Day 5- Golden Gate Bridge

Day 5- San Francisco

Before we left to come to the States, I found this thing called a Hop on, Hop Off bus.
It's a double decker bus that does tours around parts of San Francisco, stopping off at various points.

We had spent half a day on Alcatraz and had almost no time left so we decided to go on a few loops, just watching everything.

It was really cool! We had a tourguide who was knowledgable, friendly, and funny, who told us lots of things about San Fran that we wouldn't have known had we just passed those places ourselves.

The first tour went around Downtown San Fran, and we hopped off to have a look at the sealions on Pier 39 which were meant to be pretty cool. They are super popular with the tourists...but I'm guessing they don't get many Kiwis here! The sea lions were far away on a platform, separated from us on the pier. In Kaikora, sea lions are dotted over the beaches and you can walk right up to them (and it's your own stupid fault if you don't give then space, and agitate them into biting you). So seeing them from that far away was a bit dumb!

Crazy tall buildings!!!

City hall...eat your heart out, beehive!

The next tour we went on was out to the Golden Gate Bridge. All day, it had been amazing weather. We even got sunburnt! But right as we approached the bridge, a fog had rolled in, hiding it from us.

At first we were guttered but as we approached it made it look so amazing...

Driving up and finally on to the bridge was amazing, such a giddy feeling.

"We're on the golden gate bridge!!!"

Unfortunately, it was also ridiculously freezing. Being in the fog, it was very damp, and the wind chill was in the negatives. The bus is open top so there was no hiding from it. I got so cold I though I was gonna spew! As soon was we finally stopped on the other side, everyone raced up to the front of the bus where there was a little bit of shelter from the windscreen and sat there shivering, which made the driver laugh.

We had stopped in this place called Sausalito which is so pretty. It reminds me of Akaroa. When we went around the main corner, it suddenly heated up! It's always warmer in Sausalito and the people there know it- the houses are some of the richest in the state.

Back in San Fran, we left the bus and made our way back to our hotel. We stopped at a pizza place on the way back (it was worth the anxiety attack, to get the yum pizza!) and met up with some Australians who were also staying at the hotel.

We were off to sleep early that night- it had been a much more relaxing day than the others on our trip have been and we were grateful for an early night!