Night time on Alcatraz! Scary!!

We are very excited today - it's our night time tour of Alcatraz - ooooooo scary! Before then we have a lot to take in. Yesterday we decided to get a hop on hop off bus ticket to go to the Golden Gate Bridge - oh my days it was windy - so windy my hair hurt and Daniel thought his glasses would whip off his face! It was a little foggy but cleared up on route. It was great, the bus took us over the bridge and back again - don't know about cycling it in that wind though.

We thought on the way back we would get off at the Palace of Fine Arts built for the Expo that SF hosted. It was very fancy and old, very much like British venues. After some photo snaps we headed back to the bus...and waited...and waited...and the bus...never turned up! What! Where was it? The guy said one would be along - he lied!! We ended up getting the Muni bus to Fort Mason which was a pleasant surprise. A nice walk through the park where we witnessed a bicycle crash of two French tourists - a little closer to the edge and they would have been goners!

We made it back to the Wharf and had some more fish - well it is Fisherman's Wharf so really we should! This time sole and jumbo shrimp. This fuelled us enough for shopping!!

We thought this would be a good evening to visit China town - it was virtually deserted. Felt very different to London which is manic even first thing in the morning. We did manage to find an awesome restaurant and had a delicious meal. It even had the Peking duck similar to China. I was very impressed. We just wondered why it was so dead - were American's scared of it after dark? It was Friday night, it should have been heaving!

Saturday itself was dedicated to one thing and one thing only - Alcatraz - however...it wasn't til 6pm so how to fill our day, hmmm. Well we decided to visit the park. On route we saw picturesque landscapes like the Painted Ladies. The park itself was huge - so much so we only saw a tiny part of it! They had a music festival like Leeds/Reading in one part. We headed towards the Academy of Sciences which was cool - inside they had a small scale rainforest to walk through, not great in the canopy with birds and butterflies flying round your head! They also had a planetarium with a good earthquake show with some great facts, though hard to remember now - should have took notes! There was also an aquarium - loads in one place. It is a research place which you can see bits of with a museum added on.

The one thing we haven't yet tried is the dungeness crab so after we headed to a crab house for an early tea before boarding for Alcatraz. Now although its a night tour it's not actually dark at 6pm so at the minute we are just like all the day visitors...things soon change. It's quieter, there are more sections of the prison open and you have a guided tour up to the cell block. You still have the audio tour but after there are talks by rangers and a demonstration of the cell doors opening and closing. As the sun went down it became spooky. There were times where there were only us on a certain cell block. And the hospital, well that was probably the scariest place, just like in the Alcatraz programme - which I still think they shouldn't have cancelled - deserted, dark, only lit by one solitary lantern. There was one room in complete darkness, with a tiny opening to look through - you couldn't see anything and were too scared to stick our heads in so we put the camera through with the flash on - it was a bathroom - not in use and still like it was back in the day. We also got to go round the kitchen and had a talk by the ranger on the library about one of the prisoners, his friend later in life. A little personal insight. The cell doors demonstration was loud and echoed round the empty prison. I say empty, tomorrow is their anniversary so former guards, kids of guards and prisoners are staying in the prison tonight - one prisoner in his former cell! Good luck to those!

We get to leave on the last boat with the rangers in the pitch black. The night tour was definitely not to be missed and felt much more reminiscent of the true Alcatraz. The only grievance is we didn't have time for the shop before the shut it - oh well!

This nicely rounds off our trip to SF - next stop LA!

All about the crazies!!

So we have had a full day here now, took in some sights at Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf and we have decided that there are a hell of a lot of crazies around here. Not necessarily drunk - more mental! Literally on every corner either begging, spinning some yarn or trying to entertain in some way to get money out of passerby's - at least they are trying to do something. I've said before about the one that jump out from behind a bush to scare people!

Lets have a little update of where we are at: our hotel is very pleasant, fancy lobby with massive chandeliers, a Starbucks which on paper sounds a great idea but in reality the line is so long you can't be bothered with it!

When we sleepily returned from our Cheesecake meal we were greeted by security (well what looked like a security guard) offering to take us up to the cityscape which no one is allowed up to unless authorised. Us, probably being typically British, thought he was luring us up there to kill us! (Dramatic I know but we were very tired!!) You can see the headline now - 'British tourists found dead in sky deck of hotel' and you can hear what readers would be saying - 'what were they thinking, going with a stranger alone up to a floor with only one exit'!! - so needless to say we didn't go - might have been a mistake but we were knackered anyway and be doing with the OTT American enthusiasm.

