San Francisco

All I could think about on the night bus from Los Angeles was the lyrics of the that song...when your going to San Francisco...you know the one, its a classic and the city turned out to be the same. I was only there for two days but as was the norm for Banjo and myself, I tried to cram in as much as possible in the short time I had. I spent the first day just wandering the city, taking in Union Square and its massive Christmas tree and ice rink, just like back home actually. That district is where all the designer shops are, there is a Macy's superstore with the window displays on all 7 levels of the building, Armani has a store as does Hugo Boss and others, theres a shop with Porsche designed clothes and the likes of Prada and A&F line the streets. San Francisco is of course the home of Levi but they have a large store/office building out by the docks. On my wanders I passed through Chinatown which is apparently the largest in the world, though I think Shanghai or Beijing may be bigger. I had lunch there, it was cold in San Francisco, well colder than anywhere I have been in the last couple of months, so soup was required. I wandered through North Beach or Little Italy, past pizzeria after pizzeria and lots of strip joints and speakeasy's as well. One claimed to have dozens of beautiful women and 3 ugly ones...I wonder if they get much custom. I accidentaly came across the Cable Car museum and although I wasnt planning on visiting any museums as I seem to get stuck in them for hours, this was free and turned out pretty small and interesting. It is the original builiding which houses the sheaves upon which the cables that run the cable cars and you can see them working away in front of you. Its interesting that cable cars were once popular in many of Americas cities, yet San Fran is now the only city which still runs a cable car sevice. The city also runs trams, street cars as they are known here, which the museum points out are very different to cable cars. I also stumbled upon the Catherdral which sits atop one of the estimated 43 hills of San Francisco. I dont quite understand how its an estimate, surely its either 42, 43 or 44 hills, just needs someone who can count to 50 to figure it out. It sits atop Nob Hill and is modeled on Notre Dame. Its pretty grand but is somewhat top trumped by the hotels which also adourne the hill, very posh and with well crafted facades, there is a half a dozen of them competing against each other. The views from the hill are pretty good but there is one building which stands out amongst all others, the Transamerica Pyramid. Its not the tallest, its 5 floors short of that honour, but the triangle that points skyward is the easiest roof to spot amongst the skyscrapers. I made it to the waterfront and San Francisco Bay with its 40 or so piers. Pier 1 still has the old Ferry Building which used to greet all the people making there way over the bay from Oakland or the immigrants from further afield. Its now a market but still retains the lettering Port of San Francisco which runs along the front. Coit Tower which sits on Telegraph Hill provides a good lookout of the city, the bridge and the prison and there is a film named after it as well. I think that is one of the overriding impressions that I got of the city, everywhere I went, around every corner, I felt like I was in a movie. The city has been well filmed and perhaps recently watching A Pursuit of Happiness had something to do with it too. Telegraph Hill sits at the end of Lombard Street, which is also where the second most famous, windy, zig zag road in the world is (the most famous is in Rothesy, Bute). When I got there, it was surrounded by Chinese tourists, which didnt really make for good pictures but they did hold up the traffic, seemingly oblivious to what they were doing so that meant I could stroll up the street. I returned to Fishermans Wharf to see Pier 39 which is lined with tourist restaurants and shops, the main attraction of course, Bubba Gumps Shrimp restaurant. I didnt see Jenny I or II or III or any of the Jenny's moored in the docks however. From the pier back to the hostel I caught the cable car of course!! Its a novel experience, though extremely loud going down the hills is a lot of fun. The next day an english girl who had been on my bus had a plan of what she was going to do during the day and so I tagged along. Its always nice when someone else has a plan as it means that I dont have to do any thinking which Im not very good at anyway. We caught the boat to Alcatraz which is really cool and the audio tour that guides you round is really well done and informative. It was cool hearing the story of the Battle of Alcatraz in 46 and the unsuccesful or succesful escape of three prisoners in 62. One of the narrating guards felt it was impossible to swim the mile and a half to the shore whilst another is pretty sure they made it Mexico. Its a horrible jail, originally a military fort converted into a military prison, the cells were tiny, the rec area also very wee. From the 30 seconds I spent in solitary confinement, I already never want to commit a bad deed ever again. The audio tour also denies that Robert Stroud ever kept birds in Alcatraz, despite the film, he was only permitted in the jails before his transfer. The views back to the city are pretty good from the island but the best views undoubteldy come from the Golden Gate bridge, which in itself is quite a spectacle to see. Its huge, once the largest suspension bridge in the world, it takes around 25 mins to walk across. The views back into the bay of the skyline and Alcatraz sitting off the coast are great. We fluked it so the sun was setting as we walked back over the bridge and though American sunsets dont seem to last very long, it was beautiful the way it reflected on to the city. I had dinner in the most Irish named of all Irish bars, Lefty O'Doules and watched Man Utd's abysmal second half performance to send them out of the Champions League. After, it was time to catch the night bus back to LA and whilst Im gutted that I never made it to Haight Ashbury, the Bohemian suburb, Lonely Planet must love that area, I feel that I managed to see just about all that I could have in two days. It is a cool city, one of the ones that you immediately get a good vibe off the moment you arrive. The architecture is slightly different to LA at least, in that the city was burnt down in 1906 and totally rebuilt so many of the buildings still date to that era and havent been replaced with 70's, 80's and 90's skyscrapers, although they are still skyscrapers in their own right. Yup, gotta say, cool city to visit, ridiculously expensive, I believe its on a par with NYC but I guess I got that to find out, but lots to see and do and plenty of photo opportunities, just ask the Chinese if they can perform a human road block for you.