There was exciting news as we came into land at San Francisco - our plane was one of the first to use the new Tom Bradley terminal which had only opened that day. I got a nice free bag which came in handy to store my no longer needed coat which was hurriedly put away as soon as I stepped off the plane and could feel the heat from outside. Perhaps my favourite part of entering the USA was the welcome from President Obama who has a nice big poster in the arrivals hall. I'd been travelling for about 32 hours, taken three separate flights, had 8 hours worth of layovers and 3 airline meals by the time I set foot on San Franciscan soil. To say I was tired is an understatement, and as it was only 3pm by the time the shuttle had dropped me off at the hostel (I was feeling too lazy to mess around with public transport) I had the rest of the day to kill to avoid jetlag.

I decided to walk down to Union Square, partly to get my bearings - unsurprisingly easy in a city built on a grid system - and partly to find another hostel since in usual Becca style I had only booked one night to start with and, as it was Saturday the following day, the hostel was full. Gutted!! I managed to get everything sorted though and enjoyed an hour or so walking through San Fran on a nice sunny afternoon. I was slightly peturbed when leaving my hostel to discover that it was seemingly on the road where all the strip clubs were and, true to form, as I walked past them all sorts of creepy old men were stood outside. My route to Union Square passed through the outskirts of Chinatown and it was mental. Food stalls everywhere with baskets of fruit and nuts and weird Asian sweets, almost like being back in actual Asia really, apart from the roads were full of Fords instead of scooters.

Once I'd navigated my way through the crowds I arrived at Union Square, a true American shopping emporium. It has the second biggest Macy's in the US, only smaller than the original in Times Square, as well as pretty much every shop you could think of spread around a four block radius. Sadly for me I was on a strict budget so had to content myself with window shopping and watching the trams drive around. They are constantly packed with tourists just going up and down the hills- people hanging off the front and back and everything. There didn't seem to be much worry about safety!! My evening was spent relaxing and chatting to a girl in my dorm who was a bit of a hippy I think, I was pretty shocked to see her hairy armpits when she climbed up the ladder into her bunk anyway. It's definitely not a good look.

Cycling the Golden Gate bridge was suggested to me by several people so I took their (as it turns out very wise) advice and left my bags in the luggage room to spend my first full day in San Fran on a bike. My first view of the Golden Gate bridge was, for me, more exciting than the Sydney Harbour bridge - no idea why, maybe in my head it's more iconic than the Sydney bridge, or I just prefer the colour who knows?! The orangey colour that they paint it is meant to closely mimic the colours of the land so it doesn't stand out as much - I don't think it really worked!

I had a long afternoon biking across, avoiding taking out unwary pedestrians who would stop dead 5 feet in front of you which unless you had the reflexes of a cat (like I do) would end up with a tyre mark right up the seat of their pants! The views across to Alcatraz and the city itself were absolutely gorgeous - much like the rest of my trip I was extremely lucky with the weather and didn't see hide nor hair of the famed 'frisco fog' and had glorious views under a cloudless azure sky. The only downside to this is my paranoia about sunburn, which coupled with my wish for a tan invariably ends up one of two ways; I spend most of the day putting cream on and stay freckly pale, or I put cream on as regularly as I remember, topping it up every few hours and missing bits so have red stripes like a mental zebra. The main issue is the temperature which my body still isn't acclimatised to, particularly when I'm doing exercise outdoors and sweating it all off! Anyway sunburn didn't concern me until later in the day when I was cycling around the Presidio park, which I think has some kind of army accommodation there too, but I'll get to that shortly. Once I'd cycled over the bridge, passing numerous pink garbed ladies (and a few men) who appeared to be doing some kind of sponsored walk for breast cancer, I arrived in Sausalito, after a nice zoom downhill which I immediately decided I would not be cycling back up. Sausalito is marketed as being like a little Spanish town but I'll be totally honest here, it wasn't anything like one! It did have some nice ice cream shops though so it wasn't all bad. From there I got the ferry across the bay which was damn windy but it was good to get a different perspective on the bridge and Alcatraz. The rest of the afternoon I spent cycling around Presidio park, which as I said slightly earlier I think there is some army housing there since I was cycling through some residential areas which had Sergeants and Colonels and stuff on the address boxes. I felt like an intruder and half expected guard dogs to come flying out of the gardens after me or something.

One thing about cycling in San Francisco - you spend a lot of time cycling on the roads which I was nervous about, as I'd never done it at home apart from in Stanners and that doesn't really count, and American drivers are notoriously angry. Imagine my relief then when I realised the drivers are more than used to cyclists on the roads and there are large numbers of signs talking about sharing the road, bike lanes and general etiquette. I probably wound a few people up with my uncertainty at intersections (what I ask is wrong with either traffic lights or roundabouts?) but by and large I escaped unscathed, particularly with the riding on the wrong side of the road situation!