With a bit more umph the next day we headed down to the sea front on the cable car taking in Lombard Street on the way. A quiet residential neighbourhood brought to mayhem by a crooked street, crazy but you have to visit. Needless to say you wouldn't want to live there dodging all the tourists as you pull out your drive!

As we woke so early (5am) due to our out of sync body clock we were starving by 11am so we headed to the famous sourdough bread bakery - Boudin - clam chowder all the way! At this time the sun decided to appear which was a blessing as it was too cold for my liking! We headed down the piers and pottered about on the sea front and eventually stumbled upon The America's Cup which SF is hosting in the bay. As nothing was happening you could get in free so we headed to the sports bar for a much needed drink as by now we were getting toasty. It was cool even though we know nothing about sailing. It was a good idea to chillax here as we had a busy night planned at the 49ers. So rejuvenated we headed for a quick pit stop at the hotel then a T Metro ride to Candlestick Park.

This is the last season here so going to the first preseason game should be cool. I say it should be cool, actually it was freezing and they lost but the atmosphere was good and I had a hot dog! Keep wanting to sing duh duh duh duh (makes no sense in writing!) but that doesn't get sung at the football, instead it's ahh-oooo - v. odd! And de-fence but weirdly not o-fence. It was very lively with music played throughout - good the dance to warm up! It was great to go.

And now we've reached Friday here and now, ready for another day of exploring. We're gradually getting  on Californian time - only woke at 7am today!

Update...

Boy are we tired! Trying to get straight on SF time was hard but we did it! After enjoying a lovely Cheesecake Factory dinner and shared some cookie dough cheesecake we were tucked up in bed by 9pm watching Shark Week!

Cheesecake demolished!!

Holiday!!!

Woohoo we are finally on summer holiday!! Been a long time coming and school stuff is now all packed away for six weeks. To get in the mood off I went straight away to Majorca for a few days to get in the holiday mindset and returned chillaxed with a tan!

Now its planning all the way for our trip to the USA! Very excited obviously! So the itinerary is as follows:

San Francisco
Los Angeles
San Diego
Chicago

So far we have tickets booked for the 49ers and Alcatraz night tour. We still need to book our tickets for San Diego Zoo and Sea World. For LA we have a couple of things in mind but nothing booked in advance.

So stay tuned for the travels from London to LA (with a few extra stops too)!!

Oh and in other news we have our first chilli growing!!! Yay!

Summer Holiday booked!!

Stateside here we come!!

Summer holiday is booked - in advance I know but due to last years highly busy wedding season we are getting our holiday booked in now! So the plan, fly to San Francisco, see the sights, then live it LA style, then onto to San Diego via train. Finally the stop off on the way back is two nights in Chicago. I love the windy city and as Daniel has never been and we've both be to NYC a few times we thought Chicago would be a great shout.

Now to figure out what to see, eat, do...

American Adventure 2007 - revisited!

I know it's a long time coming but i have finally got round to sorting out photos and other bits and bobs from holidays gone past. I found all the America bits from when i went with Vicki in 2007 - i know a long time ago! But in amongst leaflets and nick knacks i found two sheets of paper where i had written a mini travel diary for a couple of places we visited - this was long before i decided to blog it. So here are the accounts of my travels to Chicago and San Francisco of times gone by:

"Where do i begin? Obviously i look like a criminal as was on a list to be searched at Heathrow and after a long delay arrived at Chicago only to be questioned at passport control! Answered the questions sweating like a pig even though I'd done nothing wrong! Our journey was good, the view from the airplane of the snow capped mountains of Greenland was amazing. The hotel is great - The Hilton Chicago!! We have bell boys! They upgraded us so we've got a great view of the park and Lake Michigan, a double bed and bathroom each. The TV is way bigger than ours at home, and Clinton stay here when he visits Chicago!

