Day 7, 24th August 2011. San Francisco

Woke up at 8am this morning, and did my first bit of washing in the bathroom sink, before getting ready to g meet the others downstairs at 9am for our day in San Francisco. We left the hotel and went down to the pier to get breakfast on a cable car.

Gary on a very busy cable car

Cable car

The pier

We had a little look around to see what there was, and then decided to have breakfast at a place called the Eagle Cafe. The food was really nice, a bit expensive but so worth it, the pancakes were so good!

After we had eaten we wandered around the pier for a while to look at the sights and look in the shops for a while.

Whale watching tour!! Would have loved to do that if we'd had more time

Left handers outside the left hand store

We eventually got off the pier and just walked around the streets still looking in shops. We saw a Rainforest Cafe and made a reservation for later that day. We were planning on going to a baseball game tonight so we tried to get some information on tickets for that but we couldn't really find anything.

Bread shaped like animals in the Boudin Bakery

Got a cable car back to the hotel at about 2pm so we could get changed into some warmer clothes and have a little rest before going out for dinner and the baseball game tonight.

Of course I wanted to go to the Walt Disney Family museum but Gary refused :(

They had a chalkboard in the hotel lobby so Gary did this

We met in the hotel lobby again at 3.30pm and we got to the Rainforest Cafe at 4.30pm. It was the biggest and nicest one I've ever been to, there was so much going on in there and because there was such a large group of us we got a table right in the middle with good stuff happening everywhere, compared to when just me and Gary go and we get a tiny table in the corner.

I had my usual, Blue Mountain Chicken Sandwich, which is one of my favourite things to eat ever, and it was just as good as I'd remembered it. This was the first Rainforest visit of many while we were in the USA.

Really pretty sky that kept changing colour

After dinner we started walking down the road looking for a taxi to take us to the baseball game. We couldn't find one but then a random limo offered to take us for $7 each. It was really weird to get a limo from some guy in the street, but it got us there fine, it took about 20 minutes and the driver gave Gary his number and said he would come and pick us up afterwards if we rang him.

AT&T Stadium

We lined up and got our tickets, which were only $20 each, which was great. The game was the San Francisco Giants vs the San Diego Padres.

We walked into the stadium and found our seats. The atmosphere was really cool and 'American', we really loved it. They played the national anthem before the game started, and all the fans were so ethusiastic throughout the game, cheering and chanting, so that made it even more fun to watch. Of course we didn't really know what was going on but figured it was quite similar to rounders, but I still didn't really understand it. Regardless, it was still really fun to watch and was such a good experience. Plus the views over the San Fran bay were really good, definitely one of the best places to watch a sport game.

As much as I enjoyed the game, it did seem to last for a really long time, made worse by the fact that it was so cold, was so glad I'd changed into warmer clothes. But we did see 2 home run's and the Giants won (yay). When the game was over Gary rang the limo driver and he came and picked us up again and drove us back to the hotel.





As soon as we got back to the hotel we went to bed. It had been a long and tiring day but it was worth it, we'd had a really good day, and it more than made up for our crap day yesterday.

Day 6, 23rd August 2011. Yosemite - San Francisco

So I thought having an early night would make it easier to get up, it didn't. I don't think it ever was because we were so behind on sleep. Anyway, we were up, dressed, ready, had breakfast, tents taken down and ready to go by 7am. Today we were leaving Yosemite, but we were going through it to see the giant Sequoia trees this morning.

Section of a tree showing how big they are

We were doing a hike to see the trees, it was unbeleivable how easy it was compared to yesterday's hike because it was on flat ground....! I love walking on flat ground, I could have done it all day, so much easier to enjoy whats going on around you.

Tree with a hole in it

It was a nice walk, but not amazing. Only took an hour and a half, and we were back in the van on our way to San Francisco. On the way there we stopped at a really cute and totally american farmers market that sold loads of fruit. Just in the middle of the road, it was so cool because we don't have anything like that in the UK.

Of course this is America.. I miss the random items you can get over there

We got some grapes that Gary is enjoying in this photo

Then we arrived in San Francisco!! I can't remember what time it was, I think about 2pm. We parked up the van and ate lunch in a car park, then walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really cold and windy because of all the mist. It was so cool though to go there and see it for real after Soarin' over it so many times in Disney!

Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge

View of San Francisco

Walking across the bridge

Suicide phones on the bridge :(

It is so long it took us 45 miutes to just walk across. Afterwards we drove to check in to the hotel... HOTEL! Aaaah we were so excited! We had only bee camping for 3 nights but it was well needed. It was nice to see the streets of San Fran on the way, they really are so steep. The houses are so pretty as well, its definitely a super cool city!

 We all checked into our rooms and spent the next few hours enjoying clean showers, clean towels, electricity and beds! We had a sunset boat cruise booked for the evening so we all met downstairs and got cabs to the pier.

Pier 39

Boat

The cruise was quite dissapointing. It was really really cold and too misty to see anything. It was a good experience, it just would have been way better if we could see things.

Alcatraz prison

One of the only moments of the cruise where we could see the bridge

Our group with San Fran in the background

After the boat cruise we went to a bar, but we didn't stay there for long because it was really expensive and we had a table booked for dinner. We were going to eat at the bar instead because it was attached to a resteraunt but we decided against it because it was expensive. Art had booked a table at an Indian restaraunt so we went there but the food was really bad! Me and Kirsty hardly ate anything and Abby's food didn't even come to the table so we just got a taxi back to the hotel and went to bed.

Our first night in San Fran was pretty rubbish, but the next day more than made up for it!