We started the day with a visit to some very inspiring inspiring exhibitions housed at the SFMOMA and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Galleries don’t open until 11am-midday in the city so we edited and wrote in a local cafe before getting the bus to the SOMA district where most of the galleries are based. SFMOMA played host to a fantastic photography exhibition called Face Of Our Time featuring 5 photographers’ work surrounding their interest in making pictures about the current condition of our world. One series that stood out for us was And Misrach’s depiction of the graffiti left behind in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

They were also hosting a private viewing of Richard Serra retrospective, closed doors for that one. But another project that definitely drew us in was The Lunch Break Times by Sharon Lockhart, it gave us quite a few ideas for our hopeful exhibition when we return to the UK. We moved on from the SFMOMA and crossed the street to the Contemporary Jewish Museum where an exhibition about the life of Houdini was taking place. This was a really cool exhibition offering us both an insight into a person we knew very little about other than the magic!

So we’d had our morning of art and then it was time to meet the boys and get ready for our Alcatraz tour. We’d booked onto an evening, sunset tour so as the boat set off and we listened to the tour guide describing the evening’s events we also got to enjoy the sun setting over Golden Gate and the Bay area. The tour was presented as an audio tour with a few rangers and guides around to help and answer any questions. There were extra activities and talks taking place throughout the evening making it different from the day tours and the hospital was open too. We learned about the prisoners, those that were famous, those that were deadly dangerous – Robert Birdman being one! And we had a really good experience of the prison as it was. By night everything seemed a little eerie and the evening ended with a description and presentation of the cell doors being slammed. The evening ended back in North Beach at an old favourite Italian bar.

The next day we had quite an easy one starting at our friend the laundrette before heading into Mission and Castro to explore the streets some more. We found a few vintage shops and independent clothing stores and waited for the boys to make an appearance (Dave’s friends that is!) and not the naked men on the streets we bumped into later on! Yes in Castro it’s legal to walk around naked in public as long as they have a flannel to sit on the bus with! So when we strolled around Castro Helen felt like she was out with her gay friends – only girl…4 men! ha ha! We had a few drinks and later on enjoyed a really good Thai meal back on Mission street.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We started our day with a trip to the Golden Gate Park by taking a bus to the part of the park that houses the Botanical Gardens. The gardens are a bit of paradise away from the busy streets of the city. We enjoyed exploring the succulent plants, flowers and plants from the Andes and the Ancient garden, although at different times of year other parts of the gardens will flourish more.

We communicated with Dave’s friends and planned to meet them in Cows Hollow as we knew there were some good places around there to eat. We took bus number 42 all the way there after a long walk from one end of the park and eventually arrived with them just after 1pm.

A little tip for those using public transport… the boys bought a travel pass for $21 each which permitted them to travel on all public transport methods for 3 days including the cable cars! Another little tip is if you’re not really planning on using the cable cars (which are $6 one way) then a bus pass is also valid on the Muni underground rail, and the street cars. One bus ticked costs $2 and lasts for 4 hours! Good stuff!

Anyway we met the boys at a nice bar called The Brixton and it was really good to see them. This is the first time we’ve had people come and join us for our trip so it’s just been great having the company and seeing such lovely familiar faces! (he he) We enjoyed a good catch up, drinks and food before making our way back up to Lombard street to the zig zag street. We were doing the touristy things again but it didn’t matter. We followed this with a trip to Coit Tower, although we decided to stay at the bottom and chill out whilst the boys enjoyed a little trip up to the top to take in the views. We took the cable car down to Powell Street as we hadn’t been on one yet, and we checked out their hotel before heading back to Mission to enjoy a lovely fish and seafood dinner with our hosts Heather and Jamie at The Anchor on Castro Street. This was our first introduction to the Gay district of San Fran.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

Up early to mist and rain we both headed out for an early morning run whilst leaving Barbara in her bunk bed. Today we head back to the centre of San Francisco, but before we did we headed out to Berkley to try and get some sunshine away from the coast. We didn’t find any and it continued to pour down. None the less we headed for a coffee shop for a hot drink and found some great newspaper / what’s on guides. Café Intermezzo was very busy and people were flocking inside to order soups, massive sandwiches and gigantic salads. We couldn’t resist and all ordered our very own sarnies.

We dropped off our beloved Hyundai Sonata at the returns parking depot a few streets away and checked into Parc 55 hotel, which Barbara kindly paid for. Overall we drove 3325 miles in 30 days. We attempted to eat our sandwiches, got half way through and then went for a walk around the city, our first proper look. As it was continuing to rain we headed to China Town and decided to treat ourselves to a foot massage which was a nice relaxing way to avoid the showers. The Cheesecake Factory above Macy’s in Union Square was recommended to us by Barbara and we decided to give it a go. The food was surprisingly good considering the vast menu and slightly Planet Hollywood / Universal Studios feel to the place. The cheesecake desert was very good but we were too stuffed and all shared one, struggling to even eat that!!

We enjoyed our night in the 4 star hotel very much but instead of going for the overpriced breakfast hotel menu we opted for Puccini & Pinetti over the street from Parc 55. It was after 10am when we set off for the Golden Gate bridge opting to take the bus there, we took two buses intact and as we were en-route the sun came out, but when we arrived at the bottom of the bridge it was foggy! There’s always some fogginess going on in San Fran! This was our first time walking on the bridge and we decided to walk from one end to the other with several stops along the way, walking in and out of fog as we did so. It was very atmospheric seeing the giant cables coming out of the fog and we couldn’t see the waves below, only hear them along with the massive amount of traffic driving by. It was pretty surreal and a great experience. It took us around an hour and 45 to walk the bridge but we were much slower crossing it the first time. At the headlands end the path is currently closed but on the other side cyclists could make it all the way across.

We walked back towards Fort Mason getting more views across to Alcatraz and the headlands,  and eventually we ended up taking a bus from the top of Fishermans Wharf. When we got to the hotel Barbara picked up her suitcases and as we were hugging and saying our goodbyes an airport shuttle bus came along so she hopped on and we waved and waved until they turned around the corner. Thanks to Barbara for joining in our adventure!

So now it was back to the two of us, but not for too long as Dave’s friends were flying out that same day! Although we weren’t planning to meet them until Wednesday so we collected the mass of our bags – 2 rucksacks, 2 small rucksacks, camera bag, camping gear in new wall mart $15 bag, a water container and a cool box!!! Jeez!! What has happened here? We packed ourselves into a cab and made our way to our next home, a basement studio underneath the home of fellow travellers Heather and Jamie. Heather found our blog when she was researching for their trip to South-East Asia and sent us a lovely email about how  helpful it was! Yay! So when she knew we were coming to her home town she offered for us to stay in their basement studio at no cost to us! Wow! An amazing help in hand towards our travels and we couldn’t say no!

So our next home was located in the Mission District in between Mission and Castro. We could tell straight away that this neighbourhood had personality and it seemed to suit us! We spent our first night in the area roaming around Mission, found a great Vegetarian Japanese place to eat at on Mission Street called Chaya and followed this on with drinks in a nearby cafe. On our way home we stopped off at Bi-rite, an organic supermarket heading back towards Delores Park on 18th street. We couldn’t stretch the budget to afford their lovely wines, cheeses and deli goods but we did find a few things for us. They also own the famous ice-cream parlour over the road which has queues going on for streets! Crazy but it must be good!!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)