San Francisco

After a two hour delay at the airport in Las Vegas, we finally got our plane to San Francisco.

Having arrived in San Francisco and after getting a bus to the downtown area where we are staying, the first thing we noticed were the hills. The city seems to have been built on the bumpest piece of land around and we had to climb a mountain to get to the hostel.

We took a walk to the supermarket Tuesday (following the directions given to us by the hostel) and found that the higher up the hills you go, the steeper it gets to the point that the pavement turn to steps. The view from the top of the hill was awesome you could see miles down the road.

In true Samantha & Alan style we then got distracted before the supermarket in a bar offering happy hour (always good). Having been to the supermarket we walked back on a different road only to find it went round the hill and found that we actually didn't have to climb the big hill to get to the supermarket (thank you to the hostel for the great directions!).

San Francisco has cable cars to get you around, these are really trams as cable cars are those hanging things and these run on rails but they are the best ways of getting up and down the hills.

We went to visit Alcatraz on Wednesday which was really cool. There is a ferry that takes you over to the Island then you get to explore on your own with an audio headset tour. I thought this would be crap but it was actually really good. The audio directs you here, there and everywhere in the jail itself and it was quite bizare seeing everyone walking round the same as you. Anyway, despite my plan to get Samantha locked in a cell, I was foiled by them not opening and closing the cells for us. Oh well I'll have to hatch a new plan.