7: Day 2/He's a lovely woman

Date: 26/6/2010
Time: 6.30pm
Town: San Francisco, California
Timezone: GMT -07.00

Note: Wrote this yesterday but didn't get email connection until today. So I'm totally not stealing some random's internet connection in my hotel in Vancouver, because I am in Canada at the moment. But this is the San Francisco post from yesterday that I never got to post. Enjoy :)
Oh, and thanks to dlink and linksys for the free internet. You guys are champs. But you should consider getting security systems for your wifi. Just a thought.

Okay, so after I found out that the biggest gay festival of all time was going on this weekend, I started seeing gay people everywhere. Not just because of some freaky illusion, but they actually talked to us and got us to sign petitions and held hands with each other and they're so cute and it's really sweet to see them being able to be themselves without worrying about what people think.
Oh, and also, some of them were men in women's clothes. But god, they were so beautiful. The effort involved was just amazing. (I thought it'd be rude to take photos of them though. So you can check out the festival at this website). It was like a Royal Show, it was so cool. Didn't get much of a chance to walk around because we'd booked a tour bus that day.
Also, whilst wandering around the city, trundled through the art exhibition in Union Square. Some pretty artistic people in San Francisco, because it is an amazingly arty town. We had about ten galleries within fifty metres of our hotel.


And there's heaps of bead stalls on the streets. I'm not joking, this city is full of beads. Makes for good photography!


So we get on this tour bus, after Dad chucked a hissy about public transport (which is terrible, by the way. Much, much worse than Perth, which is fantastic by comparison. But they try hard... sorta.) We learned some really cool history about San Francisco so prepare yourself for a second hand history lesson about the great town.


The tour bus guys were really awesome. The first guy told us not to walk around certain streets at two in the morning with our 'I just came back from Alcatraz!' hats on and holding out maps, trying to find out where we were. The second guy's name was Frank and he was hilarious. He told us two things: one was that there were singles nights at a downtown Safeway and if any woman was looking for the man of her dreams, she should be careful in case he's looking for the man of his dreams too... heh heh heh... and also that in SF, if you are visiting, you will see one of three things - a parade, a protest or a naked person. And we saw a very small part of the Pride Parade so there you have it. First of all, there are just under 809,000 people in San Francisco county - less than Perth. However, there are about 17,000 people per square mile, and there's about three per square mile in Perth. You get the picture, they are very short of space. So a lot of the graveyards were shifted out of town to make room for residential areas.


Oh, and in the early 1900's there was a massive earthquake and many people died. And then the gas pipes all broke and everything caught fire and 75% of the city burned for three days, and more people died. And they couldn't put it out because the water mains were all broken so they had no water to put out the fires. An series of unfortunate events, as Lemony Snicket would say.
But moving right along.
There is such beautiful buildings in San Francisco. Including this beautiful chapel called St. Peter and Paul Chapel. Ironically, it's on number 666 Filbert Street. Hardy hardy har.


So then the tour took us around here and there, we stopped off at the Wharf for a walk around for about ten minutes before the next bus came along. We went down to this little toilet complex and saw this Police officer banging on the door calling out, "SFPD!! Open up!" Dad and I were like "Ohmygod, real life criminals!"
...But, turned out, he just really needed to take a leak and you needed a key from the shop upstairs. So we laughed at him.
He didn't look very impressed.
We trundled down to the Golden Gate bridge, but as it is in San Francisco, it was damn cold and completely covered in fog, so we hardly saw anything. T'was pretty lame. But you know, we went there, we came back, you know the deal. We went to this place called Sausalito, which is pretty expensive and spiffy and all that. There was a guy with a cockatoo and another guy balancing rocks. Very dandy indeed. And because it's expensive the houses are amazing. Found my favourite one right here.


We went back over the Golden Gate, and mister bus man Frank took us on a small detour to get a better look at the Golden Gate from a different angle, and there was less fog around so it was easier to see it. It was amazing! Thank you so much Frank! I got some awesome pictures thanks to you!
Oh, and by the way, there is another bridge on the other side of town. Apart from being three times longer and being built six months prior, it is not nearly as popular. I don't even remember what it was called. Point proven.


