California Part 1

Before I get started with my update on our trip to California, I want to recommend a movie we saw on the weekend. On Saturday night we went and saw "The Departed" and I've got to say, it's the best movie I've seen in a long time. The storyline was excellent, not to mention the acting (especially Leonardo). If you get a chance, go see it!

So back to our trip to California....

We flew into Oakland on Saturday, ironically via San Diego. When we booked our flight we knew we had one stop, however since we weren't changing planes the location wasn't listed. We assumed that we would probably stop in Phoenix or even Las Vegas, but it wasn't until we boarded the plane that we found out it was San Diego. Quite ironic seeing as though we would be driving from San Francisco to San Diego in a few days time!

Our first day in San Francisco was spent down at Pier 39 (where we had our first of many fish & chips meals), Ghiradelli Square and Lombard Street. Here are a couple of happy snaps!

My favourite part of Lombard St was seeing people driving down, steering wheel in one hand and video camera in the other! This is a typical example of the hills in San Francisco. Needless to say, my legs were very, very sore!

On our second day we headed down to Pier 39 again. On our way we stumbled across a festival in Little Italy. They were preparing for a Columbus Day parade and had a car exhibition in the park. Being Little Italy, I bet you can't guess what type of cars they were.... Brad was pretty happy when he got to do this.

In the afternoon, we headed up to Union Square for some shopping. It was nice to see a few different shops than the ones here in Albuquerque. Here I am at Union Square. We stayed at the York Hotel which was only about a ten minute walk away.

Our last day in San Francisco was a busy one. In the morning we hired bikes and rode across the Golden Gate Bridge - I think this was my favourite part of the San Francisco trip..

In the afternoon, we took a cruise around the bay - under the bridge and around Alcatraz. Unfortunately we were unable to get tickets to see "The Rock" itself.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our trip - San Francisco to San Diego....