Again sorry for the late posts on the blog - we are so busy with so many things, that we can't really find the time to post anything. Once again we're back on the road, approximately halfway through our trip and on our way to Los Angeles to get famous where we are gonna stay at Marco's family friends' place - and where we are gonna get famous and have great time in the California Sun. We have a little pain sitting in front of us - an annoying Chinese guy constantly snuffling his nose and moving around ALL the time. He is clearly not as experienced a Greyhound Rider as we are!
To help you get the chronology right remember to read the post about Yosemite, got it.
San Francisco turned out to be a super cool city. Expensive though, hilly - yes, but also clean, cool shops, good food, nice people, beautiful buildings, plenty of lovely parks, great museums and fun attractions.
Unfortunately we couldn't find a CS host to stay with so we had no choice but to pull out the greens and find a hostel to sleep in. Our Danish friends, Laura and Amine, were staying at a pretty cheap one, so we decided to get a dorm room at the same hostel.
After a short bus ride from Merced we arrived in San Francisco around 9 pm, found the hostel and got ourselves settled in our room. And of cousre, staying in the same room there were to other Danish girls. We shared our traveling tales and after that we met up with Laura and Amine, got some dinner and went to bed, very excited of what to come on our first day in San Francisco.
Friday morning, together with the girls, we set out to experience the city. We walked up and down the endless amount of hills - including the hill with 'The crookedest street'. And then we took a stroll down by the water and chilled out in a nearby park with very soft grass! After that we continued strolling along and just tried to suck in the San Francisco atmosphere. Eventually we wounded up at the hostel and relaxed in our rooms a bit. Then the four of us took the tram down to the famous homosexual area called Castro. Gay people all over - we felt a little bit misplaced, but it was an exciting area, very hip, with a lot of interesting shops and bars (with nothing but men in them...)
Walking back to the center we found a nice Thai restaurant, just what we needed! We filled our stomaches with a great dinner and went back to the hostel playing cards till we split up and went to bed.
The next morning we got up late, and with nothing particularly to do, we just went out on our own, and walked towards Chinatown. It was very much like the Chinatown in New York but because of the hills and the more narrow streets it just seemed more charming. Feeling very free and very privileged being able to be on this trip we kept walking for a couple of hours, just talking and looking around us. We found a candy shop with licorice in it! Mmm... And that gave us the energy we needed to do something a bit more cultural. So we went to the SF MOMA (museum of modern art) and saw a bunch of cool and interesting stuff - amazing painters from all over the world - even a danish artist was featured! When our cultural appetite was fulfilled and we had seen all the stuff in the museum we walked back to the hostel. We chilled out, went for a walk, came back home and nearly went to bed land ... When it was dinnertime we went to eat some Italian food with Laura and Amine - expensive, but very delicious! We decided to go watch a movie. We came to the cinema with no idea about what movie to see, and found out that the only interesting movie started 10 minutes ago. We hurried to the theater and saw the movie "Hanna", a good action packed movie, with a very special plot line. Afterwards we went home to the hostel and agrreed to bike around the city the next day.
Sunday morning we got up early, had some breakfast, sneaked our stuff into the girls' room and checked out! We arranged to meet up with the girls later at the place they were going to rent their bikes, and left for the pier to get our rental bikes. Within the first five minutes we crossed paths with a hill steep as hell - probably the goddamn steepest in the entire city. And after getting to the top we were desperately in need of a breathing break! But that was a great warm up and then we just kept speeding up and down the many hills. We came all the way from the eastern to the western part of town. In a nice neighborhood we got this burger - but not just any burger man, it was up there with the top 3 best burgers we have ever had! With the good weather still following us across the country we kept biking around. Eventually we reached The Golden Gate Park - a huge beautiful park - and took a little break to act silly and try to do some tricks with our bikes.. We kind of learned how to stall with them.. Kris not so much though! We even rode down some off road paths... But you know, we were just wannabes, but still fun. Then we met up with the girls and went to the botanical garden inside the park. It was very nice there and we chilled around talking and enjoying the vast spectrum of interesting kinds of plants and trees. Then we were suddenly in a hurry if we wanted to get to The Golden Gate Bridge before returning our bikes back, so we hurried out of the park towards the bridge. Nearing the bridge we rode this beautiful road in the middle of the woods, and then suddenly on the left side you could glimpse water between the trees, then the trees were gone and there was a fantastic view of beaches and the mighty Pacific. We felt so amazed, and just now realized that we had crossed the US from East to West and had gone from one ocean to another - the Atlantic to the Pacific. Finally we reached the bridge and could enjoy a great view of the entire bay on one side and the Pacific on the other. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to cross the bridge. We'll do that on the next roadtrip, in a car! Instead we split up to go return the bikes. Not knowing how far the ride would be, we rode as fast as we could - downhill... It was so much fun and we reached the shop in no time, but pretty exhausted. We met up with the girls again, and after a long day on the bikes we were so hungry, so we went looking for a place to eat. We found this Chinese restaurant, and being Easter everyone had lamb, and we enjoyed it very very much! Coming back to the hostel we were pretty nervous about going in and getting caught in staying in the girls' room, but everything went smooth and no angry Indian guy came knocking on the door to kick us out.
The following morning we were ready to go to Alcatraz with Laura and Amine. It seemed our luck with the weather had finally run out and we came out in the rainy street with the famous San Francisco fog. But when we came down to the pier and got on the boat headed to Alcatraz island the skies cleared up and the blue sunny sky was back in business. Therefore we didn't really get to experience the bad weather. The Alcatraz, Island also known as the Rock, is a stunningly beautiful island - like a mediterranean looking cliff island. It has a fantastic view around the whole bay, but most of all it contains an amazing history that stretches at least over a 100 years. The island started out as a military fort, became a military prison before becoming what it is really known for - a high security prison housing some of the most famous and dangerous criminals like Al Capone and Robert Stroud, thereafter native Americans occupied the island for over a year as a protest and now it is a National Park allowing people like us to come see it.
Included in the ticket for the ferry was a 45 minutes long audio tour, where we were told about all the stories from earlier Alcatraz history. It was really cool to learn about the history and experience the famous prison featured in many movies from the inside. Afterwards we went to get some lunch and then traveled to the world's biggest independent record store. It was enormous and they had all kinds of music including several Danish artists. The store was located in the hippie area of San Francisco - a nice area with plenty of weird shops with all kinds of stuff! After finishing our walk through the record store we went to a Middle Eastern inspired restaurant in the same area. We had some delicious food and after dinner we had a few drinks and a Hookah - they didn't ask for our ID so that was just great! The time was pretty late, so we went home and directly to bed. Great night with nice people and cool experiences.
We had a great time in San Francisco and really enjoyed our stay there! We were so happy to be able to hang out with the two wonderful girls, Laura and Amine! We hope the best for the rest of their trip and maybe to see them in LA and of course see them back in DK.
We hope everyone is all right - we are.. We are having the time of our life!
Stay tuned!
KOM NU POST MERE!!
ReplyDelete- Ralle