So that was that, and then we went back to the hotel, dropping past this pizza and pasta house near Union Square. Can't quite remember what it was called but it was amazing, they made the second best spaghetti carbonara I've ever had. The first was Annie's. Haha thanks Annie!
And then it got sort of sad, because as we were walking home late at night there were poor people asking us for plastic bags and spare change, and one guy offered to shine my shoes. And I wanted to give them money but I didn't have anything left to give. America has one of the highest poverty levels for a country that's not a part of the third world. It's so sad.
But, there was a crazy woman who touched Dad's arm hair. That was kinda creepy.
So, thanks for reading, if you still are. I'll keep you updated, I'm going to Canada tomorrow morning and I cannot wait!
Thanks for having us, San Francisco.
Next stop, Vancouver.

6: Day 1, part 2/Oh San Francisco...

Date: 25/6/2010
Time: 9.50pm
Town: San Francisco, California
Timezone: GMT -07.00

Oh, San Francisco, why are you so foggy? And also, what's with the hills everywhere? The hills in this town are so steep that they had to alter Lombard street so it zig-zags down the hill (and funny story, a limousine got stuck there once and had to be lifted out by a helicopter). Oh, San Francisco, you're so cold, I'd be worried if you didn't have such character, 'character' being an inclusive term for anything from colourful jetties and awesome cafes to your collection of nutbags and the fact that a main tourist attraction is the Alcatraz prison. Delightful.

This is one of the first few things we saw on the way from the airport. Also, the moment we walked into the car-park out of the airport lobby we saw a dead rat on the road.
Roadkill... welcome to the USA!
But really, truly, so far I am loving it and not just because I'm a tourist. In SF, everyone is free to be themselves and it's so colourful and arty and full of life. It's amazingly noisy and ridiculously cold at the moment, but as Mark Twain said, 'The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.' The man speaks the truth! It's colder than Perth's winter at the moment, that should give you some sort of idea. And I saw people in the pool! They must be visiting from Antarctica. I'm not sure why it's so cold but I'll do a bit more research when I have some free time, or free internet. I totally haven't been stealing it from the Starbuck's downstairs... much.
I am thoroughly enjoying it here though, despite the cold. Having a hoot and a half - two hoots, I dare say. You have no idea how amazingly amazing it is, everyone is either really really nice or really really crazy and sometimes even both!
So, San Francisco is amazing. I'm writing this one Saturday night because I didn't get a chance to write it last night, which was two nights ago for you Perthlings, but the whole time-difference thing just confuses me no end so I can't be bothered working it out.


So on the second part of the Friday, we wandered around Union Square and in the general town area. There's a lot of art around the city, the university of art is sort of spread out everywhere, and I personally love the four hearts around Union Square, one at each corner if you weren't sure.


There's heaps of other murals and paintings in random places, some floral crab type things. You know, the usual. Almost as cool as the cow in a tree that I saw in Melbourne.
Not a real cow, obviously. It was art of some sort or another.


There's also art galleries everywhere. There's a Dr. Seuss art gallery below our hotel, and a massive art exhibition in Union square at the moment.



The shops are really cool here, there's this enormous David Jones-esque shop called Macy's. It's so big, there's one shop for the gentlemen, and one shop for the ladies. We also spent a lot of time in this shop called Urban Outfitters, very nice shop. I like it a lot, lots of sweaters.


We then took the tram - ahem, sorry, cable car - down to Fisherman's Wharf which is pretty much a giant tourist playground. Markets, shops, street performers and Alcatraz!


Before I go, can I mention that the cable cars are still using the same technology from hundreds of years ago (I wasn't really listening to the history lesson from the conductor, though it would have been useful if I had) and they have to spin them around on these wooden platforms, so manual labour is still involved. Tres amusant, as the French would say.


