Tuesday 3 May - After a three day stop in London after Italy, we jumped back on the plane and headed to LA, where we rendezvoused with Ella May at the Hollywood Celebrity Hotel, a block from Hollywood Bvd. Despite the fantastic weather and the LA excitement just around the corner we all passed out from jetlag and didn't emerge until later at night, at which point we made a bee line for a sushi joint on the boulevard.
Wednesday 4 May - we kicked off the morning with a walk up
Runyon Canyon Park where we had a hot tip that that's where a lot of the celebs like to walk their dogs. I was a little put off by the sign warning walkers about rattle snakes, but probably more put off by how quickly Jono identified Amber Rose. So that was our first celeb sighting.
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| Ella May - A Grade Celeb |
After breakfast at the hotel we all decided to tempt fate and made a plan to make our way to Santa Monica and Venice Beach using LA public transport. We won't be doing that again! We spent seven hours on public buses that day.. But we did have Mexican for lunch, a rack of beers and ice cream!
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| Pre public transport - all smiles |
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| Santa Monica Boardwalk |
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| Great viewing!! |
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| Anyone for American cuisine? |
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| Muscle Beach |
So after a day on LA public transport, there's only one place to go for dinner - burgers at
25 Degrees under the Roosevelt. MAKE. YOUR. OWN. BURGER. and drink beers.
Thursday Cinco de Mayo - It's a Mexican day that the States celebrates, so there was only one place to go - San Diego! We hired a car from a non-exactly reputable car hire dealership (we think we were driving a personal car) and hit the freeway to make a bee line for a recommendation from our Mexican-at-heart California girl Priscilla:
The Old Town Mexican Cafe. With the old ladies making tortillas in the window, everyone dressed up in their Mexican gear, the Mariachi singing in the corner and the Cinco de Mayo vibe running on full throttle we were in for a nice introduction to San Diego.
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| One bucket of Coronas |
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| Cocktails! |
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| One amazing Mexican lunch |
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| One happy Jono |
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| One happy Ella |
All followed by one happy nap in the park before we hit pacific beach...
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| Pacific Beach pier |
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| And from the pier our adventures only continued.. |
After Fatburger, we headed to the
BeachWood for some Cinco de Mayo sundowners on the roof top where the staff filled supersoakers with watermelon flavoured tequila to spray into your mouth and declared their undying love to Ella. We had to return to LA after just a couple of drinks (designated driver was clearly not participating in the sundowners), but apparently the place got pumping once we left (trust) as the radio station we were listening to in the car started streaming from the bar...
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San Francisco - Friday 6 May to Monday 9 May
San Fran To Do List:
- See the most crooked street in the world
- Hike a hill
- See the Golden Gate Bridge
- Ride a cable car
- Have some sour dough
- Visit Alcatraz
- See the bison at the Golden Gate park
- Haight-Ashbury
- See the Full House house
- Buy a MacBook Air
- Check out the markets
Friday 6 May - seven hour bus ride from LA to San Francisco on a door to door shuttle bus. I made the mistake of ordering the LARGE (as opposed to the supermegaextralarge) coke at Burger King. It was MAssive.
We checked into the
Amsterdam Hostel, which was reasonably centrally located and also offered free pancakes for breakfast. After dumping our bags and rugging up against the cold wind we hit the town in search of dinner. No chance at all the first five places we looked at because they were all so busy, so we settled on a Thai place a couple of blocks from the hostel where we accidentally ordered an absolute feast of food.
Saturday 7 May - The Amsterdam is located on Taylor Street, an arterial street that runs between Market Street and the Fisherman's Wharf. After a quick coffee and eggs stop at a cafe around the corner we got ready to start exploring the San Francisco city and hills by heading down to the Fisherman's Wharf.
First up, a detour near Nob Hill (Tick: Hike a Hill) to
Lombard Street to check out the most crooked street in the world (Tick: See the most crooked street in the world).
From Lombard Street we followed the trams down Hyde Street to the Hyde Street Pier National Park where we saw a few people taking the plunge and swimming in the frigid waters and checked out a tiny rowboat two guys had rowed a very long distance in (I should remember all the details, but sorry I can't). You can look inside and see all the messages the rowers scrawled. My favourite was this one: "If you want something nothing is impossible (except juggling with a cup of tea in your hand)".
We continued the walk towards the Fishermen's Wharf, the clam chowders and Boudin Bakery and on towards the Saturday markets (Tick: Check out the markets) at the Ferry Building.. stopping for a pretzel along the way.
