So you may have been wondering why I've been so quiet on the blogging front lately, and why my posts have been quite 'impersonal'. Well. I've been on the annual family holiday. This year we decided to go back to America, and this time tour the west coast. In two and a half weeks we did; San Fran, Pismo Beach, LA, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Zion, and Vegas. So look out for the blog posts over the next couple of weeks! Naturally we did it the luxury way and drove everywhere in a Chrysler 300c, and stayed in some very lovely hotels. I'm not sure my family and I would cope in a camper-van/RV...we'd probably have disowned each other by the end of it.

So without further ado....

We were there for two full days and three nights, and stayed at Fisherman's Wharf, which is firstly very touristy, and secondly full of homeless people and tramps scrounging the bins for plastic bottles, but despite the flaws of Fisherman's Wharf, we did have a fantastic view of Alcatraz! 

On day one we did the famous San Fran trams, and went all over the city and up and down the hills on them. They were great fun, and the city itself had a very relaxed vibe. 

Obviously we had to go to the Ghiradelli chocolate shop while we were there...

We went to a beach by the art museum, and saw the Golden Gate Bridge, but forget the bridge, it was so lovely just to be on a sandy beach again and sink my toes in! 

In the evening we visited Lombard Street, the famous winding road. It was a beautiful road, full of pretty houses with beautiful flowers and plants hugging the road.

Day two we did Alcatraz, which was...disappointing :/ I always imagined it as this eerie and ever so creepy place that would make your skin crawl and heart pound...a bit like the island from the film 'Shutter Island', but for me it did nothing. In fact, the prisoners seemed to have it pretty good there; there were no execution facilities, they were allowed radios, knitting, and loads of other home comforts, and there were only around 200 inmates in there at a time. They also had a pretty good time with food! (See below photo of their breakfast menu). Personally, I found Fremantle Prison in Western Australia far more scary and spine tingling, but there we go. 

I actually took this as we were pulling away from the Island, but I thought I'd put it first so y'all could see it.

It was a liiiiiitle windy outside!

Day two was also 4th July (independence day), so we went down to Pier 39 in the evening to have dinner and see what all the fuss was about...

After wandering around and doing some people-watching, we realized that our hands were going blue from the cold (it was FREEZING in San Fran!), so we headed back to our hotel and watched the fireworks from our window...

All in all San Francisco was cold, and two days just wasn't enough time to do things, especially as one day was taken up with visiting Alcatraz. I feel as though we saw the tourist stuff, but didn't really get to see the city from a local's perspective and therefore I found it slightly...dare I say it, boring? It's a beautiful city, very livable, but it wasn't that exciting. 

The one thing I really wish we had done was walk over the Golden Gate Bridge, but sadly we just didn't have the time. It was a fantastic experience though, and I loved the trams and the shops in the city, I just wish we could have explored it more. I really want to come back some time and really spend time seeing the city properly, as from what I've heard it isn't a boring city, I think just what we did was slightly underwhelming and I was expecting so much more. *sigh* I don't know. I need to come back.

PS; sorry for it being a bit of  a downer post...I promise the next few will be awesome, as I loved the following places, hehe!