San Fransisco

Welcome to San Fransisco 

Day one:

Unfortunately on my first morning I woke up with what turned out to be a head cold. Sore throat and running nose started me off on the wrong foot.

I had a booked a premium city tour along with a walk in the Muir woods but the second half had been cancelled a few days before. I arrived early to the arrival destination and was welcomed by the tour Guide Mandy. 

We set off on tour with what turned out to be some trump supporters from Louisiana. How to I know this? They started discussing ‘snowflakes’ and ‘liberal’s’ when they saw a sign for free health care. Not sure why they needed to voice this so loudly but maybe they had never travelled before?! One did mention that they had to come to San Fransisco to become educated (this was after we saw the pillars from the Palace of Fine Arts). I could not think to myself that he would be completely overwhelmed if he came to Europe. 

Our first stop was Lombard street where I was amazed to find is much smaller then I imagined. I came to realise this over the next day as well - then again the city is only 7x7 miles in total.

Another stop I enjoyed was the pained houses that were in the intro to Full House, I did feel a bit sad realising they didn’t live in one of them, in the intro had a picnic there.

We then headed to Chinatown that had many different shops including a hospital and fortune cookie factory. For $0.50 I was allowed to take a picture. As it turns out there was a court case deciding on who invented it and the man from San Fransisco won.

Another few stops and we were at the Golden Gate Bridge which was amazing. We were quite lucky to see it without fog as most of the time it is covered in fog. We then headed to Sasilito, a small town around 20 mins away which had a lot of small shops and restoraunts. I wanted to have In and Out Burger when we got back so ended up having a giant strawberry milkshake / smoothie. It was quite tasty but a bit too big so only ended up having half. 

We then took a ferry ride back which had some amazing views except I fell asleep. I only woke up when I dropped my phone I was holding on the floor!

After getting back to the city I ended up wandering around the area and having my favourite burger at In an Out. After then finding a pharmacy I headed back to my hostel for an early night with ibuprofen starting season one of call the midwife. After starting watching again for about the fourth time it truly is my favourite show since Mad Men. 

Day two:

The following day I woke up with a blocked nose and dry mouth. Luckily I had taken some ibuprofen with a sleep aid so at least had a good nights sleep. I completely forgot to set my alarm so had to skip breakfast to make it to the cruise for Alcatraz at 10.30am. It was then that I realised that I would not make my Muir Tour the following day as I needed to rest and take it easy. Luckily they offered me an 85% refund which was nice considering I had cancelled at such short notice.

I had an amazing hot chocolate and strange sandwich while waiting for the boat. Things as always were quite efficient and we got to the island around 15 mins later. After a compulsory stop where were told not to eat and to not take anything from the island. I set then off for the first stop which was a 15 min documentary about the island and it’s history. 

Although I know about it being an infamous prison I had no idea that Native American people had taken over the island in the 1960s claiming land rights. You can see on different locations the slogans they put up. Although they didn’t win the fight to keep the island it did change the rights for many native Americans throughout the country.

I was also interested to learn that the guards family’s lived on the island but had no contact with the prisoners. Interviews with the children showed how it was a wonderful place to grow up and likened it to living in a small town.

I then went on the cell tour which was informative and interesting. My only issue was that it seemed to romanticise the prison and the escapes. Going through the gift store there were many comics for kids about the escapes etc. Although prison escapes are interesting the reality was that these people were hardened criminals who were quite violent.

Another thing I noticed and had through out my first few days is that the Americans seem to love talking on the phone. Maybe I am the strange one as I almost never talk on mine - FB messenger is my main form of communication. I thought it was weird that you are on a tour with your family and you are talking about business things. I guess as many people don’t have a lot of holiday time they have to combine the two?

Getting back to the mainland I decided to rest for a bit and read my book with some hot chocolate. I then wandered the many tacky gift shops deciding on buying some magnets and postcards on the last day I am here. I did, however, get my nephew this amazing tee shirt!

After spending $35 on more over the counter medications (I was ID’d for cough medicine) I am now back in my hostel. I plan to take some of the wonder drug I had yesterday and watch some more Call the Midwife to cheer myself up. 

Day Three: 

As you can guess I woke up again with my cold. Today was a rest day and time to do a bit of clothes shopping as I had put off buying things in NZ. I managed to sleep in which was good and woke up to rain. I managed to almost get to the mall without getting wet but then the heavens started to open - and then lasted all day. After doing some shopping I found a a really great soup place for lunch I ended up having some amazing creamy tomato soup and slightly salty ceaser salad. I decided to see Ready Player One and let’s just say American movie theatres put us to shame. It cost $21 so around $28 USD, they were recliner seats with a huge screen. It was an amazing experience even if the movie left me disappointed (the book is so much better). For some reason I decided to head back to the mall in what I can only describe as a monsoon. I attempted to wait for a bus but ended up taking a Uber back to my hostel for a nice warm shower and another early night.

Day Four:

My last day in San Fransisco. I decided to wake up early today to have some free breakfast but ended up waking up around 10am when it finished. I woke up in the middle of the night as the light for my USB charger had gone out. As it turned out there had been a power cut and once it did come back, around 10 minutes later all of the smoke alarms went off. As you can imagine it woke everyone up but we were all then told to go back to sleep. As it turns out there had not been this much rain in around a year and some people had never seen it that bad before. 

Anyway once I did manage to get up and dressed I went off to see the Walt Disney Museum. I managed to take a free bus as the museum is part of a national park complex. Unfortunately when I was there I received a message that my grandmother had passed away in the UK. She had been sick since having a nasty fall just before Christmas. Although we were expecting it it was still a shock. She has been there all of my life and I never thought she would pass away. I find it hard to believe I now live a world where she is not here.

As you can imagine I was not too interested in seeing much more but went through the museum and what I found most interesting is that you think Walt was the main animator but he was more the brains behind the operation. I’m not sure you can justify the $25 entry fee but I did like the Disneyland Model. 

I had planned to go to the Golden Gate Park and managed to get there in the late afternoon. I have had sore feet since I arrived and I was constantly confused by the bus system. Let’s just say I have no sense of direction and with traffic going in a different direction I can’t count the number of times I missed the bus because I was on the wrong side of the street. I am hoping this will be better once I get to the bigger cities as they have subway systems. I also then decided it was probably a good idea to buy a new pair of shoes but this will have to wait until I reach Chicago.

I finally managed to get to the park and had the same feeling I had the last time I was on holiday in Paris. Sore feet and a head cold, dragging myself around the Louve to see the Mona Lisa only to see it was tiny. Today I was dragging myself to see the buffalo (as you can see from the pic were hard to see). After getting the bus back to main pier area (I managed to get both busses correct this time!) I decided I needed to re-think my holiday. What is the point of being exhausted seeing all of these things and not having any fun?

Anyway after my last meal at In and Out Burger I managed to do a bit of souvineers shopping and finally seeing the seals before heading back to my hostel to pack for my train trip the next day.

My overall perceptions of the city: I have heard people here are friendly and I can certinally say this for the hostel staff and Uber drives I relied on. However, bus drivers were unfriendly and some just rude. Not even looking at someone when showing them my pass and yelling at people. Even when saying thank you seemed to be an effort for them to acknowledge. Even people in stores only a handful were nice. Maybe I don’t smile enough but I did try to over compensate this. Then again maybe it’s because I have a strange accent and people don’t like tourists?