DAY 19 - Napa Valley & UC Berkley - 19th Dec

I far from being a wine connisuer, I hardly drink the stuff. But in one day at Napa I somehow turned into a wine appreciator who kind knew what she was talking about. Ha, I gotta thank my parents for taking me on that winery tour in the Hunter Valley that year. Anyway, Napa is a part of a very large winery county in Northern California. It is absolutely huge, we only managed to perhaps cover 1/10 of the area that day. It was overcast but the misty created such a beautiful atmosphere. Wine regions are always beautiful no matter what, and Napa is no exception.

The real shitty thing is that tasting costs money. We got some free passes from the tourist centre, but I'm so used to the free for all tasking available at the Hunter Valley. So when I see people pay $25 to taste like 8 wines, I think it's an absolute ripoff. That been said, I had an absolute blast getting tipsy at Aturri's, partly cause I didn't each much breakfast.

After going lobster red, we'd thought we'd picnic at Atturri's with our previously acquired KFC. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and coleslaw to dilute some fine wine. Heaven.

Met a bunch of nice people at St Clement's later in the day. I really feel sorry for my cousins cause they're 19 and drinking age is stupidly 21 in this country so there were thoroughly bored, whilst I was having an absolute ball cracking jokes, getting drunk and pretending I understood wine and the like.

Coming back from Napa, we took a stop at University of California, Berkley, where both my cousins are studying undergrad medicine. Very smart boys most of them. Surprisingly I actually liked the Berkley campus more than Stanford. It doesn't purport to be what it's not, aka some historical institution. Outside of the main campus the town is also very nice and has a real college atmosphere. Taking a squiz at their library made me realise just how inadequate UTS is in the world league of Unis. We're like a primary school compared to the likes of Berkley. However, you have to share rooms like school camp. The dorms are all like 3 to a room. And that would kinda suck. I like my privacy too much.

pics here

DAY 18 - Downtown San Francisco part II - 18th Dec

Another day in downtown San Fran, I took the BART again, and it was pissing down with rain. I hung around the union square shops for a bit and then went around Yebuena gardens, which were indeed very grey and very wet and cold. I thought about going to museum of modern art which was right next to the gardens but realised would have to take off most of the layers i was wearing and I really couldn't be bothered.

So I made my way to the Powell st cable cars and took a cable car to Lombard street, a bogan aussie family sits next too me..by god, does the aussie accent really sound that bogan? Rain starts pissing down the minute I get off the car on
Lombard street. It's still grey and wet, but i decided to walk down and up anyway. The street supposedly holds the record for being the crookedest road in the world. It's just really a series of zigzags down a hill. Perhaps it's prettier in summer when all the flowers lining the road bloom.

So it pisses down some more and I caught the next cable car to fisherman's wharf. Relieved myself at the restroom in the Del Monte Cannery. Brilliantly hidden public restroom in san fran that I know about due to the fact that the restroom at Starbucks the other day was out and I was directed to this one by the starbucks guy. Oh yeah and it is a working cannery. I don't know what they can but it's probably fish.

I walked out and it was all sunny, wtf? san fran is becoming more like sydney everyday. I hung around the wharf a bit, checked out Hyde Pier which had moored boats you can tour.

Decided weather was good enough to visit the wave organ. But was famished so hopped into In & Out Burger. Last time I had In & Out (A Californian tradition since the burger chain only exists in this state) I didn't get a chance to try the burger, this time I had the works, a burger, fries and a strawberry shake. The shake is still the most awesome shake ever. Right amount of creaminess and not too cold and not overly sweet. The fries are fresh but are not double fried which means they lose their crunchiness very quickly which is disappointing. So by the end of your meal you end up with some very limp fries. The burger although very fresh still felt a bit greasy and the entire slice of raw onion they put in played with the flavour a little too much. I like my onions grilled thanks. But overall a very satisfactory and filling lunch for $6.17. Did I also mention that I was served by Derrell, whose identical twin brother, younger by 22min Terrell was serving the 2nd counter? Only in America.

I hiked (san fran offers a lot of urban hiking) to the bus stop to get a bus to the Palace of Art, a huge grecian column thingymajigmy in the middle of San Fran, built in 1915 for some fair. It's great, it's beautiful but it really doesn't have any other purpose than just sitting there and looking pretty.

