11 Days in the USA - Part 2

Finally continued!

Day 4

After a lucky meeting with a lovely woman in the street next to our hotel in San Francisco, who kindly informed us that we were situated in the worst neighbourhood of the city - The Tenderloin - we quickly decided that any night time escapades should take place away from our hotel, and a taxi should always take us home, walking, buses and subway were out of the question. However, The Renoir Hotel, though situated badly was a lovely place, it was a very old building that had been re-furbished though not overly recently. I liked it...and playing 'Count the Police Sirens' at night always made us laugh.

We were up bright and early in the morning to be picked up by our day tour bus. First stop - Alcatraz!



There's something surreal about seeing Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge with your own eyes after seeing pictures and films about them for so long. Also it was absolutely FREEZING on the way over, which for some reason made it more exciting...though I don't know if I thought about it that way at the time.

The audio tour of Alcatraz was fantastic. It was all narrated by previous workers and inmates of the prison, with sound effects creating a real ambiance. There were a few times when they were explaining a riot or an escape and if you let yourself get really immersed, it felt like it could be before your eyes at any moment.

Being a huge Prison Break fan (first 2 seasons only thank you) I could tell that the writers would have taken plenty of inspiration from the true stories of Alcatraz when doing their research. I couldn't help but think of Michael when seeing something like this haha.



What stays in my mind the most however, is what the narrators said while I was looking out at this. That possibly the worst thing about Alcatraz was that the prisoners were faced everyday with the life they were missing out on, as they could see beautiful San Francisco, how it changed, how people over there were living. They were so close but had no hope of getting back there.



Next on the agenda was a bus tour of all the main sights in San Francisco. We went past so many beautiful buildings, saw the most crooked street in the world (to which our tour guide quipped 'I think it's the second, the first being Wall Street' - harhaar)and without realising it, so many places seemed familiar because of movies I'd seen. We journeyed up Twin Peaks and came down with Scott McKenzie's 'San Francisco' playing through the bus...lovely. Then of course we came to the main event - The Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty awesome, would have been lovely to walk the whole way across, but if we did, our bus would have left us behind.



San Francisco has so many amazing houses, and we drove past one of the most famous - the Full House house! So pretty!



Once the tour was over we opted to stay in the area and explore Pier 39 - my favourite place in San Fran! Everything was starting to close up when we got there, but we managed a quick explore, which included new hats...



....a left-handed store and the super delicious and fun Bubba Gump Shrimp. P.S. If you're ever there, get the Mahi Mahi with Bourbon Sauce....words can't describe the deliciousness. It was such a fun restaurant, with Forrest Gump memoribillia everywhere and waiters asking trivia about the film (we got them all correct!)




Day 5

We were feeling super brave, so we stepped out to our scary street and caught a bus with our destination in view as the California Academy of Sciences. However, we didn't really know our way, and instead of just staying on the bus in hope that we would get to our destination I pulled us off the bus when I thought we were maybe possibly close. We weren't REALLY far off, but there was a bit of walking. This worked out well though, as we were in a lovely neighbourhood, ate breakfast at a retro little diner and even stumbled upon a beauty salon where we got super cheap (but super good) eyebrow waxes, hurrah! We also saw more beautiful houses and poor Kirsty had to keep stopping and take photos of me with them.



We eventually got to beautiful Golden Gate Park and the Academy. We love love loved the Academy! I got to see my first Tyrannosaurus skeleton of the trip(doesn't it look like his arms are on backward?)...



Ooh'd and aah'd over the Sabre-Toothed Tiger skeleton...



Wandered through an indoor rainforest (everyone around us complained it was too humid, for us it was like coming home)...



Squealed when I saw a hummingbird, hoped for a huge butterfly to land on me (no such luck)...




Laughed more than was really appropriate at this Conger Eel...



And pondered this for a while...



After this we caught a bus (correctly this time) to the Ferry Building where I got to realise a dream in visiting the wonderful Miette; a beautiful little pattiserie that Katherine introduced me to when she bought their cookbook a year or so earlier. I bought some cardamom chocolate and salted caramels for her, and a lemon meringue tart and gingersnaps for me. All were absolutely delicious!




From here we journeyed back to Pier 39 and saw the wild sea lions. Now we'd seen sea-lions before, but seeing them in the wild and in such a big group was wonderful. They were noisy, a little smelly and very entertaining.



We stopped by the magnificent Boudin Bakery for delicious soup in a sourdough bowl. It was so filling that my efforts seemed quite minimal! The sourdough creations on display at the big factory were amazing. I also got a pumpkin latte from here while we watched the automated baskets drift along the ceiling full of bread from the factory landing in the shop to keep it stocked.





Our next and last stop in San Fransisco was not far from the Pier 39 - Musee Mecanique. I had been advised by a friend to go here and I'm so glad she did, as we probably would have missed one the funniest and entertaining parts of our trip if she had not. Musee Mechanique is a warehouse FULL of old penny arcade games, puppet shows, music boxes etc. There was a LOT of weird stuff here - from 'Grandmother Predictions' (I can't remember what she said would happen to me, but it was very good news?, to little puppet shows of an English Execution, a French execution, the goings-on at an Opium Den, to "'What Do Your Friends Call You Behind Your Back?' (mild, apparently) to 'How Strong Are You?' (Kirsty got 'Gentleman' though she was convinced it was 'Pensioner')



The scariest was 'Laughing Sal' who towered over us and cackled in a very terrifying way.



They also had some more modern games, like Indiana Jones pinball...



And Whack-A-Mole!



This is the only place I could possibly beat anyone at sport...



With our pockets enlightened from all the coins we'd used up, we taxi'd back to the Renoir, in prepartion for our long flight to New York in the morning...