Being on a bike is a great way to see the city though, I cycled through quite a few residential areas, mainly due to my terrible sense of direction, and the houses are so quaint, leaning into the hills and with lots of decorative latticework and stuff. The buildings in the CBD are quite architecturally impressive too - you can tell San Fran is an older city with the intricate stonework and imposing buildings that comprise downtown. Once I'd almost killed myself cycling up some hideous hills I dropped the bike off and picked my stuff up to do the mile walk to the new hostel - which luckily was mainly downhill but did involve trying to force my way through Chinatown and the multitudes of little Asian ladies who throng the streets. I figured I deserved a treat so went to the Cheesecake Factory for a (amazing) red velvet cheesecake. Yes please! There was a really nice girl called Darlene in my dorm, from LA, so we relaxed in the common room in the evening, chatting to a guy called Milton who had just got back from being a linesman at the US Open in NYC. You really meet allsorts!

The next morning I woke up slightly saddle sore but determined that I was going to go down to the Alfonso Lines ballet company who were holding a $5 all you can dance workshop afternoon. It was a brilliant, brilliant day, I did a couple of modern classes as well as theatre jazz which we did to 'all that jazz' and 'anything goes', hip hop, some weird kinetics thing with the smiliest woman in the world, and a Chinese dance that made my hands hurt - it is was more difficult than it looks! I was thoroughly knackered afterwards but had a massive smile on my face and made plans with a girl called Stefanie who lived in San Fran but had only moved there recently, to go up tot Presidio the next day and watch a free Shakespeare play being performed.

Something that has struck me in every city so far is the issue with homelessness over here - I walked past a soup kitchen on the way back up to the hostel which shouldn't make me uncomfortable but the sheer number of them is overwhelming. Also the aroma of wee was just unbearable - apparently they don't really have public toilets in the US because homeless people will sleep in them. San Francisco has definite safe and unsafe areas, but the strangest thing is that they directly abut each other, you have to be really aware of whereabouts you are walking, people in the dodgy areas don't seem to cross an invisible line out of their area, it's almost like they are surrounded by some bubble.

My penultimate day in San Francisco once again involved walking up a LOT of hills - whoever though building the city on top of 42 of the damn things must have been mental, anyway San Francisco is home to, apparently, the crookedest street in the world, so I took myself off to have a gander. In a word it was mental. I would not want to live on it, mainly due to the amount of tourists who come and visit, probably a 50/50 split between those on foot like me who climb up the stairs at the side, or those who have cars and basically block it up constantly trying to take photos whilst they are driving down! It was a bizarre street though, I'm not entirely sure what the town planners were thinking when they designed it, but it is definitely a tourist attraction. Since it took me longer than anticipated to walk up all the hills it was a quick dash over to the Presidio to meet Stefanie and Ali and watch Henry V in the sunny park. I tried my first ever garlic fries too which were surprisingly tasty although left me with the taste of garlic for hours afterwards. All things told I was amazed at the amount of free things going on in San Francisco on a daily basis - it is definitely a city you can visit on the cheap.

Being a cheapskate and on a budget I booked an overnight bus to LA so had a full day to kill before I had to be at the greyhound. This time was spent visiting Alcatraz, or 'The Rock', and was the first, and only, time I experienced the fog the city is famous for. I suppose it was serendipitous that it would be when I was visiting an old prison - it made the ferry ride over a lot more atmospheric anyway. I found the trip to Alcatraz really interesting - it was never fully filled with prisoners, segregated the black and white prisoners for the safety of the black prisoners, had a successful escape attempt in an extremely Shawshank style of ingenuity and had a full on riot which ended in the deaths of two prison wardens and the use of army force and bombs to quell it. Going back to the escape attempt briefly, basically two prisoners used sharpened spoons to dig through the wall to an air duct behind the sinks, and when they escaped they put fake heads made from cement from the workhouses of the prison, to delay their discovery. It's not wholly a happy ending though as they were never found so we still don't know if they survived and managed to disappear back into society or if they drowned trying to swim across the bay. It's a fair way and there are some pretty strong tides and stuff. Who knows, what a mystery.

Alcatraz itself is very utilitarian, as you'd expect from a prison, and was used for all kinds of prisoners, including such 'criminals' as conscientious objectors, native Americans who wouldn't do as the Government told them to, and Al Capone and the Birdman of Alcatraz. I never knew that Al Capone was eventually imprisoned for tax evasion rather than any of the mob stuff he did that they just couldn't get to stick! I'm pretty positive he died mental and syphilitic too. As some of it is fallen down it has a definite air of neglect, although I can't imagine it feeling any cheerier when it was in use. Even the blue skies that eventually turned up after the sun burned off all the fog, and the flower garden that was tended by one of the prison guards, can't change the atmosphere of despair and anger that hangs around it. If I went back I'd definitely try a night tour, probably scare myself silly at the same time!

Becca