Took a detour around Marina park, absolutely stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Beach was full of people and dogs. Took my time getting to the Wave Organ which was at the end of a piece of random land jutting out from the Marina. It was wet going but once I got there, the wave organ was thoroughly disappointing as it was too small and hardly made a sound. Perhaps the tides were too low, however I found something else to occupy my time. Standing there it felt like being in the middle of the ocean. Golden Gate to the east, Alcatraz to the west, Marin County to the North and Downtown San Fran in the South. I was standing in the middle of beauty. A few other people were standing just like me, deep in there own thoughts, in awe of what man and nature have created in this city.

I took the bus back to fisherman's wharf and the light was waning and the seediness of the area became more and more evident. So I hopped on a streetcar down the Embarcadero and caught the BART home in time for my cousins birthday dinner.

pics here

DAY 17 - Stanford, Muir Woods and Sausalito - 17th Dec

What do I think of Stanford? Not much really. The campus is massive just like every single thing in this country. The main buildings are nice but the prevalent feeling is the same type of shallowness which engulfs this entire country. Oh yeah and did I mention that the Law building is massively ugly just like every other law building in the world. You think Architects hate lawyers? Anyhoo, Stanford is like UNSW with oodles more money. It's wannabe sandstone but it still doesn't quite reach it. Take Oxford for example, it doesn't have a majestic boulevard leading up to it...but it's quaint and history seeps through every brick.

Then we drove right through the city over the Golden Gate bridge to Muir Woods to see redwood trees. The road down to the woods was insane. Winding and unfenced, even though we were in the right lane, it was still hella scary. My aunt was driving a Toyota 7-seater family van with front wheels which needed some serious realigning. On the way up I almost crapped my pants cause, 2 inches to the right and we would have ended 30 meters down into the woods. My aunt looked at the trees and remarked, don't worry those will stop us a bit.

Muir woods itself was cold and wet but fantastic, I only wish it was more sunny there was nearly as much light as I'd like. Thus all the pictures are a bit dull and feel like an episode of the x files. We took a bit of a different road on the way back and passed a house downhill between the woods and the beach. It was so brilliantly peaceful, it be really cool to have a holiday house like that, just away from humanity.

At dusk we headed down to Sausalito right near the Golden Gate. It's a very quaint seaside tourist town with lots of solo commercial gallery stores. Really nice, but I only walked a bit in fading light, but it was really relaxed

Then we drove back home down through san fran once more and used the San Mateo bridge, its so insanely long it took like 15min driving across it. It crosses one of the widest sections of the san fran bay between Hayward and San Mateo. Google tells me that it's about 8 miles long, that's a 10.8km long bridge, insane.

I spent most of the day with a map in hand directing my Aunt across the San Francisco Bay Area. It was fun yet totally frightening everytime she was on the phone, thinking or distracted, she stopped in a middle of a freeway or makes a wrong turn. But I've discovered that I'm a person who is quite good at navigation, I belong on the Amazing Race.

pictures here

DAY 16 - Downtown San Francisco - 16th Dec

No pictures today because I stupidly left my SD card in my SD card reader, but Megan and Tracey might have some.

I took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Which is like a carpeted metro train. Slightly old now but very one time, as opposed to Sydney trains Unluckily I also ran smack bang into an Oakland Raiders fan. Therefore I shared the carriage with multitudes of rabid Raiders fans and what turned out to be the slowest BART train in history. But and old man tried to give me his seat which was really nice but I was like, uh no thanks, usually i'd be giving up my seat for you. The US is weird, if you're female, men will give you a seat no matter how old they are.

I got out at the Montgomery St station, which is in the financial district. Finally my first proper high rise downtown in 3 weeks or so. I took a turn on Grant Ave into Chinatown. It's a very narrow street filled with kitsch souvenier shops. I purchased some cheap postcards which were cool. San Fran shirts were selling for about 2 bucks each, which begged me to make those bad 2 dollar, 2 dollar jokes.

On every cross street I was amazed at the hilliness of San Fran. This city is like an entire rollercoaster ride, steep dips and steep inclines. It's crazy. I turned onto stockton street which has become the main shopping street for chinese people in San Fran. And boy was it like China. Markets, fruits, veges, meat and lots and lots of Chinese people. The pavement was hard to get through and a couple of times I felt like yelling, move it or lose grandma to the tiny old women in front of me who seem to think it's totally fine stop right in the middle of the pavement and have a 5 hour conversation.

I met up with megan's clan and unsuprisingly had Viet for lunch. We were then driven to the Golden Gate bridge. A monolithic feat of construction, it's narrower than I thought but it's beauty is unparalleled. The huge expanse of the pacific on the west, the expanse of the bay on the east, downtown to the south and the north, the hills of Marin County. We ended up walking 1/3 of the bridge before people decided it was too cold to continue. We then decided we wanted to go ride cable cars and thus got dropped off near Fisherman's Wharf.

