San Francisco Day 3!

Hi girls!! Hope you all had a good weekend! 

Our third and final day in San Francisco was a very exciting one for  me! One of the big selling points of going to San Fran was being able to visit the incredibly famous prison on a small island out in the Bay, which I had booked a few weeks before we were to go!

Our day started out with breakfast and then jumping on a sightseeing bus tour! I have to say that I don't think it was the best tour. We did learn some new things we didn't know about the city, but most of the time the man was going on about a good shop, or a good restaurant! It was quite random to be honest! Hehe, but we still enjoyed seeing parts of the city we hadn't seen before!

When we had done the route and had finished marveling at all of San Francisco's splendor, we had a quick look into the big Westfield shopping centre on Powell and yes Westfield shopping centres are everywhere, Robert was convinced that they were only in London! We hen jumped onto the cable car once again and made our way up to Fisherman's Wharf. Our Alcatraz tour left Pier 33 at 12.45pm, so we had a brisk walk to get to the Pier. We were also so hungry by this point and there is no food on Alcatraz, so we picked some stuff up at the little cafe nest to the Pier and ate it while we were on board the boat!! It was a 15 minute crossing over to Alcatraz island and off we got at the other end, not really knowing what to expect!

We were given a quick introduction about the island and where to go etc, and once that was over we were on our own and climbing up the hill to get to the cell house, which is where the main tour takes place. It is some place, and if you ever go to San Francisco, you must go! The island itself is quite eerie, but its not until you actually get into the huge cell house that you feel it! Just knowing all the things that have went on in the building you are in and all the prisoners that have stayed in the cells. You are given a set of headphones and are sent to go round the cell house listening and following the narrator's instructions ad who is also telling you all about the history. Here are a couple photos of the cell house:

The inside of an average cell.

Three storeys of cells on each block and the were five blocks.

The set of green doors was the public entrance into the prison.

 

After the very famous 1962 escape this was how the men got out of their cells. Squeezing through a hole where a metal grate had once been and using the ends of spoons to work away at the concrete to make the hole just a little bit bigger! I don't think I could even fit through that!!

So after spending over three hours on the island and taking the tour in we headed back over to the mainland. 

Such amazing weather that day! Look at the ship!

When we got off the ferry, we decided to have a little walk along the front and we ended up sitting on a little bench looking out onto the bay with two Ben & Jerry's ice cream sundaes! Bliss! We then decided to visit the Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum and had a giggle at all the oddity's that it contained! We have been to a coupe of these in different cities ad every one of them contain different things! Most of which are very strange and weird indeed! We ended the day by walking back over to Pier 39 and choosing a restaurant for dinner! We went up to Bubba Gumps to have a look at the menu, but decided against it, although we never left until I got this great photo! Hehe!

Haha look at his shoes!! "Run Forrest Run!" You slipped your feet into them so you got the "Mama says I'm special" look!

Eventually we decided to go to Wipeout, which had a surf feel to it and the food was good! Robert definitely enjoyed his burger that night! We then got our last cable car back to the centre and eventually got to our hotel room! We had an early morning flight and we most definitely enjoyed the first city on our trip! We made some great memories and I think the biggest for both of us was cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge (which we did on day 2!)! 

Watch out because the Los Angeles posts will be coming this week too! Hope you enjoyed San Francisco girls! Hehe!

Love, Jen x

San Francisco Day 2!

Day 2 in San Francisco was such an amazing day! We got up and went to a cute little diner near our hotel and had pancakes! We then got our first ride in the cable cars! 

This took us down to Fishermans wharf and on the way we got brilliant views down into the bay! You don't realise just how hilly San Francisco is until you are on a cable car!! We knew what we wanted to do that day and we actually got perfect weather! We hired bikes from a shop called "Blazing Saddles" (love the name!) and started our cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge!

It was quite a surreal experience actually, heading towards it and it was a lovely route that we were to take. There were just a coupe of hills to get there and two steep ones, which were not my friends let me tell you! 

The bridge is just phenomenal I'm sure you will all agree! Its something Robert has always wanted to see in person and being able to cycle over it was like a dream for him! It was an amazing experience!

Over the other side of the bridge is a town called Sausalito, which is such a gorgeous little town! We got a boat back from there to Pier 41, back at San Francisco! The whole route was just over 8 miles!! So I was very proud of myself for cycling all that way! It was amazing and took us about 2 and a half hours including all the stops to take photos that we did! We took the bikes back and got a very well deserved ice cream! We then walked towards a very famous street...

Can I just say that walking up to that street took some amount of effort!! Haha, after that cycle and then the huge hills to walk up to get to it! It was worth seeing though, because it is the worlds bendiest street!!

Its one of those things that you have got to go see when your in San Francisco! We were surprised though because people do in fact live in the houses! I was quite shocked, because I'm sure they must get fed up of all the tourists going up and down it everyday!! I don't know whether it would make the houses cheaper, because of the tourists or more expensive, because it  is so famous to live there! After having a walk up and seeing an amazing view all the way to Colts Tower, we wandered back down to Pier 39! I wanted to go into the Aquarium Of The Bay and we had just enough time to get around before it closed so in we went!

It was an amazing aquarium and my favourite part was definitely seeing the Giant Pacific Octopus! It was especially great, because one of the girls that worked there told us all about them! She told us this amazing story of where an octopus had learned to open his tank, then get out of it and open the tank next to his, where all the fish, which they fed him on were kept. This octopus would go in eat some fish and then return into his own tank remembering to close the tanks! The professor could not work out why the fish were disappearing, until he put a video camera in and filmed it!! 