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| Market goods |
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| Mexican or Mexican't? |
From the
Ferry Building Markets we all headed off up Market Place, stopping to chat with a guy who had mounted photographs of some of the local graffiti for sale. Soon after this Jono and I split ways with Ella so she could see the Museum of Contemporary Art and we could visit the Mac Store (Tick: Buy a MacBook air). From there we took our time heading back to the Amsterdam, stopping at Nike Town and Macy's along the way. Back at the Amsterdam, Ella busted us being total geeks - both tapping away at our little Macs. Seriously. Guilty. Pleasure.
That afternoon I took off for a walk around the area near the hostel before dinner.
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| This light outside a house had a real gas flame! |
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| Sweet statue |
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| Reasonably classic San Fran abodes |
After my walk we all headed out in search of dinner and ended up back at the same Thai place around the corner, but on our gourmet travels we came across these little fishies. Note, if you pass these heading towards Market Street, you are headed for Dodgyville. I am yet to see a place where homelessness is as prominent as it is in San Fran.
Sunday 8 May (Mother's Day) - This was a big day! After Ella-cooked-pancakes and strange-Israeli-guy-made-Turkish-coffee for breakfast we retraced our steps down to the Fisherman's Wharf and each hired a bike (at point B on the map) for the next 24 hours, then headed off in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge (Tick: See the Golden Gate Bridge).
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| Thanks Google - this is our bike route for Sunday. |
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| Sunday Morning Sunshine |
That was an epic ride on that bridge. I kept thinking about the suicide statistics - on average there's a jumper every week. When I wasn't preoccupied with the thought of where people may have jumped from I was trying to battle the wind, which stopped me dead in my tracks at one point when I tried to ride around one of the pillars.
On the other side of the bridge the three of us again went in different directions as Jono wanted to visit a spot he'd been to previously and Ella was keen to check out the woods nearby. We headed to the place Jono had visited with Jr, Gags and Blair and then decided it was time for a bite to eat, so took ourselves back over to the city side and into the Presidio of San Francisco, where we found a great little
cafe (point D on the map) and got on board the Mother's Day brunch festivities... and made some canine friends.
It was hard going after those brunch eggs, but we had the Golden Gate Park and the bison ahead of us (Tick: see the bison at the Goldnen Gate Park).
There was a great vibe on at the park that afternoon. We passed a group of people taking a free swing dance lesson
Some waterfalls...
And a guy out for a bike ride with his family, listening to the baseball on his portable radio and dinking his pet boxer in the back trailer of his bike.
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| yep, there's a dog in there. |
Found the bison (at G on the map. Tick)... they were pretty boring...
And found this sign, it was pretty exciting.
So next on the list of things to do: check out
Haight-Ashbury, see the Full House house and get ourselves home. We made it to Haight-Ashbury (between points J and K on the map. Tick: See Haight-Ashbury), but began rethinking the detour to the Full House house.
At this stage we re-evaluated the plan and decided against the Full House house, instead we went on to Alamo Square to sit in the sun across the road from the
Painted Ladies... nearly as good if you recall...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO5oDScu4ps or www.youtube.com/watch?v=VstP2jqJcQM (Sorry, Canada's VIA rail wifi won't allow me to see and copy and paste youtube clips)..
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| Painted Ladies |
After Alamo Square we figured we'd done a pretty good job of fitting a lot in and called it a day, heading back to the Amsterdam to recover. That night we all finally got into the sushi place down the road we were dying to eat at and were impressed with the food but not with the thumping sounds of Beyonce on a Sunday night.
Monday 10 May - Last day in San Fran, what's left to do? Alcatraz, sourdough and cable car!! Tick! Tick! Tick!
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| Caught the boat over to Alcatraz and picked up an excellent audio tour. Highly recommended. |
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| On the audio guide there was a story from one inmate who told about the noises the prisoners could hear of the real world, in particular the laughter heard on New Years Eve when parties would take cruises in the bay. This is a view from a hall window near the library - it's really not that far to the mainland, but it's the currents and cold water that'll get you. |
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| Escap |
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| Chillin like a villain. |
Some where between above and below we headed to the
Boudin Bakery for a final hit of local cuisine before rounding out or To Do List with a ride on the Powell Street Cable Car.
Next stop SEATTLE!
Some last minute San Fran bits.
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