We were going to San Francisco

We left the coast on time and in high excitement for the beginning of our trip. The flight was only 2.5 hours with a strong tail wind & arrived in Auckland to be greeted by a cold & blustery day. Mums plane was delayed by half an hour but as she had already checked all the way through all we had to do was go from domestic to international & straight through customs.  The flight was 12 hours long & if you take a phenugen it just flies by.

We were lucky to land on a beautiful clear fine day so from the air we could see all of Frisco laid out beneath us in all her fine splendor. It was easy to find a transfer to the hotel, especially when our cunning "elderly" mother had ordered a wheelchair to take her from the plane all the way through customs and up to where the escalators were. We all trotted behind smirking behind our hands wondering if this was the same women we were all racing after, trying to keep up as we ran from domestic to international in Ak just a few short hours ago? Then when he got to the lifts to take us up to the 2nd floor where the buses went from, there was someone stuck in there and a great pandemonium ensured as guards and helpers where racing to free the trapped passenger so he wheeled us around and took us to the escalators.  At the bottom he asked if mum could walk & make it up there.  Oh yes, we said as she hopped up, grabbed her bags and beat us up to the top!

It was lucky she is so sprightly as for the next few days we dragged her around the city, walked for miles & tried to pack in as much as we could.  Once we had checked into our hotel, which was close to the action and very cheap & charming with it's interesting hall ways full of anitques, nooks & crannies, shared bathrooms, pull chain toilets, small but clean rooms, we went out to check out the neighbourhood. 

Fishermans Wharf was fair buzzing as it was Saturday afternoon and everyone was out & about. What struck us from almost the first moment was how many homeless people there are, lying around the streets or jumping out from behind some tree branches or just with their begging bowls out looking sad & grubby.  One night we gave a one legged man the rest of our fish & chips we couldn't eat and his little face lit up as he gratefully accepted our scraps.

The next day we went on the hop on hop off bus to see the city sights.  As we were walking down the street discussing how we didn't sleep a wink all night and how many fog horns did we hear Mum suddenly stops in her tracks & yells, "stop, stop, everyone" Well that got our attention so we stopped & looked at her waiting to see what the problem was.  "It's my birthday" she says.  Of course we hadn't forgotten, it was all planned around her birthday, but in our excitement it had temporary slipped our minds!  

First trip was over the Golden Gate Bridge which we got off the bus at the start and walked the whole 1.7 miles of it to the other side.  I thought we would never get there, it just went on & on & on. Fantastic views of the bay & back to the city tho.  From there the bus picked us up & took us over the hill to Sausalito where we stopped & shopped.  It's a lovely little village with great boutique shops, deli's & eating places and a fantastic Christmas shop.

Lunch Time

Back over the bridge and up over Nob hill, saw the Victorian painted ladies, Union Square with all the named shops like Macy's, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and much more. Then back down the waterfront where the Americas cup was held and still with all the flags & evidence of that great disaster for the poor Kiwis and which we won't talk about.

We had to race back to the hotel, get changed and race out again as we had booked for dinner for 6pm and we didn't want to be late. 

We celebrated Mums 80th birthday by dining at the famous Boudin restaurant, well know for it's amazing sourdough bread, had their signature dishes of clam chowder in a bread bowl along with other yummy dishes, while overlooking all the happenings on pier 45 on Fishermans wharf.   A very memorable experience.

Just on Pier 45, there are a heap of restaurants around there as well as an antique penny arcade. It has loads of old machines dating back at least 70 - 80 yrs and are still in working order. It's like stepping into a time machine as you wander around the arcade and see the fortune telling gypsies, the laughing sailor, shootout in the OK Carroll, punch & Judy, bashing the pop up moles with a hammer and heaps of others I forget to list.

The next day was booked for Alcatraz.  We were extremely lucky with our timings as it turned out as we were one of the last ones to get across to see it.  The very next day was the Government shut down and all the national parks & monuments were closed indefinitely until they sorted their political difference out.  It was a short, comfortable boat ride out to the rock and once there we were issued with headphones and could do a self guided tour of the prison spoken by former prisoners, guards and people who lived there or had grown up on Alcatraz with their families.  The word Alcatraz means sea birds, although I'm not sure in what language! 

After we got back we wandered down to pier 39 where there are lots of shops, restaurants, a very ornate merry go round as well as the local very noisy & smelly sea lion colony.  There are several platforms on the wharf where the sea lions can haul up their blubbery bodies from the sea and vigorously defend their small patch from other intruders before stretching out to have a little kip in the sun if they were so lucky to have it shining.

