San Francisco & Oakland, CA

We have just spent the last 4 days in Oakland & San Francisco. We stayed in Oakland which is easily accessible to San Fran by a 7km bridge, or in our case a 7km underground tunnel that the local trains use. It is a pretty crazy bridge, and I think it's equally as impressive as the Golden Gate, especially at night when it shimmers. San Francisco was fun. Michael enjoyed the selection of craft beer and coffee the city had to offer.

We spent the first few days exploring the city of San Francisco. We took a Chinatown guided walking tour, we woke up particularly early to see the sunrise from 'twin peaks' (Mt Cootha equivalent) just to have yet another massive cloud in our midst. San Francisco is a very hilly city. There are about 10 roads that are above a 25% gradient. We hiked up Powell street which is a 27% gradient and then walked down the 'crookedest' St in  San Fran.

Lombard Street

We also headed to Alcatraz which was very interesting. It's situated just over 1 mile from the bay area of San Fran. We learnt a lot on our tour and was able to walk throughout the cell house and see the rows of cells, the isolation cells, the dining hall and we were able to see where the guards and their families lived on Alcatraz too. Here are some facts you may not have known about Alcatraz:

• It was closed due to it's deteriorating buildings and high operating costs .
• Alcatraz was never filled to capacity and the average amount of prisoners were about 260.
• 1,576 inmate numbers were issue, although, no one knows how many inmates came to the island as prisoners who served multiple times at Alcatraz were given new numbers. 
• In the 29 years Alcatraz served as a prison, 36 prisoners tried to escaped, all but five were recaptured or otherwise accounted for.  

Alcatraz cells

And, what would a San Francisco trip be without seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. We headed there in the afternoon and walked most of the way across the bridge. Mid way along there are beautiful views of the city. It would have been amazing to see at night. We then walked from the bridge back to their main tourist wharf which was about 10km.

View of San Francisco

One of the most exciting things about our time in Oakland was going to an Oakland A's major league baseball game. It was so much fun. I don't really know the first thing about baseball, I have never watched a full game and half of the time I don't know what is  going on. After a few innings though I caught on, and had a really good time. Between each innings they have entertainment periods. It may just be a mascot race, but always involve crowd involvement. We even got to sing the famous, 'take me out to the ballgame' song. A lot of the players have their own 'tag' and so when they either pitch or bat the crowd goes crazy with their thing. For example, there is an Aussie in the team and when he comes out to pitch they do this...

and then they do this....I had no idea what this 'dance' was that they were doing but the easiest way to explain it is like a 'gangnam style' dance for the Oakland A's and the whole crowd gets into it.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for our Yosemite & Sonama Wine Valley blog.