San Francisco
Trip Start
Apr 16, 2008
1
33
Trip End
Aug 11, 2008
Where I stayed
San Francisco, California
Monday, August 4, 2008
We managed to get the greyhound overnight from down town LA to San Francisco. We arrived into S.F at 07:30 and booked into our hostel. We then helped ourselves to a free breakfast of bagels, fruit and coffee courtesy of the Green Tortoise before setting out for what we thought would be a short walk along broadway street to the piers. We ended up going the wrong way along broadway (4 months away and we still cant read a map) and spent the day near the golden gate bridge instead. On returning to the hostel we helped ourselves to the free spag bol, which ended up being the best free meal we'd had all trip. Not a bad hostel to end the trip in :)
Tues 5th
Today we woke early and again helped ourselves to the free breakfast before deciding to venture into town to union square where all the big high street shops are located. We did some window shopping before heading down through china town, which we later learnt is the biggest china town in america at 14 blocks long and 7 blocks wide. We ended the evening with a thai meal impressing the waitress with our knowledge of the thai language and telling her about where we had visited in thailand.
Wed 6th
We started the day early again having booked onto the Nappa Valley wine tour, which picked us up at 08:30 outside our hostel. The tour started with a trip over the golden gate bridge and a stop off at the other side to view San Francisco, covered in fog. We then had a 40 minute journey before we reached our first winery named Madonna Winery (Not named after the singer, which they strongly pointed out when we first arrived). To Christinas massive disappointment there was no white zinferdale to be found here, which according to the tour guide is a wine for the uneducated wine drinker. However, there were a number of other wines all of which went down very nicely. Pinot Gricco stood out as one of the best in this winery (I wasn't there just to get smashed initially, we did learn a bit from the first winery however the next 2 winerys were a bit of a blur). After learning about growing grapes and releasing wine from being trapped inside the bottle we then moved on to the next winery 20 minutes down the road. It was now getting close to mid day and although we were only an hour out of S.F the temperature was 10 degrees higher than in the city. Something to do with S.F being surrounded by water. Anyway enough of that lets get back to the drinking. Our next winery, to Christinas delight, did do zinfendale but not white. We managed to enjoy 8 different wines here including a muscat dessert wine, a merlot and another pinot greccio. We then stopped for lunch in Sennoma Valley at Sennoma Square, which had some lovely shops where you could taste cheese, fudge and salami for free. Our final winery was an italian winery, which gave away generous helpings of wine followed by italian bread and a number of different dips. The tour ended around 5pm and we managed to make it back to the hostel in time for a free mexican meal. Great day :)
Thurs 7th
For our final day in the city of San Francisco we chose to go on a tour of the city organised by the green tortoise and run by a nice bloke called ellie, who definately knew all you needed to know about the history of S.F. His tour lasted for 8 hours and we did china town, little italy, golden gate bridge, seven sisters (Beautiful victorian houses), lands end amongst others. Once we had finished the tour of S.F we headed down to pier 33 ready for our tour of Alcatraz, which started at 6pm. Before leaving on the ferry to Alcatraz we arranged to meet Danni and Abi, 2 NZ women we met in LA, for a few drinks after the tour. The tour of Alcatraz lasted 3 hours and was an amazing tour well worth doing. We learnt about how Alcatraz started off as a fort before becoming a military prison in the late 1800's and then becoming a civilian prison in 1934. It was then closed in 1963 apparently due to the high costs of running the place although others recon it was because of the famous escape in 1962, that showed Alcatraz was escapable, that lead to the closure. After it closed it became famous again in the 1970's when native indians camped out on the desserted island for 2 years in protest of how they were being treated.
After the tour we met Danni and Abi for cocktails in a bar near pier 33 before moving on to a jazz bar. Another great day :)
Friday 8th
We woke early and packed our bags having spent our last night in a hostel and preparing ourselves for two nights of luxury in a hotel not far from the airport. We spent the morning checking out and visiting china town one last time and then got the underground and a shuttle bus to the hotel. We booked in to the Grosvenor hotel and spent the rest of the day watching movies before going down for diner. For diner I had clam chowder soup followed by swordfish with ginger sauce (Amazing!!!). Christina had salmon. We then spent the night in amazing comfort of a king size bed with a 40" screen tv.
Sat 9th
Today was a lazy day that started off with a free continental breakfast followed by watching tv, swimming in the heated swimming pool and then having diner. Diner was a nice chicken curry for me and an amazing chicken salad for Christina washed down with champers :)
Sun 10th
After 16 weeks on the road we ended our trip by spending the morning packing and helping ourselves to yet another free breakfast before heading to the airport at 12:30. We then did some last minute shopping at the airport before boarding the plane for the 9 and a half hour flight HOME :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
