San Francisco! I love it after only one day.

We had a fairly vile Australia Day, starting off at 6:00am (when we left our Orlando villa to go to the airport), and ended over 12 hours later when we arrived in San Francisco. We had to catch two flights and one was delayed. The kids were exhausted, and we had ten bags with us (all that shopping in Florida!), but as soon as we got there, we all felt quite excited.

Even the San Francisco airport restaurants and cafes we passed looked like they sold fresher, healthier food.

Paul had the good sense to organize a driver with a mini van to collect us from the airport (we didn't think it was worth it to hire a car here; parking is terrible and our apartment is next to a cable car stop). The driver was happy to play tour guide, pointing out landmarks and advising us on places to avoid (The Tenderloin).

Our apartment is lovely - we have the basement and first floor of a typical San Francisco apartment building, (I'll put a photo up) on the corner of Mason and Jackson Streets. We are pretty much next door to the Cable Car Museum, and right on the border of the Chinatown and Nob Hill neighborhoods.

Everyone was happy to have an early night, and we woke up raring to go this morning.

We decided to walk (downhill, LOL) to Fisherman's Wharf to book our tickets for Alcatraz, and to purchase a weekly cable car pass. When we left our new home at around 8:30am, the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than about 12 meters in front of you. It was fun, and atmospheric. We passed through Little Italy to get there. Lots of cool restaurants that look like good dinner choices there!

It didn't take us too long to get to the wharf, though you couldn't see much because of the fog. It was amazing to see the difference a couple of hours makes! It turned into a beautiful day, quite warm.

We have tickets for the 9:30am ferry to Alcatraz tomorrow, which will be awesome.

It took us about two hours to walk around to try to locate the kiosks that sold the cable car passes we were after - and when we did find them, they were closed until 12:00pm!!! We eventually realized we could purchase a CityPass which included a 7 day Muni Pass ( for all cable cars and the Municipal Railway) AND included entry to five of the attractions we had on our list to see anyway, WIN! Best of all, we could get the CityPass from the ticket office of the attractions - which were open. So there, stupid cable car kiosks!

As we've previously observed, getting lost helps you to orient yourself and all the walking was certainly good for burning some calories as well as wearing out some energetic kids! We stopped by a supermarket on the way home, and Paul caught a taxi with the two little ones and the grocery bags, while the big kids and I walked uphill back to the apartment. It wasn't as bad as we feared.

Joe was at the exhausted, tantrum stage after walking for so long on short legs, so we had some lunch and a rest at home until 3:30 in the afternoon, when we decided to catch a cable car to see the sights at Union Square. Joe went from whiny to excited - cable cars are fun! There wasn't much to do but shop at Union Square, and we weren't really in the mood for shopping - but we did pick up some gorgeous hand knitted beanies from a stall on the street.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day, so we have a quiet night planned.