San Francisco

I will warn my more legally-minded readers that the next few weeks will be filled with musings of my trip around the States, because it must be documented and this is as good a place as any.

I still have vague memories of dragging myself out of bed at 3.45am to head off to the airport last year for the East Coast trip. This time, it was only a 6.15 wake-up call but I was anticipating a much more tired Susie at the end of the longest day ever, seeing as by the time we got to bed last night, it was 6am the next day in the UK and we had been awake for 24 hours. I should point out at this stage that upon return from New York last year I remained awake for 36 hours, and that longer periods are only to come once I start at The Law Firm so this really wasn’t so bad, but having only had 5 hours of sleep a night the three previous nights, this was somewhat more of an achievement.

Our journey half-way across the globe what mostly uneventful. Sitting on a plane is one of my least favourite activities along with dining on arsenic and bathing with tarantulas, but eleven hours passed surprisingly quickly watching quality cinematographic productions such as The Holiday and Music & Lyrics.

I actually really liked both. Sue me.

Miss B and her friend (who had no choice in the matter) came to collect us from the airport which was very nice. San Francisco welcomed us with a lovely sunny and clear day, and not a hint of the famous fog. Our hotel was rather well-chosen seeing as it is practically on Union Square, bang in the centre of all the shops and even on the same block as Macy’s! This was clearly a sign that it should be the destination of our first shopping trip, for me to purchase some MAC products… I’ve been scrimping along with the tiniest ions of eyeshadow as I knew I would be coming to the land of the free and the home of the cheaper brands!

The same afternoon we sampled the delights of the MUNI by getting two buses to the Golden Gate Bridge and walking half way along it. It was rather impressive and Miss B was correct when she said we would get cold in the wind (she cheated as she had already been to see the bridge earlier).

Views were very nice though.

There is only so much bridge a girl can walk along, thus we proceeded to get another bus back to the centre and after a brief interlude to get changed we headed for a 50s diner across the street – very all-American of us.

On Thursday our first stop was to be the pier to inquire about boats. Having spent the last two months firmly placed in my seat in the library, I was more than happy to do some walking when Miss B suggested it. We walked through North Beach – which was flagged out to us as a good area for bars and suchlike. However, all we managed to spot were rather seedy looking places and strip-joints. Perhaps we were looking in the wrong direction…

We tried to avoid the huge hills – obviously San Francisco is hilly, everyone who has seen a movie taking in the city that has a car chase scene will know this. Obviously people do not drive in such a haphazard manner on a daily basis. This is to our advantage as pedestrians though. Our walk took us down to Fisherman’s Wharf whereupon we were directed to Pier 33 for the Alcatraz boats. It baffles me why there are only odd-numbered piers, as pier 33 was preceded by Pier 31. Numerically bizarre, but distance-wise nice for our little feet.

Unsurprisingly, a few others wanted to go to Alcatraz as well, but we managed to get tickets for later the same afternoon. In the meantime we went in search of culinary genius – although what we actually found (gnocchi, lasagne and a ham and cheese sandwich) was adequate enough.

After lunch we took a stroll around Fisherman’s Wharf and visited the famous sea-lions. Personally I think all they do is make a lot of noise and attract a great deal of touristic interest but it was a sight to be seen. To use up the rest of the afternoon we walked up to check out Ghihardelli’s famous chocolate shop (although decided not to make any purchases to prevent melting) and photographed Lombard Street – the weird zigzaggy windy bit, not just the street in general.

Alcatraz was truly fantastic. The boat took about ten minutes to cross over to the island, where we climbed a good 15 minutes to reach the prison building, where we spent 45 minutes walking around guided by former guards and prisoners – an award-winning audio tour apparently, and I must say it was very impressive. I’m a big fan of audio tours, you never get to know as much otherwise. We learned about the big escape attempt where several people caused a shootout and held some guards hostage for three days, and the time three guys climbed up the air vents and made it onto a raft waiting outside, never to be seen again. Some believe they made it to South America.

Way home was by street-car (quite fun, especially as it was free) and dinner in Chinatown. Although we aren’t convinced that we found the absolute centre as everything appeared to close at 10 which for a significant metropolis I found to be rather early…

On Friday we decided to use our hooves again to walk up to Alamo Square – that’s where the pretty Victorian houses are that you see in pictures of San Francsico. We walked up Fulton Street which we thought seemed suitably harmless, and indeed it was very quiet and residential. Little did we know that in the previous few days there had been three shootings in the area and we had inadvertently walked across the scene of a gangfight. It all looked very nice and normal to us though!

Alamo Square was very pretty but very high up. So obviously the views were rather spectacular and we should have calves of steel by the end of our ‘leisurely stroll’ up the hill. We continued on to the Height which is apparently where the hippy movement started. Height Street houses several rather random shops with a distinct scent of insence, purveying tie-dye t-shirts and other hippie-related paraphernalia. We found it all very colourful and lovely and fun, and rather random. I even got some crackling candy and mad libs for our roadtrip.

We continued to Golden Gate Park and had a look around the Botanical Gardens (we saw a pink house – shotgun!) which was quite uneventful but pleasant. After getting a bus back to Fisherman’s Wharf we lunched in an Irish Pub and stocked up on chocolate (see above). Homeward-bound, we got the cable car which was so much fun, even though we were sitting inside and didn’t get as much of a view as we had thought. But we certainly got a good feel of the hills of San Francisco which are everywhere. It’s quite amazing as you can be walking down a perfectly flat street and turn a corner and be encountered with a perpendicular incline or a practical abyss. People even park their cars sideways to avoid runaways (and presumably save their poor handbrakes which are likely to fulfil a heavy daily duty).

We did some shopping in A&F – it smells so good… I didn’t buy anything this time but certainly eyed up a few things. It is definitely worth it seeing as everything costs the same in dollars as it costs in London in pounds. God bless the exchange rate (well I don’t believe in God but still very happy with it!).

Generally San Francisco was very nice, and we enjoyed ourselves. The three days we were there were very nice weatherwise and we didn’t see any of the famous fog surrounding the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course on the day we left to drive the Coastal Highway the weather turned cloudy but that is another story…

For someone coming from London though, where homeless people are par for the course, I definitely noticed the abundance of vagrants and suchlike – they are EVERYWHERE! I mean they are everywhere in London too but there seemed to be so many more of them and so much more visible. And more of them seemed downright crazy. Homeless people in London tend to be curled up in alleyways and things, whereas in San Francisco they stand at street corners and scream at people, which can be quite scary.

We left on Saturday to get the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) to the airport and pick up our car. There is no need to go into it in great detail since it was rather uneventful…