Date: 16th September - 18th September 2006 

(Rusy quote) Went on the overnight coach again to san fran, we met this bloke on coach from spain, silly b***** got off at a stop to use toilet and the driver left him behind, met same day at the same hostel, said he s*** himself when he came outside and coach had gone haha, lucky he been travelling for 7 months so took it pretty cool - im just gonna tie a knot in it and shove a cork up there, never gonna get off the coach now haha. (end). We arrived in San Fran earlier than we expected was about half 5 in the morning so we got our homes (bags) on our backs haha and started walking the city to try and find USA hostels where we were staying for the next 2 nights here. We spent about 20 mins trying to find this hostel but after no luck and getting lost we hailed a cab as its not easy with our bags trying to find somewhere when you´re tired, hungary and dirty haha! We got there and had to wait a couple of hours in the Reception until we were able to check in. This wasn´t too boring however as these girls were running late and their shuttle bus driver was going nuts and shouting his head off, was quite amusing watching him! Then we caught up with the spanish guy who rusty explained earlier had been left at another stop haha, he seemed quite cool, he was telling us all about NZ and about this Trilogy Bungee Jumps you can do hehehe!!! I was the only one to quickly freshen up with some body wipes as felt really minging after coach trip, but the boys didnt care if they smelt err. We went on this tour of the city called ´Dylans Tour´with a driver from the city called Dylan (if you hadn´t guessed haha). It was quite cool, he first took us up to the Twin peaks of the city which are two mounds where the view of the whole city is pretty cool, so got some cool pics! Drove past the famous monument from the film ´The Rock´then headed across the Golden Gate Bridge woohoo! Dylan also showed us through some main parts of the city the Hippy town, China town, little Italy and the Gay strip! Down the Gay strip there are flags with rainbows on which means freedom for the gay people all up the street and this is why people think of San Fran as the gay capital of the world as this is where the movement started. The hippy street was cool got chance to walk down here, some shops had funny names, me and Matt were taking pics and a hippy guy told us off for loitering on the side walk was funny! After the tour we went to find the famous most crookedest street in the world ´Lombard Street´ to get up the top was a mission the hill was so steep, lots of cars were stalling trying to hill start thank god we weren´t driving haha! The smell of the tyres through wheel spins wasn´t very pleasant. When you get to the top you see the crooked street there are steps to the side to walk down as cars drive down the winding road. All the cars were queing on the steep hill before this just to drive down this crooked road, was like people queing for a fairground ride haha! Next stop was fishermans wharf - the port area of San Fran, had a good look around, there were lots of stalls with fisherman selling fish dishes - Matt tried Clam Chowder which is like fish soup in a bread roll, it was groce!! but Matt liked it so thats cool, me and Rusty stuck to crab rolls that was daring enough for us as we didn´t want to get dodgy stomaches hehe! It was really buzzing down here it was sat night so lots of people. Stopped to watch this comedian guy who was really funny and was juggling firesticks on a rope but again he was after lots of tips. After this we headed out of this buzzing pier 39 area and in the middle of the harbour there were 100´s of seals lying on parts of the pier making lots of mateing noises hehe was so cool to see but so random! Next day we had a tour which took us to Muir woods, the drive to these was quite crazy as it was a huge winding road with a sheer drops either side ahhh! But we made it and was so worth seeing, was woods made up of redwood trees up to 250 ft high! The air in here was amazing and made us feel refreshed with the high oxygen levels hehe! We had a short stop at a fishing town called Sausalido where Rusty was dribbling over a homemade burger. Next we went to Alcatraz island, was a ten minute boat ride full of flies crawling everywhere YUK! But was a cool trip did the audio tour through the prison everyone gets given their own set of head phones and follow the tour in your own time was funny! Had the actual voices of some of the guards and prisoners on the tape with really cool sound effects, found it bit eery and was good to learn some history about it.  We learnt about the numerous escape attempts including the one where three guys had made fake heads out of materials from the workshop for their beds and escaped. But to this day no-one knows if they ever did make the mile swim back to San Fran as the currents are so strong in that area. The next day we all hired bikes to cycle around the city, me and matt decided to get a tandem bike, it was hard at first coz we had to move the pedals in unison, I was sat at the back had no brakes and couldnt see past Matt so he was in complete control of the bike which was a scary experience. Rusty gave up the cycle ride after 10 miles due to the harsh hills in San Fran, but me and Matt managed to finish the circuit of 22 miles (really hard going) which took us along the Golden Gate Bridge and though the Golden Gate Park and over lots and lots of hills phew. We were so tired after this the walk back up the hill to our hostel didnt seem like fun so we waited and caught the Tram home the downward hills on this were fun and the guy had to apply some force on the brake to stop at the bottom of each hill. After that we headed back to LA (on that damn Greyhound again, man everytime you are guaranteed a weirdo, they should call it Greynutters, we have aslo since been told that some prisoners when released are given a greyhound year pass!!!).