This is the travel journal of two British girls travelling across the great expanse of North America. Spending most of that time on very slow trains…
San Francisco
Left Vegas on the bus and transferred at Bakersfield to an Amtrak California train (better seats, much better food), and then transferred again at Emeryville for a bus into San Francisco. Arrived at our hostel in the Mission after a long day’s travelling, without really taking much in of the city. The next morning we ate the free breakfast at the hostel (cake and more cake) and then jumped on the BART to Embarcadero as we wanted to go to Alcatraz. It was fully booked for the day so we bought tickets for the next day and decided to take this day to see some sights around the city. It was some kind of free transport day in San Fran so we took advantage of this by, um, walking everywhere. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, which I thought was a bit touristy and nothing-y, but we did have a yummy salmon steak sandwich. We then walked through North Beach and Chinatown, found City Lights bookstore and spent a lovely hour browsing. Martina and I went our separate ways in the afternoon and I found the Cartoon Art Museum which was small and quiet but interesting. The political cartoons from around the world about America were particularly good.
In our time apart, Martina had found out about a Gogol Bordello gig going on in the city and knowing I’m a fan, suggested we try to find the venue and get tickets. So we ran back to the hostel, grabbed a Mexican dinner and a beer, then jumped walked/bussed our way to the Fillmore. It was sold out. Plan B was a few beers, so we took the bus to 16th/Valencia and drank at a bar called Casanova which had paintings of naked ladies on the walls. Hmmm tasteful.
Fisherman’s Wharf lured us back the next day, so we had breakfast at a sourdough place and then joined the queue for Alcatraz. 
We had our photo taken in front of a fake Alcatraz backdrop (what is it with that? First Niagara, now Alcatraz). We then followed the audio tour around Alcatraz and I found it really interesting. Just being there felt creepy and eerie – especially the solitary cells. It was also very very breezy outside and we had to dodge the bird poo. Back on the mainland, we abused the free bus to take us to a patch of greenery by the Bay, where Martina had a sleep and I watched a seal swim around. Spent the evening in the Castro, eating and browsing the shops. Martina then wanted to try a bar she’d read about called the Lexington Club. It looked a little scary from the outside. I didn’t think it’d be my cup of tea but dragged her in and we had a really great night! Good Hefeweizen and a good jukebox.
San Francisco was our longest stay in one place on the trip so we had quite a leisurely time, without feeling too pressured to sightsee. So we hired bikes the next day for a ride along the water and over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was increasingly stunning as we went along, and quite exhilarating going over the bridge itself as the wind really picked up! After rewarding ourselves for our hard cycle with some Ben & Jerry’s we continued to stroll around, looking for more bars that Martina had highlighted. We failed and instead found ourselves in some very dodgy districts. So got out of there sharpish and settled for a rather dubious curry on 16th/Mission. We Brits love our curries and this was like no curry I’ve ever known. Not in a good way.
The next day we did a bit of shopping, met a bloke who’d visited York in England (and told us about his trip very loudly in Starbucks), saw a mass protest on bikes, and then ate at Chow in the Castro which was delicious. Before we knew it, the time had come to get the bus out of San Francisco. A minor problem was that we had no idea where to get the bus from. We hedged our bets on the Ferry terminal as I’d seen buses outside there and after chatting to security, waited at a bus stop for our bus to Emeryville. To our relief an Amtrak bus soon pulled up – but it was going to Martinez. We had no clue where this was, or if it would help us, but the driver assured us it was our only choice. Thankfully an Amtrak lady reassured us and we ended up getting the train from Martinez fine.
