Essexgirl's Californian Exploits - Part Six:San Francisco

After a failure to get anyone in the San Fran area to fix our wing mirror in the next week, we proceeded (still with our temporary one) onto The Foggy City (which it was). After losing the glass plate in the microwave going over a pothole (don't ask) we arrived at Candlestick RV park on Monday lunchtime. It was one of the more expensive parks at $44 per night, but had a shuttle bus ($10 return) into the city, and all other RV parks were quite away out of the area. We got the 3pm bus into town and decided to have a look around the shops first, and do the touristy things the next day. I had great fun in Macys where half of the third floor was turned over to petites. I bought two pairs of Ralph Lauren jeans, and two jumpers from INC (whoever they are) and was very pleased with my purchases. I also bought some Ralph Lauren sunglasses. Ratboy bought a few things in the Men's store too, and we browsed some of the other stores that were around there, it was quite a chilly day so we gladly sat down in one of the many restaurants in Chinatown. I was disappointed that they did not serve vodka (or did not understand what we ordered), the spring rolls were fab and Ratboy liked his beef main. My main was a bit tasteless (although the menu stated it was spicy). After this, Ratboy bought some tacky T-shirts for his dad and got us lost on the way back to the bus. He rushed off ahead of me and I lost him and was mildly panicy as he had the map. I decided to wait on the junction I was at until he came back for me. Eventually I saw him waving to me at the end of the street.

The next day we got an early bus to the city and rode the streetcar/trollybus to Pier 39 where you catch the ferry to Alcatraz. The tour was very illuminating and we saw infamous criminals cells and heard lots of stories before getting the ferry back to the mainland. We had a fab lunch in an 50's themed burger bar (complete with mini jukeboxes on the table) before getting a tram back to the centre, where we caught the bus up to the Haight (the hippy district) and the Castro (the gay district) before heading back (I bought a poncho) to the bus and a quiet evening in the RV.

The next day, Wednesday, we left San Franciso via Stanford Shopping centre (very expensive) and onto the Monteray Peninsula and the Pacific Highway. We parked the RV just outside Monterey early that evening, so that we could get a good start the next morning.