Upon reaching our hotel it turned out that our good friends at Travelocity had took it upon themselves to cancel our booking AGAIN whilst we were 'en route' to the said pre-booked and confirmed hotel. Joel and I were, I want to say, slightly annoyed. So I'll leave it at that. Fortunately we still managed to get a room at America's Best Value Inn which had a nice little bar called Cassidy's right next to us. After settling all three of us into the reasonable sized room, we ventured out up 7th and on to Market St where we boarded a half-tram-half-bus up to the wharf district to find the world famous Pier 39. It was bigger than Brighton Pier it turned out.
We found a left-handed store (see left), various seafood outlets and an opportunity to buy some extra layers because it was pretty nippy out. Trying to find somewhere to eat was another matter however as once again we had timed our arrival perfectly, with dinner.
Luckily a slightly 'upper class' restaurant had kept the tourists at bay so we decided it was a perfect time to splash some cash and eat like kings. Having a couple of drinks around town we caught a cab back to the hotel as my bag full of souvenir crapola was getting a bit heavy.We all changed into our swanky clothes (it was night five for the party shirt and still smelling great) and caught a cab back into town. We saw an advert being shot involving a Ferrarri, which was nice for somebody. The nightlife was lively but not for us, after a hard drive we really wanted a quiet drink and a nice chat so after wandering around looking for a suitable bar we decided to head back to the little bar, Cassidy's, right next to the hotel.
Many drinks and a few poorly played pool games later we downed some tequila and met a nice british chap called Dylan and went out for a long walk in the search of a supposed after party the barmaid had told us about down on 2nd street. After walking around the streets of San Francisco until 03:20 and not finding the place we decided to call it a night and went back to America's Best Value Inn on Hallam St.
The next day Adam left us to head back to L.A. by train and we... well, we didn't get up early let's put it that way. After catching X-Men on HBO we ventured out and find Mel's Drive In Diner, decked out from head to toe in homage to George Lucas' American Graffiti. After Joel finished his gigantic chilli dog (Ha! I knew I could convert him) we headed to the cin... Movie theatre to see the new Batman film The Dark Knight. I don't need to even start about how good it is, just go see it. Afterwards we felt we needed another movie, as drinking was not an option. We opted to see Wall-E which we would both highly recommend. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now.
After our hard-core movie day we thought the final day really should revolve around the tourist kinda thing. We got on a proper tram his time and got off early, because we weren't paying
attention. Because of this however we found the Fog City Diner on the way to Pier 39 and had a great meal before heading off to buy some tickets for a tour of the bay on one of the many ferries. Curiously there were Sea Lions basking on their own private jetties, genius!
We headed out past Alcatraz and out into the bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which is coloured; International Orange, we learned. Looked like Dulux Rust Red 0173a4 to me, but I digress.
The bridge was huge and was a real treat to see up close as we did a quick about turn and headed back past Alcatraz again and in the direction of the Bay Bridge and back to port where we had an urge to see The Incredible Hulk, not because we're slowly turning into lazy movie going yanks. Mainly because it was another film we hadn't seen and we were quite tired after all the walking.
Leaving the next day we left the hotel and headed for Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. It was a shame that everyone else wanted to drive down the iconic road too, or we may have gone a little faster than 5 mph. Then again, those corners were pretty freaky, so maybe not.After a quick stop for gas we were headed out of the city and towards the fabulous vistas of Yosemite National Park.
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Now playing: Frank Sinatra - (I Left My Heart) In San Francisco
via FoxyTunes
