San Fran

June 24th 2010- After waving everyone goodbye the past few days, we rose at 3.30am driven to the airport by Josh and accompanied by a drunk Sarah! We checked in no problems and flew off to our first destination, San Fransisco via London.

We had been pre warned but San Fran is a lot colder than expected! We have been kindly put up by my (Jon) cousin Ian and his gf, they live in the Richmond district a short bus journey into the centre or out to Ocean beach.

Day 1- we decided to walk about 200 miles around the city going to Golden Gate park they have Bison bit strange for a city! We also saw the botanical gardens which had plants of all the countries we are going to visit. We then took the tram into the city centre, not knowing we had to board the front the carriage to pay, we thought we had got away with this until a female guard stopped us in the station asking a million and one questions but as soon as Charlie pulled out the guide book and we said we were willing to pay she let us off the hook. We walked up and down their crazy hilly city. China town was nuts with live fish flapping about the streets with woman chasing them with nets! The crookest street was truely crooked and a hell of walk to get too. We saw the whole of the city from Telegraph hill. A couple stopped to take our picture and asked where we were from, Manchester was a our answer.... "So you support Manchester UNITED!" Of course "no" was our response and that ended their interest! In the evening we went to watch our first ever Baseball match SF Giants vs Boston Red Sox. We got the obligatory beer, hotdog, garlic fries and Peanuts. The game was really close finishing in a home victory 5-4 but they nearly threw it away in the final innings. One guy managed to hit the ball out the park and into the sea, unfortunatley not within the zone so no home run! But from what I can gather the game had everything you could wish for. The atmosphere was really good but they could do with working on a few more chants "Lets go Giants, Lets go!"

Day 2- Quiet in comparison to the day before. We headed to a local bar for 11am to watch the USA v Ghana match, it was a real fanfare inside with many dressed in full flag attire. It was a bad day for the US though as they were beaten by the Ghanians in extra time. You cannot fault the Americans on their support for Country they were out in vast numbers and you could clearly see the devastation when they lost despite (I think its fair to say of some) lack of understanding in the game! After the disappointment Ian and Mary took us to a little Vietnamise restaraunt for lunch, it was excellent trying new things such as Jasmine tea and Chicken Clay pot. From there we headed to the Golden Gate bridge, where we saw very little! This was due to extreme fog, we had to laugh though, you could barely see 10feet in front and the wind was really strong. We walked part way across laughing at all the people in beach wear as we were wrapped up in our super cool anorachs! Ive heard the views from the bridge are amazing when the weather is good, but when its foggy its really foggy! We finished the day with Movie and Pizza all in all very relaxing and easier on the feet!

Day 3- Pride!

Lots of fun today and it was the hottest day yet. Trying to decide what clothing will be the most suitable is a real struggle. Charlie got it wrong again - jeans and Converse, where shorts and sandals would have been more suitable. Jon forgot the hat and so ended with a nice head glow. We jumped again onto the 38 bus to downtown to enjoy the Gay Pride Festival. As you can see from the pics, the show they put on was fab!! Floats, glitter, high heals and politics was all go. Had some guest appearances too from the Back Street Boys and Erasure - amazing. Supersize kebabs and hotdogs for lunch and then we relaxed on the Civic Hall grass, here was where are the food tents, street entertainment all centralised.

Later, Ian and Mary took us to an area called Cliff Houses - beautiful views across Lands End and old Bath House ruins. The weather was still nice so we managed to get a full view of the Golden Gate Bridge - Hooray! I (Charlie) keep forgetting my ID (after the Cliff Houses when we went to an American style restaurant) everyone enjoyed a beer whilst I had to settle for a lemonade, how embarrassing! I was later smuggled a sangria so that made up for it.

Day 4 - Our last day.

I thought in my dream (Charlie) this morning that a large truck went down outside Ian's house causing loads of irritating noise. When I got up - Ian told me that at 7.50am we had experienced a 3.5 strength earthquake! It happened just off the West coast of San Fran and was not strong enough to cause any damage, thank god!

We did the main tourist trail today, the big San Fran highlights of Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39.

We spent around 2.5 hours at Alcatraz (there is no place to buy food on the Rock which meant any early departure for us!). We got ferried there and straight away the place looked haunting. The huge concrete structure was last occupied by prisoners and as a prison up to 1963 and then for 19 months after that the US government decided to let Indian natives live on there - god knows why, its not a comfortable place but it worked for them politically apparently. The tour was excellent and we got to go into the actual cells (Thom - we did not get shut in the isolation cells like the 'Bird Man' - gutted). Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 is like every holiday boardwalk you see in an American movie - bright colours, cheesy shops, seafood diners and rides. We saw Bubba Gumps! Disappointly, the menu didn't look great so we moved on but ended up eating in a worse place, typical!

We ended the day with a happy hour beer (remembered the ID this time) at Hooters! Treat for Jon.

P.s. the homeless in San Fran lovc the buses, much to Jon's disgust when one nearly sat on his knee.

P.p.s We have lots of pictures to show you but this will have to be on email as the blog won't show them all!