Italian ice cream for dessert.
Steph and I caught the subway back to the hotel after dinner.We were both over tired from all the early starts and late nights.We were starting to go a bit coo-coo-ka-choo and pretty much giggled at everything! Hehehehe!
7.45am start again tomorrow!
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Hilary Hi Cathli wow this is great I can really picture where you are and track your progress, our lives are boxing on nicely, take care and enjoy every moment . I cant wait for the next installment. Love Hilary & Kie