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!!

What's the obsession with Toblerone?

Two films down and still plenty of time left on this flight. Though it's not been too bad so far. Iron Man 3 wasn't all that though I did miss most of the explanation of the plot due to too much coffee and an emergency toilet visit. The end of 42 was good though on these flights you can't select when to start it so I missed the beginning due to a drama with my lunch tray. The lasagne was OK - well for plane food! We have been travelling for practically a day now what with the train to London, a very squished tube ride to Heathrow and now. Never a fan of travelling in someones armpit on the tube!

As we travel over the beginning of Canada from looking at the map I begin pondering about airports. Mainly - what is the obsession with Toblerone? Everywhere we went there were piles of the chocolate - Smiths, Duty Free - Why? Who knows.

Anyho back to our flight, still over the northern reaches of Canada with some awesome views out of the window of great expanses of white glistering ice - we took a photo - it looks like outer space! At this point Daniel starts signing 'Trapped in the mighty  darkness of the Tundra' - a song I've never heard of but the Mighty Boosh apparently sum the area up nicely - 'Ice ice nowhere to go!' - Well it could melt not to get too geographical about it!

Woohoo Codeword almost done - don't think I've ever completed one before (though Daniel is doing most of it!)

Codeword now complete - Yay!!

According to our flight map we are just crossing the border from Canada to the USA so shouldn't be too long before we land in San Francisco!

Lets hope it's not San Fran Foggy!!

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!

Crafty Crafts 2!!! Change purse!

Next in my crafty crafts range - a change purse! As my holiday purse got stolen in Amsterdam I thought I'd make a new one and found a pattern in a magazine mum gave me. It was a little tricky sewing in the zip but I got there and here it is - voila!!

Crafty crafts!! Homemade travel journal!

When I go on what i call 'big' holidays (sounds a little Miranda-esque!!) which are long holidays far away, not your couple of days in Spain sunbathing I like to take a travel journal. Just think it will be a good thing to look back to when I'm older. This year I decided to make my own rather than buy it from Paperchase like normal. OK I've not made the paper but the case is all my handy work! Padded and themed to this year's holiday - very proud of my handy work!!