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We arrived in San Francisco quite late at night and couldn't immediatley find our hostel (when we arrived we couldn't decide whether it was actually worth finding!!). That coupled with the fact that we have never seen so many homeless people in our lives didn't give us a great first impression of San Francisco. That didn't last though, the next day the hostel wasn't any better but San Francisco is a beautiful city. The architecture is beautiful, every building is different and the streets are so steep. We have never seen streets so steep, some of them have steps built in to make it easier for walking up and down, it is seriously hard work!! After 3 nights in the hostel we were saved by Mathew and Liz who invited us to stay with them in the luxury of thier apartment which was great. Mathews Mum was staying too so we got a home cooked lasagne when we arrived which was a major treat!!! So we did most of the touristy things while we were there, most of it can be done by just walking around the city. We went to Pier 39 which is an area of shops and restaurants, we had a ride on the carousel! We also walked along Fishermans Wharf, another touristy area and then made our way to Lombard Avenue. Lombard Avenue is crazy, its just turn after turn after turn, its a real tourist attraction too, it is always full of cars and people are stood in the middle of the road taking photos! Its quite strange! One day we hired bikes and decided to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge. This wouldn't have been too bad it was the rest of the day that we spent cycling around the rest of the city that nearly killed us!! We cycled along Fishermans Wharf, over the bridge and back, round Lincoln Park, Golden Gate Park, Height Street and then all the way back to our hostel. There wasn't much bike riding going on towards the end, more like bike pushing!!! Golden Gate Bridge is pretty impressive, it was under fog the whole time we were there though, which is one of the features of San Francisco! We also went to Alcatraz, that was brilliant. You have to catch a boat over to the island, it only takes about 10 minutes, its pretty close. The island itself is now a bird colony so there are birds everywhere which means a lot of the areas are closed to the public. The whole cell house is still open though and its really cool being able to walk around inside. You get an audio tour which is really informative and guides you around the inside of the prison. We got lucky when we were there too, we got to meet one of the former inmates. His name was Darwin Coon and he was in Alcatraz for bank robbery. It was really strange meeting him and thinking of him being locked up there in the 50's and 60's which isn't really that long ago. We rode on the tram which was fun, we did the whole hanging off the side thing which is great apart from when another tram passes, they are pretty close! On our last night there we went to a baseball game which was really good. San Francisco Giants v's Washington Nationals. The match was a sell out so the atmosphere was fantastic. One of the Giants players, Barry Bonds only needed to get 1 home run to break the record of the most home runs in baseball history so everyone was really hyped up about it. He didn't actually get it that night which was a bit disappointing, he has now gone a few runs past the record though which is cool. From San Francisco we went on a 3 day camping trip to Yosemite National Park which was just amazing, one of the most beatiful places we've ever been. On the first day we went for a short walk through the forest and saw the famous giant Sequoia trees which are just huge. We had a picnic lunch in the forest which was cool. We then drove to a few of the famous points within the park, we saw Half Dome which is a huge rock, its really impressive. We also saw El Capitan which is really famous for climbing. There are camps set up in the park just for climbers and there are just hundreds of tents. We actually saw a couple of climbers on El Capitan, crazy guys, they just looked like tiny little specks, it took ages to find them and we could only just see them through binoculars.We also saw a bear as we were driving through the park. It was amazing, it was just sleeping in the woods, it was so incredible seeing it. The last thing we did on our first day was swimming in a beautiful water hole, the water was freezing but it was so nice. After that we went to set up camp, we weren't allowed to keep anything with a fragrance in the tents incase we attracted bears! How cool! On the second day in the park we did a day long hike to Cathedral Lakes. The hike was brilliant and the views were just amazing. We saw loads of wildlife, chipmunks, squirrels, a marmot, a pika, deer, woodpeckers and other things too, it was amazing. We also saw a golden eagle soaring up in the sky, it was so cool! On our last day we didn't do anything too strenuous, we were pretty tired from our hikes. We spent most of the time at Yosemite Village where we went in the visitor centre and had a look around the Indian village and museum which was good. We also did a short walk around the valley before going to the swimming hole for one last swim before we headed back to San Francisco.
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