The first night of our stay in San Francisco was also the switching on of the snowflake lights, which were on the streetlights of the main shopping street. So after having dinner a few of us went down to watch the big switch on. There wasn't really too much to see, but the lights were very pretty. Afterwards we signed up to the hostel pub crawl but soon regretted this when we found ourselves queuing up outside bars in the pouring rain. After standing outside one bar for 20 minutes and getting completely drenched we decided to call it a night and headed back to the hostel where we found hot apple cider in the reception area.....just what we needed:-)

We woke up to sunshine and blue skies on our first morning in San Francisco. We got ready, had some complimentary breakfast from the hostel and set off for the Golden Gate Bridge. We figured out the route and caught two buses and walked to the bridge info centre and shop. The bridge looked amazing, particularly in the sun and we took a while taking pictures and then walked from one side to the other. The views across to the city and over to Alcatraz were stunning. We walked back over the bridge and caught another bus to Fisherman's Wharf where we were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Bushman (a homeless guy that hides behind bushes and then jumps out at people....meant to be funny to watch). Apparently, last year, he made $60,000 in tips (maybe not so homeless any more), so he's quite well known now. However, we weren't lucky enough to see him or even unlucky enough to have him jump out at us. After giving up on our search for the Bushman we walked along the wharf to the food stalls and shared a portion of one of San Frans signature dishes: clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Loved that we could eat the bowl:-) The clam chowder was delicious and definitely down as one to try and make at home. After eating we caught the old style tram back to the hostel (felt like we were in Blackpool).

The next day (22nd Nov) was Thanksgiving, something that we don't have at home and so like a lot of others in the hostel it was our first time. Luckily the hostel was putting on a Thanksgiving dinner so we didn't have to carry out our original plan of finding a nice American family to take us in:-) The meal at the hostel was only $8 per person and was to be served at 3pm. As the traditional Thanksgiving meal is turkey and cranberry we were really looking forward to it and so the entire day was centred around this one meal. We spent the morning hanging around the hostel, watching TV and playing pool. As 3pm neared we got ourselves a seat in the dining area and waited for the food to be served. Wine was passed around the tables and we helped ourselves to as much as we wanted. As the announcement came that dinner was served Ben and I jumped up and were first in line. We collected our paper plate filled with turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes and plenty of stuffing and gravy. Although not the finest of meals it was still bloody good and Ben went back for seconds and got more than first time round. The meal was finished off with a slice of pumpkin pie each and more wine:-)

The next day was Black Friday the American big sale day, where all the shops have amazing deals and sales on. We spent the day on Market Street in amongst all the busy shoppers. The streets and shops now looked amazing with Christmas decorations everywhere; it was like Thanksgiving had been the activation button for Christmas to explode all over the place. That evening was the Macy's big Christmas tree lights switch on, so we gathered with hundreds of others to watch the lights come on....very pretty.

We spent our last couple of days in San Fran exploring the Haight and Castro areas (hippy and gay areas) and also visited a posh hotel where there was a huge gingerbread house, which we could actually walk inside:-). On one of the evenings we booked onto a night tour of Alcatraz prison. We crossed over to Alcatraz on the ferry at dusk, which was very creepy due to the thick fog that had settled on the water. We got some great views of Alcatraz from the boat and also the city all lit up behind us. We got a full tour of the prison and got to see all the cells and different areas - quite a scary place.

On our final afternoon we walked along Market Street and did a bit of window shopping and finished off with a coffee with a couple of new friends. We returned to the hostel to pack and get ready for our flight in the morning onto New Orleans!!!