So we took one of these carts down to Fisherman's Wharf, and we spent so many hours down there just doing touristy things, shopping, taking pictures, shopping, taking pictures, the usual. It smells like crabs down there, but it's a major seafood area so it's to be expected. It was pretty cloudy by the time we got there but it was alright.


It was awesome and I loved it. Pier 39 has such great character, an amazing sort of atmosphere. It's so colourful and so busy and so exciting. I loved it so much!


Also got a bit of a look at Alcatraz, the island prison. We decided against a tour there, it's sort of like 'come see where we kept the psychos and oh this is where Smithy McSmith hung himself, isn't that lovely?'
Yeah, haha, no. Thanks anyway. I'm not into that sort of death and suffering stuff, but apparently it's a big tourist attraction and also a film set for many prison movies.


We went to the Hard Rock cafe on Pier 39. Geoff, Wong, you would have loved it. Good food, good music and guitars everywhere. I went to the one in Melbourne a few years ago, I think it shut down. This one is epic, the memorabilia they have is better than monkey spankin'. Yes, Jordan, better than spanking the monkey.
... Whatever that is.

So, after that we came home. Well, I say after that, we waited just under an hour for the tram, in freezing cold weather.
The cable cars are suddenly not so awesome.
But otherwise, San Francisco was amazing on the first day. Also, found out that on Sunday it's the 40th annual Gay Pride festival. Which means every gay person in California state is now in San Francisco.
How exciting. Hehe.
Shall update my Saturday post later either tomorrow or tonight. Stay with me, people, I'll get up to date soon.
Stay safe, sleep tight. Hope you all have a nice lunch, I'm going to dinner.
Is it Sunday there already? Damn you Australians, living in the future.

5: Day 1, part 1/Home in the clouds

Date: 25/6/2010
Time: 9.45pm
Town: San Fransisco, California
Timezone: GMT -07.00

Okay, so this has been a long day because I lived Friday twice, so I'll first go through the first part of my first Friday which I lived partly in Australia and partly over the Pacific.
In my last post I mentioned something about crappy internet, and the situation is no different at my hotel. It's crap as crap can be, but the hotel itself is amazing. Handlery Union Square hotel, quite nice.
I also mentioned something about taking photos of my sleeping family. I didn't get a chance to because I fell asleep also, but one of the nice attendants at the club gave me a pillow and a blanket. What a sweetie.
Okay, so the first flight was from Perth to Sydney. That was on an A330, and it was terrible. Cramped and horrible, I'm glad it was only a three and a half hour flight, I would have died on the inside if we had flown in an A330 to San Francisco. The seats are incredibly uncomfortable and cramped. I did however get a window seat and this is my favourite seat, I got some impressive images of Perth city at night from the sky. Pretty pretty lights.


We flew in a Boeing 747-400 from Sydney to San Francisco, significantly more comfortable. Roomier and softer chairs. Yum.
BUT DIDN'T GET A WINDOW SEAT so no pictures from the flights. I managed to sleep for a long time on the plane, the twelve hour flight was very nearly unbearable but I listened to my iPod for a long time, and also watched How to Train Your Dragon (for the fourth time, watched it on both flights and I've already seen it twice. It's still amazing.)


Plane food, don't get too excited. Was alright, for plane food... chicken curry rice thing. Wasn't really paying much attention.
So then we arrived at Sydney airport. Sorry guys, I'd get you a proper picture of the Qantas club but they don't like it when you take photos of the guests in there so I had to sneak one while pretending to sleep. Like my boots?


There's some impressive planes at the international airport, didn't get much of a chance to watch planes as I like to do at airports but I got a few snaps.
Sydney international airport has an amazing mall, really great shopping. Would have gone for a spin with the credit cards if I wasn't passed out on a couch.


So that was pretty much the first part of the journey. I spent the next thirteen hours in a plane, so now I'll start on part two of my weird Friday. I guess it's Saturday where you guys are at, so happy weekending.
Staying in San Francisco till Friday, then going up to Canada.
Stay tuned, stay awesome.
Stay classy, Australia.
Miss you lots.