USA 2009 – Day 2 (San Francisco)

Apart from a brief moment when we woke up at 3am for about half an hour, Mat and I managed to sleep through the whole night. We woke up a bit groggy the following morning, but forced ourselves downstairs to meet up with the crew. Mum, Amy, Pauline and Fiona opted to go for a drive to one of the universities, while Madonna, Sue, Mat and I decided we would explore the surrounding blocks of the hotel a little more.

First we went and waited for a cable car, but it looked so incredibly packed we decided to walk. After about 3 – 4 blocks, we entered into what we thought was just a normal shopping centre. Wrong. It was so impressive inside, it looked like somewhere designed for people only with wages in excess of $100,000. We looked at the price for some breakfast in a small cafe downstairs, but instead opted to walk back towards the hotel and look for places that had some appealing pancakes. We came across Lori’s diner, an interesting looking 50′s diner only a short walk from the hotel. We apologised to Aunty Sue for making her walk a fair distance (she was fine with it) and headed inside.

Mat ordered the country breakfast (two pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns and toast) while I opted for just the standard pancakes with maple syrup. While we waited for our food, we had a look around the inside of the cafe. Partial bodies of cars hung from the walls, along with a plane and other 50′s memorabilia. We were in a booth that had it’s own cool little juke box which reminded me of the old Johnny Rocket’s cafe we’d had at the Sunshine Plaza in the good ol’days. I couldn’t resist, promptly popping in a few quarters and choosing some songs. The service was quite speedy (although impersonal – it didn’t look like he was happy to serve us), and the food was very fulfilling. It took us a while to figure out how much money each of us owed including tax and tip, but finally worked it out and handed the money over. Next to the counter was a pokies machine that each person got to try their luck when paying for their meal. If they hit the jackpot their meal was free. While we’d been eating a man had won the jackpot, and unfortunately they were resetting the machine when we were getting ready to leave, so we were unable to try it ourselves.

 

 

After breakfast, Mat and I had just enough time to go to AT & T and get a 3g prepaid sim card for my iphone before it was time to meet with the others. We all piled in the car except for Aunty Sue and Fiona, who chose to stay back at the hotel. We headed out of the city towards Muir Woods, getting fantastic views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the bay. I was shocked to see Alcatraz for the first time. It’s really quite close to the city! For some reason I had it in my head that it was further out, but it didn’t seem that way at all.

We arrived at Muir Woods, and after paying our entry fees headed in. What a stunning nature reserve. The landscape was full of gigantic redwood trees, bubbling brooks and wildlife. We saw a couple of deer, and a gorgeous little animal that after much debate we decided was a chipmunk (after googling this, I found that indeed, it was a chipmunk).

I had taken the opportunity to take my camera tripod with me this day, but unfortunately it also meant that I had to carry it around as well as the video camera. Mat refused to be my bag bitch, so I was lumped with it all. I cursed, but at the end of the day I’m glad I took it because it meant that I actually had some steady video. I was also really lucky to get some great footage with of the chipmunk. I had bent over and held the video camera at my feet pointing at the chipmunk, with the LCD screen swivelled up so I could see what I was looking at. Thank goodness for technology.

 

 

At one point we all stopped to take some photos of the group on a bridge in the park. While we all posed, a small crowd started building up at either edge of the bridge. We were quite amazed that all the americans politely waited until we were finished before walking past. You don’t get that back at home! Australian’s are notorious for walking through people’s pictures (we walked through our fair share of photos while we were in America), and in fact you’ll find in my video footage of Mat walking through my video. At the time he was actually making a joke about walking in front, and told me later that he had intended to do it while I was filming. Whatever, I vote he was just being Australian *grin*

We finished walking the track then piled back into the car. On the way back towards San Francisco we stopped off at various places to get some beautiful scenic shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. Most of the lookouts were extremely windy I almost felt like I was going to be blown over! Once again I congratulated myself on the decision to bring the tripod because there was no way I would have gotten a steady shot without it. The wind brought with a deep chill as well, so needless to say we weren’t out of the car taking pictures for long!

We also drove the famous Lombard St, the most crooked street in the world. Correction – Pauline drove it and the rest of us looked out the windows gawking at how steep the road was, and all the brave people climbing the stairs on either side. The hill is so steep they made a winding road on it in an attempt to battle the incline (and saving brakes in the process). It’s paved in brick, and you can see where many people have scratched their cars along the walls on their way down. Thankfully we didn’t (due to Pauline’s amazing driving even with all of us being loud in the back). Unfortunately the video I recorded doesn’t really do the street justice, you can’t tell just how steep it truly is! When you watch the video I’ve made, try to look at the angle the pedestrians are standing on, and you can try to imagine what it felt like.

After Lombard St we drove back to the hotel, where we had a brief rest. We then all met downstairs again, and set off for dinner. The decision had been made to go to a particular Sicilian restaurant about 15 – 20mins walk away. Unfortunately for us that also meant walking through China Town, where we smelled some of the most disgusting smells ever. Think of rotting seafood, then add some dead carcass, maybe some mould, and then triple it. That’s how bad it was. There was one street corner where we waited for the lights to change so we could cross the street, and everyone was gagging or holding their nose. It was terrible. I guess you could tell we were tourists.

Thankfully we arrived at our destination, Trattoria Volare, with our noses intact. It was a beautiful little restaurant with an authentic interior, it definitely made you feel at ease. It was also nice and warm too, compared to the temperature outside (which was rapidly cooling). We all ordered various entrees to share around, along with some mains. I had the calamari entree, and given that I didn’t like much of the other stuff our group had ordered, I was only too happy to keep the calamari to myself and not share (I did offer once, but that was the only invite they were getting). I think I had the gnocci for my main. I can’t remember what it was called exactly, but I know I really enjoyed whatever it was and finished the meal in its entirety. Although I probably shouldn’t have, I’d eaten so much!

 

 

After dinner we walked around for a little bit. We saw the church where Marilyn Munroe married Joe DiMaggio, which looked absolutely beautiful at night. Religion makes Mat a little bit uncomfortable, so he questioned why we were visiting a church (he hasn’t yet understood my family has a habit of visiting old churches and monastries), but I gave him a look and he quickly shut up.

Dark was fast approaching, so we waited for the next cable car to show up. We rode it back to our hotel, and after sitting down with hot chocolates and tea/coffee, chatted for a while. Fiona updated Aunty Sue’s facebook to indicate she was hanging out at a male strip club in San Francisco (which made us all giggle since Aunty Sue kept coming up with better and better updates for Fiona to write). Eventually though it was time for bed, so we all retired for the evening. Tomorrow was going to be one of the highlights of the whole trip for me – we were due to visit Alcatraz.

For Amy’s versions of events, you can see her blog post here.

Related posts:

1. USA 2009 – Day 1 (Brisbane to San Francisco)
2. USA 2009 – Day 3 (San Francisco)
3. USA 2009 – An introduction
4. USA Day 4 (San Francisco)
5. USA Day 5 (San Francisco to Big Sur)

Tags: cable car, chipmunk, deer, golden gate bridge, Lori's diner, muir woods, redwoods, San Francisco, Trattoria Volare, USA