San Francisco - People & Luxury!

We arrived in San Francisco glad to see people and were warmly welcomed by the Argonaut on the waterfront. We checked into rooms that overlooked Alcatraz, dumped our bags and went to the best local fish and meat restaurant we could find - and had a long lunch! Which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Then we went for haircuts and foot cleaning at a local vietnamese hairdresser and all got scrubbed up clean again.

San Francisco was warm and immediately we all felt comfortable very quickly. We wandered along the waterfront, went to a very good wax museum (like Madame Tussauds) and then went to Alcatraz in the afternoon - just as it was getting dusk. It was good to be out in the harbour on a boat towards Alcatraz - the tour of Alcatraz was very good - an audio tour - and luckily Megan fell asleep at the start of the tour and woke up just at the end!! We saw the cells and solitary confinement and the boys were locked in the cells as well. It is amazing to think it only closed in 1963 and had 200 inmates at a time - including Al Capone. We had all watched Escape from Alcatraz the night before so we really had a good idea of what to expect and what to look for - these 3 were the only 3 to ever escape and not be shot or found. The boys saw what a prison was like and were horrified - maybe that will help their education and future behaviour!

The next day we cycled across the Golden Gate bridge - often the Golden Gate Bridge was in clouds but today it cleared and was sunny - it was a very hard and long cycle ride from the centre of town - but we went along the shore of the harbour seeing the huge ships coming in and out often from China (Klavs - you would be in heaven!) and then cycled across the bridge. It was a huge bridge and a huge drop! but the views were pretty amazing - we then cycled onto a village called Sausalito - which was a pretty, classy village on the sea across from San francisco - we got the ferry back.

We cycled back to the hotel along the waterfront and came across 5 guys breakdancing on the pavement - a big crowd and they were very impressive - all the kids thought it was very cool. That evening we went to our first baseball game - the 3rd game of the wild card playoffs - San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies - at the At&T stadium in SF. It was interesting going and we all enjoyed it but the SF Giants lost.

On our last day we got the tram and the boys hung on outside the tram. It is incredible that these trams can go up and down the SF hills under control. We got out and walked down Lombard St, the windiest and steepest hill in SF. We really enjoyed our stay in San Francisco and enjoyed the city after a few weeks of wilderness/country. SF is a lovely city with a nice centre, good waterfront, very friendly people, lots of good food and the best hotel of our trip so far - the Argonaut! Right on the waterfront - very kid friendly - good rooms in a nautical finish!! and good wifi! We also found the best ice-cream place called "Cold Stone Creamery" - where they mix in the toppings such as chocolate crunch into choc and vanilla ice cream on a cold stone - dee-licious.

We left to drive down highway 1 - sad that we had done San Francisco and left it behind.