San Francisco

20th - 22nd November

We have mixed feelings about San Francisco. On the one hand it’s a city full of character with lots to see and do, the highlight being the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s so huge yet so elegant. On the other hand there is a major problem in central San Fran with aggressive homeless people. It didn’t help things when, on our first night, we were confronted by a threatening homeless guy that wouldn’t leave us alone. It’s such a shame that the situation has got out of control as you can’t get away from it as the ‘dodgy’ area is right in the centre where all the hotels and shops are. All this is just a few blocks away from the ‘posh’ area - very strange! San Fran has so much to offer though including Lombard (the ‘windiest’) Street and Fisherman’s Wharf where hundreds of barking Sea Lions have parked themselves – puts New Zealand to shame!

We might have stayed longer here except Thanks Giving was coming up (23rd November) and we didn’t fancy roaming the empty cold streets with just the homeless! So this is where we made the huge mistake of embarking on a 24hr journey to Seattle on the Greyhound bus. We won’t bore you with the details but lets just say there were delays, over-sold buses and 3hrs stuck in Sacramento bus station the scariest place ever! We thought we’d made a friend at the start of the journey but he turned out to be a compulsive liar - an ‘FBI agent’ he said! We did however manage to make some nice safe sane friends trying to get home for Thanks Giving forced to go by bus as the trains were full. After all this we certainly realised that of all the issues that can ruin a holiday, e.g. weather, … a feeling of security is paramount!