Further down past pier 45 is Ghirardelli Square where there use to be a chocolate factory but now turned into a shopping mall.  There still is a couple of shops that sell the Ghirardelli chocolate and give out free samples.  If you walk in one door, get your free sample then walk out the other door, you can walk back in the front door again and get another sample!  I did this several times and at both shops & can assure you the chocolate is divine.  The sample of the day was a square of dark chocolate with a spiced pumpkin filling.  We sat down and had hot chocolate drinks in the cafe then wandered around the old machinery that was still working and showed the chocolate making process from roasting the beans in the ovens to the finished bath of creamy liquid chocolate that we just wanted to jump into.

We wanted to catch the famous cable car and bought a ticket each which was $6 but the wait was over 45 minutes long and after waiting a short while we gave up & went to the chocolate factory instead.  Hopefully the ticket will last until we get back as we still haven't done it yet.

That night we did the evening tour on the bus to see all the lights and the city coming alive.  We found we got up too early for the city, it is a late waking city indeed.  Walk around at 6.30am looking for breakfast is a fruitless task.  No-one is around except the street sweepers and nothing is open so don't bother to get up before 7am.  Getting back to the evening, the lights looked great, we went down one of the steepest streets then saw the North bridge (older & longer sister to the Golden Gate) lite up with LED lights which looked amazing.  It wasn't warm on the top open deck of the bus so we slowly froze to death as we light gazed and took ages to warm up when we finally got off and scurried back to the hotel.

Tuesday Morning we used the last of our 48 hr bus ticket & caught the bus to the ferry building which is the other end of The Embarcadero near pier 1. It's a beautiful building with a lovely big white clock tower.  In one of the earthquakes it was picked up and spun to one side so now istead of being perfectly square on to Market Street it is slightly skew whiff.  On certain days of the week they have a Farmers Market, Tuesday happens to be one of them which is why we chose this day to go.  It was not as large as we thought so certainly nothing to worry about if you missed it but interesting just the same with the different sorts and beautiful colours of veges.  Inside the building is lots of deli type shops selling anything from the mushroom shop that had every type of mushroom you could possibly think of to bakeries, olive oils, cheeses, pork products and coffee.  There is a large Kitchen shop there that sold a fantastic array of kitchen implements, BBQ's, sauces,crockery, nick knacks of every shape & form enough to keep you pottering for hours, which it did. 

We caught an old fashioned street car which is similar to a trolley but more like a bus attached to the overhead electrified lines.  It looked like something from the 50's and was standing room only.  A girl as mad as a cut snake kept Jon, Shirene & Malcolm entertained at one end with her life story she was telling anyone who cared to listen.  Apparently she was the blue sheep of the family.  She never made it to the desirable status of black sheep which must have played on her ever since.

The street car took us back to Pier 35, which is where the cruise ship docked and just down the road from our hotel.  We went back to the hotel to pick up our bags and trundled them back to the wharf where I was expected a big wait to check in. Along the way Jon stopped to buy two very large bottles of wine and put them in our black carry bag which also held the ipad.  Just as we got there the straps had had enough of the weight & gave up, dropping the bag onto the footpath.  John managed to save the wine but it was not until later that I found the ipad was not so lucky.  One corner must have hit the ground as that had broken away & cracked the side of the screen.  Lucky it didn't crack across the screen & it still works so things could have been worse.

Check in was no drama as there were no queues, just a bunch of escapees from an old folks home directing everyone where to go.  One rather large old man sat on a chair with his thumb pointing in the direction of where to walk.  Interesting staff.

We sailed out of San Francisco to a most amazing sunset, with the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge and illuminating the sky with a blaze of red & gold. As we sailed under the bridge it was highlighted by the rays of the sun and one of the most fantastic sights I have seen. It will remain as one of the highlights of this trip.

Our cabin is great.  It's the largest one I've seen and being in the front, we have a porthole above a large wrap around desk where we can sit & write our diaries while looking out the window at the front of the ship then there is a glass door leading out to the deck on the starboard side of the ship.  Just as you come in the front door there is a large area with 3 wardrobes on one side and a huge bathroom complete with shower over the bath & an additional walk in shower on the other side.  For some reason a curtain can be drawn to divide this section from the rest of the cabin.  There is a pull out sofa bed and a king size bed with drawers underneath and several other cuboards & drawers around as well as a small fridge.  We have so much storage that we can't even fill them all up and I keep losing things as I can't remember which cupboard or drawer I've put it in.

Every night we get a different animal towel folded on the bed.  So far we have had a swan, octupus, dog, elephant & turtle.