Arrived in San Fran on Saturday the 11th and stayed til Wednesday the 15th Nov. Stayed with a guy called Chris that I found through www.couchsurfing.com - a place where you can find people willing to let you sleep on their couch around the world! Chris lived in a suburb of San Fran called Marina, and I was pleasantly surprised when I set out to explore on Sunday morning to find the ocean with a view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge literally 2 minutes walk from the apartment!

San Francisco is awesome, I could happily live there! It's such a great city. It reminds me of Wellington in many ways - but obviously lots bigger. It was awesome to stay with a local and get a local perspective on the city. Chris took me out for a drink with some of his friends on the Saturday, and one night we went for sushi with some others, which was cool. He told me about how everything is spontaneous and last minute in San Fran when it comes to socialising - you have to have a few things on the go so that one of them might eventuate! And you tend to have lots of aquaintances rather than a group of close friends. He said most young people only stay in San Fran a couple of years. 75% of the population rents and buying a house is pretty much impossible. So when people want to settle down they move away I guess.

I saw lots of things in San Fran. I went to the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum that was really awesome. I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) - I don't get modern art! Saw the California Academy of Sciences, which had quite a cool exhibition on dinosours where you could touch dinosaur bones and a fossil. Did you know birds are dinosaurs? I didn't! Went to this awesome Titanic exhibition on in the Metreon, it had all these relics recovered from the Titanic and went through the whole story of the Titanic, with recreated rooms and stories of real people and it really created an atmosphere, it was awesome. I also went to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which I really enjoyed - it displayed art from the 13th to the 19th centuries, and had a Rodin exhibition which I liked. (Rodin sculpted the Thinker). And finally the de Young museum, also an art museum but more diverse, various differend kinds of art and some African and Oceanic carvings and stuff, it was pretty cool.

I didn't just see museums! I also did a tour of the AT&T Ballpark - home of the San Francisco Giants (a baseball team!). It was a bit of a second thought but I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The tour guide was really cool and explained lots about baseball - it's been around since 1849! It was a neat park and the only one in America where if a home run is hit, it lands in the ocean and boats have to rush to get it :P

Also did a bay cruise around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Saw Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, and the Aquarium. Did a city tour, drove through Little Italy and China Town, up to the Twin Peaks where there were AWESOME views!, and over the Golden Gate Bridge. Saw a little bit of Golden Gate Park and wandered through Haight, the hippy suburb, famous for the Haight Ashbury area.

Phew, and I think that's about it! I really loved San Francisco, it's a great city, I recommend it! Again, I have loads of photos, I'll get them up as soon as I'm able!