Did a lot of sightseeing on our first day. Went up the Sears Tower which had amazing views of the city and the lake. Saw a number of other nice buildings, Chicago Board of Trade, Wrigley's chewing gum home and Tribune Tower. Also went down the pier, got a boat onto Lake Michigan which had excellent views of the skyline and went through one of their big parks - so manic day. Evening was completely random too as started by being chatted up by a bell boy, chased after a car who had left all their drinks on their roof and i was certain i saw a dead body hanging from the roof of a building!! Found out later it was a piece of art but how weird is that! Also accidentally strolled into a dodgy neighbourhood - when we saw a 'men's only hotel', we quick footed it out of there!!

Went shopping down the magnificent mile and went on a bus tour round the city too which was good. Turns out Oprah and Jerry Springer live opposite each other here! The guide also said i was morbid for trying to take a picture of the 'dead body', but it was too high up. We went up the John Hancock centre at night which is the second highest building here which also had great views and watched fireworks on a bridge over the Chicago river which were going off at the harbour - ahhhh.

So our last day here and we'd pretty much seen the entire city so we went to the beach! I'm determined to come back tanned! We stumbled upon a beach volleyball tournament - mmmm :)

So a little bit long winded from 'the windy city' but we have been up to a lot in a short amount of time and all that jazz! Next stop San Francisco!!!"

"After queuing for no reason at Chicago airport just because everyone else was we made it to San Francisco. Not really with it when we got there as let go of my suitcase and watched it roll down the escalator!!

My god how windy and hilly is it compared to Chicago? Thought we'd take a little walk round, knackered after 5 minutes because it's all up hill and down dale! I also announced to everyone that i didn't know what a ferry was in a ferry terminal!! We got the cable car back to the hotel only for it to break down on the top of a hill!

And the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco bay...not while we were there! Took a long........walk to Golden Gate Bridge only to get there and find we couldn't see the top because of all the fog - apparently typical San Francisco weather! Walked a little way on the bridge then back the the Exploratorium, a hand on type science museum which was cool. While taking the walk through the national recreation area we also saw some kind of sailing competition round Alcatraz! We went on a small pier with all the fisherman which was cool.

The following day with the weather colder and windier we thought we'd see about getting a boat to Alcatraz only to find it was booked up for weeks...booo. So took a walk down Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 which was lovely and quaint with the sea lions in residence there - had a chat with them, arg arg!! We went to take a tour bus and walking to it a homeless person made us jump out of our skins by hiding behind a branch and shouting boo! I screamed and ran! We made it to the bus and went round all the sites - city hall china town, union square - shopping again!

We came back to Pier 39 for dinner at a cool restaurant overlooking the sea lions at one window and Alcatraz out the other. Got to draw on the table cloth which was fun, most interesting meal yet - left a message on the table cloth for the waiters! On the way home we watched some break dancers on the street - who was outdone by someone in the crowd!

So final day here and no improvement in the weather! We started the day going to Lombard Street, the crookedest street going but had to get up there first - mentally up hill - a wall had one brick on one side and 7 on the other, we were knackered - a concrete Everest! Decided to go on a boat trip down to the Golden Gate bridge and Alcatraz - very cold but could see the entire bridge today. Everyone else is taking pictures of the bridge all excited and there's me saying ooooo nice land taking a picture of the landscape - came out rubbish so it got deleted! Alcatraz looked really cool - hard to imagine it existed as a prison not that long ago. Took a final walk round - not scared by homeless people today. Went over to the Transamerican Pyramid but you are not allowed up it any more so went back down to the wharf.

So did we leave our heart in San Francisco - yes, but won't miss the weather!"

Re reading these i remember some things that i had completely forgotten happened! We had a great time - after San Francisco we went onto Las Vegas, Boston and New York so it was an epic holiday, we did so much even though we were only in each place for 3-4 days! Clearly amazing places so much so i went back to some of them a couple of years later which is all blogged here! Great times!!

Chillaxing in Carmel

Quieter day today - time to chillax a little. We make our way through loads of agricultural land, which turns out they flatten the land with lasers as it turns out it's not naturally flat, towards Monterey. We did find out this morning form Kurt the other guide that during our 2 days in San Francisco there was 2 earthquakes! Luckily they were only 2.2ish on the Richter scale and we couldn't feel them, so no panic or need for the emergency earthquake kits we've seen in the shops.

