San Francisco II

Hello all,

Well after spending five nights in San Francisco I have become quite used to San Francisco, it is a really nice place and it is extremely easy to walk around, which is exactly what I have been doing!!!

I have spent a couple of mornings catching up on sleep and saving my energy for my second tour which begins tomorrow, I can barely believe that tomorrow I will be back in the van as well as camping again, but with a whole new group, it should be interesting!!

I hope that it is similar to the last tour where we did quite a few activities during the day and then gathered around the campfire (or beachfire) for a few beers in the evening, it was great!! I really enjoyed my last tour and the group was really good too, so if the new group is anything like the last one it should be great fun.

Since my last entry on Wednesday when I visited Alcatraz I had a bit of a day off on Thursday apart from looking around Union Square a bit and then visiting the Museum of Modern Art in the evening. I managed to see a few works of Picasso, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, Marilyn Minter and Andy Warhol which took me back a bit to A-Level Art!! I also saw the famous urinal that R. Mutt provided for a art contest in 1917!! That was the beginning of modern art... but I won't bore you any longer!!!!

On Friday I walked all the way to the Golden Gate bridge again as it was such a clear day and sure enough the bridge was not obscured by fog this time. I ended up staying until sunset and I got some good photos (I hope!) and made my way back to the hostel. I ended up going to the nearby Irish pub with a couple of other people from the hostel and had a couple of pints of Guinness, lovely stuff!!

Yesterday I went to Colt Tower which provided some excellent views of the whole of San Francisco from the high rise buildings of the financial district to Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge. This was probably the best place I have been to in San Francisco as the views were amazing. I actually got someone to take a picture of me at the top (something I do often!) and ended up talking to the family who were from Miami, they were interested to know where I was travelling etc...

Then later as I walked all the way back to my hostel downtown, I bumped into them again near Union Square and they were all dressed up ready to go out to a theatre and I had only just made it back to town!!! They couldn't believe I had walked back all that way!! Some people, I couldn't believe they had the luxury of going out to a theatre and staying in the best hotel in San Francisco!!!

When I got back to the hostel I went out to a nearby Sports Bar with my Swedish roommate and he was telling me that on his confirmation form from the hostel it says "Martin Andersson, (his address) and Switzerland". Apparently when he tells an American he is from Sweden they say "Ah, so you are Swiss"!!!!!! My German roommate says that maybe when America goes to war with Sweden, they will finally know where Sweden is!!!! Terrible jokes!!!!

So today my plan is to catch up on my emails as much as I can before beginning my tour tomorrow. I am really looking forward to it as I will be visiting some amazing National Parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and others, as well as seeing some cities such as Las Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles. It should be an amazing trip and I will hope to keep in touch as much as I can.

Speak soon guys and keep those emails coming!!

Love Adrian