I put my head into that tank not realising what was in it! Then I could see a reflection of it and got just a little freaked out!! Hehe! The octopus changes colour and is usually all red, but the day we were there he was mostly white!

We then had a walk round Pier 39 and had a look in some of the shops! It is such a cute little place and feels so relaxed and friendly! Definitely a place I recommend visiting if your going to San Fran! 

We then of course went to see the famous Pier 39 sea lions! These are wild sea lions, who can be seen on the floats at K Dock on the West side of Pier 39! It really was amazing to see them so close and they made such a noise!! So we stayed and watched them a while!

Afterwards we were so hungry and decided it was time for dinner! We ended up going to the Hard Rock Cafe just at the start of the Pier! It was a good choice too, as we had one big meal!! I always love going to Hard Rock Cafe's and looking at all the amazing memorabilia that they have on their walls! I spotted a guitar that was owned by Carlos Santana and just had to get a photo with it! I used to love listening to his music when I was younger and even spurred me into trying my hand at playing the guitar myself!! It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped!! Hehe!

Afterwards, we got our second shot of the cable cars and got a Pinkberry (which was soon to become my favourite thing on holiday!) for desert on the way back to our hotel!! After a very exciting and fulfilled day we headed back to our hotel for a well earned rest!!

I hope you enjoyed reading! Also sorry about the length of the post! I want these holiday posts to be memories for me as well as enjoyable to read, which is why I want to talk about as much of my day as I can!! Let me know what you thought! Our last day in San Francisco took us to Alcatraz, which is not to be missed in my next post!!

Love, Jen x

San Francisco Day 1!

Hi girls!! So I am starting off with the holiday posts!! We did just so many amazing things, so I am going to be doing a post for each day! Any way here is our first day in San Francisco!!

We had to get a flight from Glasgow to Heathrow, which was at 7am, meaning that we had to be at the airport for 5am! So it was a very early start! I had actually only went to bed at 2am due to getting things all ready, so not much sleep was had and Robert's dad was dropping us off at the airport and they came for me at quarter to 5! I always hate leaving the cats, even for one night! So two weeks was going to be hard, so I said goodbye to them and to my mum and dad and off we went!! 

We weren't at Glasgow airport for long and our flight to Heathrow only took an hour, but we had to circle for a little bit to get onto the runway. Our flight to San Francisco was at 11.15am, so we had about 2 and a half hours till we would be away on the next plane. We were in the new British Airways Terminal 5, which has lots of fancy shops and places to eat! I knew I wanted to buy a certain something in Duty Free, so it was straight off to the sunglasses bit and I bought myself a pair of Ray Bans!! My first pair of proper sunglasses! I have always just had cheap ones that break so easy, so I'm taking good care of these and hopefully have them a long time! Afterwards, we went for something to eat and I chose a Starbucks! A caramel hot chocolate, pancakes and a piece of raspberry and coconut loaf, yum! And yes I was loading up for the 10 hour flight that was ahead of us! 

When we got on the plane (a huge Boeing 777) we realised that we were going to be right in the middle of the row (as the seats go 3 - 4 - 3 across), so we were squished right in the middle of the 4. It was ok at first and Robert and I have always liked flying so it was fine, but it just felt so so so long! We had previously been on another 10 hour flight the year before, going from New York to Hawaii and then felt like it went so quick! However we almost had a whole section of the plane to ourselves and this time the plane was completely full! The good thing was that everyone had their own touch screen tv that you could watch loads of movies and tv shows, which you just picked from a menu at any time you wanted! So I spent most of my time watching movies and so did Robert. About half way in my head started to get sore (which never happens to me) and my  throat got all sore too, at this point in the flight I just wanted to somehow get off!! Obviously I couldn't and I decided to try and get some sleep, as I had had very little! The flight felt like it went on forever!! I don't know why at all, but every time I looked at how much time we had left it was about half an hour later than I had last looked, but it felt like more than double that time! It was crazy! Robert totally agreed with me and it was also so hot in there too, most planes I go on are cold, and I use the blankets  to keep warm, but this one I didn't even have a cardigan on! However we were both sitting beside to guys from San Francisco, who gave us loads of tips of places to go and also where not to go. When we eventually got off the plane, I felt like my holiday was over and that I should be going home!! It felt that long!

Once we got our suitcases it was off to the B.A.R.T for us (or the subway). We got off at Powell, which is the main shopping street and was very close to our hotel! We firstly wanted to get there, drop of our bags and get freshened up from the plane! We were staying at the Hotel NIKKO, which was very, very nice and I think had the most comfiest bed ever! We then set off to get a feel for the city, by which time it was nearly 4pm (as California is 8 hours behind the UK)!

So we had a wander round the area near our hotel and we were right beside Union Square, which is lovely!

Do you like the Ray Bans?! Hehe

And I went to Levi's! Hehe, which was founded in San Francisco, so how could I not buy a pair?! Afterwards, it began to get dark and the city became a little freaky for us tired tourists! There were so many homeless people about, shouting and begging for money, which is not really a big thing as it seemed to be here. We just got a quick dinner and went off to our hotel for a good sleep! Day 1 for us was a lot of travelling and getting our first feel of the city!

On Day 2 we cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge and had a look round Fisherman's wharf and Pier 39! So keep your eyes peeled for that post, its going to be a good one!

I really hope you will enjoy hearing about our adventure!!

Love, Jen x