The day I left my heart in San Francisco

Do yourself a favour, visit San Francisco.
What an amazing city.
We pulled in from the lovely Bakersfield around 3ish and pulled into our Hostel to realise that we were staying at 'The best party hostel in America', The international hostel. Turns out that this place, which houses over 800 guests serves free beer after 9 and has a nightclub with beer pong and poker beneath it. And that's in the slow season!
The first night we decided to get dinner and see what this party was like. The club itself was fairly small but it was a nice and intimate. Also we found out that not only is proper beer pong really fun, but Rhys, George, MJ and Chris are quite good at it winning all three games that night and securing ultimate victory for Australia.
We also met a fine gentleman named Daniel Andersson who is from Sweden, which we have made his nick name. He essentially partied with us every night proving quite the formidable beer pong player as well.
The next day we took the 'Historic F Tram' all the way down to the piers and went shopping on Pier 39. I bought the X-Men beanie you may have seen in a few pictures and we stumbled our way through a rather confusing mirror maze which was a first time experience for me.
After a terrible meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, we strolled down to pier 31 and caught our cruise boat.to the infamous 'Alcatraz' island. I didn't know what to expect on The Rock since I've heard a lot of different reviews about it in my time. A lot of people have said to me that it's just a big old building but seeing it first hand was a log better. After the fairlt taxing hike up to the main cell block we strapped on our headphones and began the audio tour which was primarily narrated by ex-prisoners and guards who served on the rock when it was operational. The tour taught us about living conditions which were scarce but seemed like they were looked after if they behaved, most rooms were single dwelling and had a small seat, toilet and fold down bed. A lot of the cells were allowed to add their own things to them to create a home as a lot of them thought they would die there. The solitary confinement block waz fairly intimidating, the rooms were a little more spacious than the normal ones but they literally had a small drain in the middle and a door. One of the prisoners said: 'I used to pull a button off of my shirt and throw.it up in the air, spin around, bend down and try to find it, then do it again.'. I'm not sure if that would help stave off insanity or help it along. As we walked around we learned about a foiled escape attempt when a prisoner and a group of his cronies used a home made bar seperator to break into the gun gallery (The walkway equivalent you see in modern prisons). They locked the guards all up in some cells but one guard hid the key that would let then outside. This guy was the one dude who was killed before the other guards raised the alarm and made the escapees yodel. I like heroes. That guy was definitely a hero.
The walk down was a little easier and we caught one of the last boats back to the pier at around 5. That night we wandered up toward chinatown and saw the Dragon's Gate (Wu Zi Mu!) and I finally got to have some Japanese food at a cool place called Sushi Rock. This was the first time we experienced San Franciscos hillyness, but it would not be the last...
That night I relaxed while the fellas tried and failed to uphold our title of Beer Pong champions and then got amazingly drunk.
The next day after a hangover killing breakfast for those afflicted we took the long, steep walk up to Coit Tower. Why I thought it wouldn't be too taxing is beyond me. All I know is that by the time I got to the foot of the tower I'd already lost 5-10 kilos and was looking down the barrell of way more stairs. We eventually got to the top of the tower and the view up there was great, offering a 360 view of the beautiful city.
Chris and Rhys gave up after the tower and returned to the hostel to take a nappy-nap while George, MJ and I carrief on toward 'Ghiradelli Square',an allegedly famous chocolate production factory and collection of retaurants, all chocolate-centric of course. We all bought blocks of chocolate to couter-act the exercise we'd just inflicted on ourselves. George got Dark Chocolate + Raspberry, MJ got White Vanilla and I picked up my personal all time favourite; Dark Chocolate Orange. Om nom nom. It was delicious and we also had some hot fudge sundaes before we moved on.
We stumbled along down to the shopping district by accident where we found a bunch of half naked women modelling infront of a nice car while a bunch of photographers took photos of them. George and I are also photographers.
Nearly missing it, we turned back to visit the Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium which was one of things I really wanted to visit and experience. I won't go into detail but some of the exhibits in there are very weird. I believed them, but they were weird. Ripley's also had a mirror maze which had a layered level of difficulty; they gave us weird, psychadellic glasses which made all the lights in the maze flip out and shine in your eyes all crazy. It was a little harder than the other one.
The wharf also yielded a 'Vintage Arcade' which was full of old pre-80s, fully functional arcade machines ranging from fortune tellers to bowling games. As a user of modern machines it was great to learn the history of the industry I love so much.
We eventually caught the F tram back to the hostel.and after a quick detour to a comic shop we went to beer pong party and then went off to bed eventually.
We took a trip up to the Muir Woods the next day in the afternoon and got to spend a little time walking among the gigantic redwoods and looking for 4 leaf clovers in the green sea of them. One thing that really struck me, besides the height of the redwoods, was how different the colours of the flora were from the ones back home. Evergreen takes on a while new meaning when you see the bright colours on some of the trees. Fungi in abundance as well as miles and miles of moss covering almost everything! I wish we coukd have stayed for a little bit longer to soak it all in but alas, we had other things to attend to, like accidently leaving George behind.
George and Chris went to see Chuck Ragan and the revival tour while Rhys and I went to plag beer pong. Sweden and I formed 'Team Ultimate Victory' and made Rhys' team yodel a few times. Not long after we went and danced for a while and played limbo, allowing me to show off my secret skill and win. Now, I know what you're thinking, 'Reece, you couldn't limbo for shit'. If that's you, bring it. Also turns out a 12 pack of Budweiser is a little over 13 dollars over here, it's pretty easy to get drunk in America.

The next day began rather fruitlessly so George and I split off from the group and took the 'Zero Emissions' bus to Golden Gate park which was very nice. We'd managed to get out there on Earth Day so the hippies were out in force dancing and playing haki-sack. There were a bunch of people having an outdoor roller disco as well, which George and I found rather entertaining. The science museum beckoned and we entered about an hour and a half before closing. The planetarium was impressive and we watched a short film called 'Fragile Planet' which was narrated by Sigourney Weaver.
We also had access to an indoor rainforest which let us find out that George was terribly afraid of spiders, especially the Orb Weaver which, if you google it, is quite creepy. Especially at close range.

All in all, San Fransisco was easily the best city I have visited so far.
All my love.
Let me know you're reading and happy travels,
Reece