Fisherman's Wharf at Monterey was our first stop - it was that early they were only just setting up on the pier - i was in stitches when Mark our guide was waving and saying hello to a sea otter! It was so funny i was almost in tears. To begin with i couldn't even see what he was looking at as the seals and otters looked like rocks on the shore! Oh well, back on the road down to the world famous Cannery Row. This is where all the sardines from the bay used to be canned, it's quite a cute place really. John Steinbeck wrote books based here - I'm sure it was Of Mice and Men he wrote. Anyway we continued down the coast, where we saw a dead shark, then into Carmel.











A very odd town, extremely posh, randomly had a Tiffany's and Louis Vuitton there and rules on how to behave in the shopping area. Clearly a place where the men go off to work and the town is for ladies who lunch! Need to find me a sugar daddy, haha.

Final stop of the day after driving down the freeway that James Dean died on was Pismo Beach. Morbid i know but our guide likes to tell us all!! Tea at a Japanese Sushi restaurant was nice - they had hot plates where the chefs cooked it in front of you - one of them got a little eager tossing his spatula around, but all good fun and the beef teriyaki was fab. Back to LA tomorrow, boooo that means we are near the end of our tour :(

Escaped from Alcatraz!!!

Very excited - I'm off to prison! After getting our trolley down to the pier we boarded our boat to Alcatraz. A very harsh environment there, on one side of the island it overlooks the bay and the view of San Francisco. In a way it reminded me of Ellis Island in New York where the immigrants looked out to the Statue of Liberty. The audio tour is excellent with the ex prisoners and guards narrating your tour as well as background noises that at times freaked you out a little - like when they talked about the riots and escape attempts. The story of the 3 that did escape by making masks out of soap, paint, cement and hair was amazing and you have to give them a little credit for their creativity! The cells were tiny and depending which block you were in there was very little natural light.













Stories of this prison are really interesting from the guards, families that lived there but especially the prisoners. We had the advantage of leaving prison when we so wished! So off we went on the boat to the mainland to get clam chowder, mmmmmm.

As most of our day was spent in prison we ended the time we had left in San Francisco shopping at Union Square. At least the weather picked up today and wasn't anywhere as near as foggy, windy or cold!











I think i have now succeeded in seeing all major attractions in San Francisco from my two visits! Yay!

San Fran Foggy!

Before we knew it this morning we were travelling over the Oakland Bay Bridge and entering San Francisco - all before 9.30am! Turns out they are trying to make the first section of the bridge earthquake proof so they have rebuilt it and are going to move the rest of the bridge over to join the new section over the labour weekend. Moving a bridge in 3-5 days - is that really going to happen? We'll see!

Ron then drove us on a tour round the San Fran neighbourhoods. We saw some lovely Victorian houses, which they call painted ladies (we'd use that term for something else), went up Twin Peaks to look at the very fogy view of the city and also around the Castro district. I was glad we went round there as didn't get the opportunity to last time i was in the city, since we found out so much about it in lectures it's always nice to see for yourself.











Golden Gate Park was our first stop. We had time for a stroll around, in the cold i might add, saw the Japanese Tea Garden, Sarah 'walked like a man' through the centre of the square before making our way down to Golden Gate Bridge.

As ever the fog was still strong and you could see the glimmer of international orange through the mist. Whilst some walked across the bridge then went for lunch, we all went down to Pier 39 and had a few hours to potter about. Windy it was!











After fresh fish and chips we found a great left handers shop! Sarah was not amused! It was well good, full of gadgets, the guy in there said that in the US only about 10% of lefties are female - don't know how true that is - he also said that I'm losing my London accent, sounding a little like i was from Newcastle! He advised i visit London more often to not lose it completely, how sweet. We saw the sea lions and gazed across the bay to Alcatraz which we are visiting tomorrow.











Turns out our guide was telling us on the way to the hotel that the guy who hides behind the bush and jumps out on people was arrested as one person took it that badly and called the cops - I thought he was a homeless person - didn't realise he does it all the time, he scared the living daylights out of me the last time i was here!

Very excited as went to Bubba Gumps for dinner, overlooking he bay when the sun went down with a great night view of Alcatraz. The shrimp was lovely - as was our server, Luke. We had split a fab pudding of a giant chocolate chip cookie sundae, mmmmmm. Turns our Luke was also a leftie - maybe it was meant to be! To top our night off - aside from the 2 hour chat in reception with some of the others when we got back - another city, another free public transport ride! Though this time it wasn't out of pity - the trolley's pay thing had broken! Oh well!!