More west coast, back in California

This past week has gone so fast, didn't realise it has been a week since I last posted on here. On Sunday, Pat and Morgan took us to Virginia City, an old mining town just outside Reno. It is very touristy but good fun full of old fashioned saloons and souvenir shops. Ashling and I got a cheesy old time photo taken in which we had to dress up in Western clothing. We also took a short train ride past all of the old mining shafts. On our final day in Nevada, we had a stroll around a shopping mall before being met by Ashling's uncle Jimmy who drove us to San Francisco. It was about a 4 hour drive and we didn't get to his until gone midnight so got straight into bed. They live a short drive away from the city in a suburb called Walnut Creek.

We spent our first day here in the city, walking around and taking in some of the sights. Jimmy printed out a map and highlighted some of the things to look out for. We took the BART (SF's train system) into the city and walked along the edge of the water. Our first stop was pier 39 where the sealions hang out. A bit further down, we came to Fisherman's Wharf where we found an old fashioned arcade full of old penny machines. We used up all our quarters in there playing on the games and watching the little sideshows. Walking away from the water, we popped into Ghirardelli's chocolate shop for a quick sample, and began walking up hill to find Crookedest Street. It is a road that snakes from one side of the pavement to the other downhill and there was no explanation for it, it looked like it must have been there for fun.


The next day, Jimmy took us out for lunch to meet up with his cousin Sean and Ashling's great aunt Anne. We ate in a small restaurant called The Fat Lady in Oakland, named after the portrait of a huge naked woman they have hanging over the door. They then took us down to a waterside Italian restaurant for a drink with their golfing buddies. It was good fun. That evening, Ashling's cousins Matt and Ryan took us out into Walnut Creek to meet some of their friends. We ended up in a bar with a band who were dressed as nerds playing 80s songs. They were actually pretty good.


On Friday we heading back into San Francisco to visit Alcatraz. It was really great weather so the short crossing over was very smooth. We watched a short film which documented the history of the prison itself and its different uses before walking up the many ramps to reach the main prison house. We took a self guided audio tour which was really great fun. A lot of effort had been put into the soundtrack to make it feel like you were in the prison during its time of operation, so there was constant sound effects of gates slamming shut and men shouting while the guide talked through some of the key events. There are still 3 men unaccounted for who made an escape attempt by digging away at the air vent with a stolen spoon. They managed to escape but it is likely they drowned in the ocean trying to swim to safety. Nobody else ever managed to escape and survive. We had a great afternoon exploring the island before catching the boat back to the main land. Matt and Ryan then took us to a baseball game to see their local team, The Oakland A's play the Baltimore Orioles. They won it 9-1, although we missed 6 runs from the first innings as we were not in the stadium in time. They have continued to win the next 2 games since and are on a good winning streak after not doing so well recently. We must be good luck charms. We went back to Matt's house after the game and met more of his friends.


Yesterday we relaxed in the house and read our books before meeting up with some slightly more distant relatives, Ashling's mum's cousin Anne, and her parents (Ashling's great aunt and uncle) who also live in Walnut Creek. It is very complicated piecing together how they are all related, even Ashling was a bit confused for a while! We went to the park to watch Anne's son in his little leaugue baseball game and then she took us out to a very nice french restaurant for dinner. When we got back to Jimmy's house, we jumped into the hot tub with Ryan and stayed in it for hours. It was very relaxing.


Today we took the train back into the city and hired a bike, we thought it would be fun to cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge on a tandem bicycle. At first, we were a bit wobbly, I was riding up front so had control of everything apart from our balance! Ashling said it was really difficult at first to just trust me up front, when I leaned one way, she naturally wanted to lean the other way to counter it but that just made us wobble. After a few hairy moments weaving between crowds of people, we soon got the hang of it and ventured out into the road until we hit the cycle path. We got the hang of it very quickly and stopping and starting became very smooth manoveurs, it got a bit tougher when we had to climb the steep hills that lead to the bridge itself. It was extremely windy on the bridge but we were able to get a good speed going, lots of people waved at us as we were one of the only tandems out on the road. The views of the city and the bay from the bridge were amazing so we pulled over for a while to take some photos. Once we reached the other side, we turned around and came right back again, Ashling had a go up front but the seat didn't quite go low enough so it wasn't too comfortable. All together we rode just over 10 miles which I think is quite impressive especially considering we were on a tandem bike. We are a bit sore now as there was no suspension on the bike!

We have to pack our bags up again tomorrow as we fly overnight to Orlando for our trip to Disney World.