With my trusty map in two I directed everyone to the Powell Mason line, we bought $11 all you can ride tickets (considering 1 way is already $5, this was probably a good idea). The cable car is an interesting concept, rickety yet sturdy, it's the rollercoaster carriage working on the rails of San Fran. At the end of the line we ended in the crowded and brightly lit shopping district of Union Square, we then boarded the other line, Powell Hyde, which was much more hilly (if that is even possible) and the views were brilliant.

Went to get Starbucks near the Del Monte Cannery for hot chocolate, then I bid goodbye to Megan and family till New York. I walking around the cannery a bit I decided to get back on the cable car to Union Square. Halfway up Hyde street we had to stop because there was a traffic accident up ahead. Unable to get off or go anywhere we just waited. I guess that's the problem with cable cars, it has to share the same road as normal cars, so if anything gets on the rail it stops. On the cable car I had to stand next to drunk Chinese-Russian gangster and his Russian beauty queen girlfriend. Humanity is the same all around the world.

Ended up having a very unpleasant Burger King dinner at Union Square before heading back on the BART. San Fran is awesome, burger king is however not.

ARRRGh

I'm behind on updates (what a surprise, 3 days to be exact)

I actually have everything written down in point form on my laptop but I just haven't had the time or energy to put anything up. I'm thinking about taking my laptop to vegas so I can finish an entire block for san fran in my downtime between concerts. But lord knows I'll find something else to do.

Like go bowling.

supposedly my hotel has a 70 lane alley...like wtf?

but it's okay, i'm still alive, except insidious cough is back again and my spleen will soon be over the hills of San Francisco

DAY 14 - LA to San Jose to Fremont - 14th Dec

• got up very early - 4:30am
• left very late, almost 6am
• got to the airport at 6:30am
• tried the self service check-in, screen said Megan's dad couldn't check in
• lined up at manual check-in
• made it through with about 5 min to spare.

US airport security is insane, shoes, belt, everything off. If you have water in your bag, you can't touch your bag, you have to let someone with blue gloves ask you if you have anything sharp in your bag first and then take it out for you. If you take your passport pack etc off and put it through the x-ray then forget to take your boarding pass out, you will have some security guard on your ass check it for you. I was smart enough to not take water but alas I wasn't smart enough to take off my belt.

This is a 45min domestic flight from LA to San Jose. Seriously.

Aunt was late due to issues with fedex and work. So I went to megan's relatives house, we had lunch then played basketball in the backyard with an unfenced pool and spa. I nearly stepped into the pool a couple of times and managed to break a pot. But man did I miss basketball. I'm in the land of basketball and that's the first time I've played since I got here.

Aunt picked me up and had a tour of Fremont. Went to Costco again and was made to try all the taste testing thingies. I felt pretty sick. Got to Aunts house and had a pretty laid back evening. It was awesome that they have a piano. Now all I need is a printer and I can break out some Jacky Cheung sheet music, yah!.

Anyhoo, I was stuck with 9 year old cousin since Aunt went out to work at night. He "accidently" dialed 911, and then hung up. 911 then dialed back and my very confused and scared cousin handed me the phone. I went,

Me: hello?
911: Is there an emergency in that household?
Me: um wtf, no
911: Well someone must have dialed 911 from your household, because that's how I got the address.
Me: WHAT?
911: Was the child playing with the phone?
Me: OMFG, I'm so sorry.
911: Please tell the child not to play with the phone because we will send a unit out.
Me: I'm really sorry, I'll tell him off now, there's no emergency, I'm so sorry.

Then I asked my cousin to please not scare the living daylights out of me ever again.

Fun times

San Francisco

THINGS TO DO

• alcatraz
• golden gate bridge (walk across it, catch the ferry back from Saulsalito
• Lombard Street
• Fisherman's Wharf
• Pier 39
• Street Cars up powell st
• Exploratorium - walk to WAVE ORGAN
• Legion of Honor - lincoln Park
• SFMOMA
• Presidio Park
• Ocean Beach - The pacific from the other side
• Twin Peaks
• Chinatown + Tin How Temple?
• Union Square Shopping (window)
• Golden Gate Park?

FOOD

• In & out burger, Fisherman's wharf
• Swan Oyster Depot - 1517 Polk St.

TRANSPORT

• Buy a CITYPASS for $54.00 or a 3day/7day MUNI pass, $18/$24
• BART is $5 from Fremont to SF
• Muni is $1.50 for a 4 hour ride or something