Tuesday 15th April

Waking early and after a quick breakfast we threw the stuff in the car and headed for our final mainland USA destination San Francisco. Taking the short ½hr drive from the hostel we arrived (courtesy of the sat-nav) at the Amsterdam hostel. Unable to check in yet wolfie left Corinne with all the stuff and set off for the airport to return the car, dropping it off and taking the public transport back to the city centre. Once unpacked we headed off to explore catching one of the famous San Francisco trams from the turning point downtown up to the piers and waterfront.

We had a look around (as looking is free) at the fisherman's wharf and at the back of that we stumbled across a museum containing old arcade and entertainment machines. There were 3 of the original machines first considered to be arcade machines with 3-D pictures of the big earthquake to hit San Francisco. There were working fairgrounds with Ferris wheels and rides that moved when you put your quarter in. More modern games included the original green lined star wars game and bub and bob game. After spending a couple of hours in there we went to see the sea lions on the famous pier 39 and they were so noisy. It was getting late on so we caught the tram back to the hostel after watching Reno 9-11 cops programme went to bed.

Wednesday 16th April

By the luck of the draw wolfie had checked his emails this morning and there was one off Jeff, one of cookie's nice housemates who said he might be able to get us some tickets for the Golden state warrior's game (a Basketball team based in Oakland). He had very kindly got us some and we needed to pick them up from his mum's work in San Francisco. So after getting dressed and catching yet another tram to the bike hire place we obviously hired some bikes before wolfie jumped a taxi to Jeff's mum's work and after a quick chat picked up the tickets (thanks to everyone involved).

Arriving back to meet Corinne we straddled our bikes and set off for the golden gate bridge. It had been our original plan bike over the bridge and then takes the ferry back which is a popular tourist activity, though the time taken to collect the tickets had left us short. So we cycled to the base of the bridge along the water. We took some pictures, read information on the bridge and the surrounding areas before making our way back to the hostel.

After a short train ride to Oakland we arrived at the sporting arenas, firstly rounding the baseball stadium (the A's play there and there was a game on that night) till we got to the oracle arena were the warriors play. We showed our tickets and went inside for our American sports experience. Unlike at the English football games, the I suppose you call it the behind the terrace area that consists of the pie and beer shop, here there was a full bar, a pizza place, Mexican food, Chinese and carvery sandwiches stand. After buying some tea we took it to our seats and watched the build up with the players and cheerleaders warming up.

Pretty soon it was game time and with the starting line-ups announced it was tip-off time. It started slowly taking 2 minutes for the first score and by the end of the first quarter the Seattle Sonics had a bit off a lead, they extended that lead towards half time. As it was the last game of the season it was 'fan appreciation night' and half time there was a big thing where they were shooting t-shirts into the crowd and giving things away depending on where you were sat. We also noticed that people left at half-time and never came back.

Into the 3rd Quarter the score and the game remained pretty much the same with the Sonics leading, the Warriors trying to shoot a lot from the 3-point line and missing but with no one on the inside for the rebounds? After a great cheerleader show in-between the 3rd and 4th the warriors started to make a bit of a comeback but as the whistle approached, they couldn't get back the last few points and the Sonics won by 3. It was amazing to finally get to watch an American sports game and we loved the experience.

Thursday 17th April

We woke for our last day on mainland USA as tomorrow is HAWAII time!!! We sorted out our free waffle breakfast at the hostel before checking out the central square, a few more of the shops and posting some packages home. We got another tram down to the harbour and went to say hello to the sea lions who were much less noisy than at night timewhen you can't get a word in edge ways. After a couple of hours of looking around it was time to board our boat for the alcatraz experience for the evening.

We headed out across the bay towards the infamous island looking across at the golden gate bridge shrouded in mist and along with the chilly wind it all felt a bit creepy.We circled the island before disembarking on the landing were the prisoners arriving would have started there term on the 'rock'. Following the tour the guides explaining a little on the way up we entered the main building smaller than you'd expect but no less imposing. First stop on the tour was the open showers were the new inmates would shower, delouse and pick up the prison issued clothes.

Next was upto the main area of cells and the audiotour explained about the various inmates and why they were placed in certain cells, along the way we passed through the isolation cells and into the libary. This is were the audiotour started to tell the story of the battle of alcatraz were a small group of prisoners overpowered and killed some of the guards and the was an insueing siege and gunbattle which eventually involved the US marines.

After we finsihed the audio tour we went and listened to one of the island guides talk about the life story of the Al Capone and how he came to be on 'the rock' and what happened to him afterwards. The walking story eventually took us back down to the boat and we boarded and headed back to the wharf. During ourtime collecting pinbadges from the hard rock cafe we had accumalted enough points so that we had $40 to spend on the card in the restaurant!!! So we went and had our vitually free meal and afterwards rolled our way back to the tram stop, boarded our last tram and went back to the hostel to pack for Honolulu.

With our time at an end on the mainland we talked about all our experiences from staying in washington DC with cookie and all the nice people at his house , to ice skating in new york and all the rest of it. So many stories and only 6 weeks into the year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!