Should I pretend I am writing this from an overcrowded airport, where we have been camped out for days, suffering boredom only interupted by assaulting airline staff, rioting with other passengers and crying for the television cameras?
Our "stranded" overseas experience has been vastly different from what I'm seeing on the television here and what my family are telling me is being shown back in the UK. We extended our stay in the apartment we had rented until the next people were arriving and today we have moved into a hotel. Not a hotel I would have normally picked, but it is cheap and clean, I'm writing this from the desk in the bedroom, there is a pool and gym and there is a "pillow menu" in case the standard pillows don't meet requirements. So I don't feel I can complain too much.
At the moment we are paying for it ourselves and there is no guarantee that we will be able to claim any of it back. By the time we get back, I will have had a month off work (until last year, I'd never taken two weeks holiday before) so will likely face a nightmare when I get back in. But still I'm enjoying myself.
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The Streets of...
I'm back from San Francisco. I loved it. England seems very cold and flat in comparision.
I wondered if there were would be enough for us to do over a week but it really wasn't long enough and despite a packed schedule, I'm sure there is so much we didn't manage to do and I'd definitely go back - tomorrow if I didn't have to work!
As it was our first visit, we did a lot of tourist sites, which has resulted in the obligatory cliched photographs:
Cable Car turning around
My new favourite mode of transport. Yes, its expensive, slow and chilly, but I loved it.
Lombard Street
Really who thought it would be a good idea to build a city where there were so many hills? My feet still haven't recovered.
Alcatraz
I feared it would be tacky but it wasn't. It was fascinating. As its now a national park, they were keen to stress that there was more to the island than the infamous prison, but that is still what most people wanted to know about.
City Lights Book Store
The shop associated with The Beats. We stopped by and bought a few books, despite the OH's mutterings that Jack Kerouac was the most over-rated writer ever.
Haight Ashbury Sign
It had to be done, even though the old Sixties hangout is dominated by shops selling tat.
Coit Tower
An exhausting walk uphill and up stairs to reach the tower, which apparently gave the best views in the city. But with so many high points, the view weren't really that much better than from anywhere else and after the Alcatraz boat, I felt like the tower was swaying. so we didn't stay up there for long.
The Bay Bridge at Night
The less famous of the city's bridges, it apparently won't withstand another earthquake.
Wine Country
I don't normally like the countryside but even I loved it here. Unfortunately we couldn't really bring back any wine but I did sample plenty and lots of gorgeous food too.
The Golden Gate Bridge
Regular readers may recall that I don't like bridges. I made it a little way across this one before I thought I was going to vomit. The fact that there had been a ten car smash up the day before didn't help. It really would be a good idea for them to put something in between the two directions of traffic.
And some perhaps more unusual pictures:
A Man with a Basketball for a Head
We went to watch the Golden State Warriors play Houston. This was my third basketball game and I really enjoyed it this time.
A Giraffe
Not native to California - we went to the zoo! The OH said that the giraffes reminded him of me. I'm taking that as a compliment.
Giant Broccoli
A plant in the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It looked just like my favourite vegetable.
The Jefferson Airplane section of a secondhand record shop
I wondered if there were would be enough for us to do over a week but it really wasn't long enough and despite a packed schedule, I'm sure there is so much we didn't manage to do and I'd definitely go back - tomorrow if I didn't have to work!
As it was our first visit, we did a lot of tourist sites, which has resulted in the obligatory cliched photographs:
Cable Car turning aroundMy new favourite mode of transport. Yes, its expensive, slow and chilly, but I loved it.
Lombard Street
Really who thought it would be a good idea to build a city where there were so many hills? My feet still haven't recovered.
Alcatraz
I feared it would be tacky but it wasn't. It was fascinating. As its now a national park, they were keen to stress that there was more to the island than the infamous prison, but that is still what most people wanted to know about.
City Lights Book StoreThe shop associated with The Beats. We stopped by and bought a few books, despite the OH's mutterings that Jack Kerouac was the most over-rated writer ever.
Haight Ashbury SignIt had to be done, even though the old Sixties hangout is dominated by shops selling tat.
Coit TowerAn exhausting walk uphill and up stairs to reach the tower, which apparently gave the best views in the city. But with so many high points, the view weren't really that much better than from anywhere else and after the Alcatraz boat, I felt like the tower was swaying. so we didn't stay up there for long.
The Bay Bridge at NightThe less famous of the city's bridges, it apparently won't withstand another earthquake.
Wine CountryI don't normally like the countryside but even I loved it here. Unfortunately we couldn't really bring back any wine but I did sample plenty and lots of gorgeous food too.
The Golden Gate Bridge
Regular readers may recall that I don't like bridges. I made it a little way across this one before I thought I was going to vomit. The fact that there had been a ten car smash up the day before didn't help. It really would be a good idea for them to put something in between the two directions of traffic.
And some perhaps more unusual pictures:
A Man with a Basketball for a Head
We went to watch the Golden State Warriors play Houston. This was my third basketball game and I really enjoyed it this time.
A Giraffe
Not native to California - we went to the zoo! The OH said that the giraffes reminded him of me. I'm taking that as a compliment.
Giant Broccoli
A plant in the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It looked just like my favourite vegetable.
The Jefferson Airplane section of a secondhand record shopMy favourite 1960s San Francisco band. We'll gloss over what they went on to become.
Warning Sign
Warning SignGood advice found on the wall of Vesuvio bar.
The only bad thing that I saw (apart from those gradients!) was that the city seems to have a terrible problem with homeless people. Living in London, I thought was used to seeing people begging, but I've not seen anything on this scale before. It was really very sad and I wondered why all of these people had come to be in that situation and if it was similar across over US cities.
The only bad thing that I saw (apart from those gradients!) was that the city seems to have a terrible problem with homeless people. Living in London, I thought was used to seeing people begging, but I've not seen anything on this scale before. It was really very sad and I wondered why all of these people had come to be in that situation and if it was similar across over US cities.
As the old song goes, I did misplace my heart there but I think my body clock is still somewhere over the Atlantic as I'm keeping very strange hours. At 4am this morning I watched the end of a Discovery channel documentary about the 1906 earthquake in SF which ended with a very grim warning for the future. So I'm glad I went when I did and that I didn't see the documentary before.
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