A couple of weeks ago I was skyping with my friend
from high school, Janneke, she told me about the trip she was going to make to
San Francisco, and during the conversation the plan to meet each other there was
born. I booked a roundtrip Vancouver San Francisco, just a good spontaneous
plan. I booked the 6 am flight, what I regretted in the beginning because I needed to get up at 3am…. But well looking back now I’m happy I did
that because it gave us an extra full day.
Monday August 26, my alarm rings in the middle of the
night, oh crap have to get up. The cab picks me up at 3.30am and 20 minutes
later I’m at YVR. The check in got a little nerve wrecking when turned out that
I needed an ESTA, the green form that I got on the US border last time, which
was still valid was only for land border crossing, Americans….
Anyway personal at the airport had clearly dealt with
this one before and within 5 minutes I had my ESTA and was ready to go. No
checked bags so moving on to security, shit a water bottle in my bag, well
decided to drink it all. Next step was the border crossing, I was quite surprised
that this happened still in Vancouver but it would make my arrival a lot
quicker. Damn those north American and especially the US border crossings are
nerve wrecking, serious interrogation shit, what are you going to do, who are
you meeting, where are you staying, how do you know each other etc. After
leaving all my prints and what must be a very charming picture, I was welcomed
in the United states of America at 4.30am. Time for coffee, after that everything
went smooth, plane left on time, slept a bit and landed in San Francisco at
8.20.
It was so nice to see Janneke again after 4 months, we
went to the city and did some, or a lot of shopping. The whole Victoria secret
experience and very touristy the cable car.
We were lucky with the cable car because it wasn’t
that busy at the point where we got on, from that time on we only saw extreme
lines at the cable cars. The first one wouldn’t take us because of the wheelchair,
but like 2 minutes later another one arrived which was empty so we got the best
spots.
For more pictures check the tab pictures and the album
San Francisco.
Tuesday, we went to Alcatraz! Alcatraz was really
impressive. We did the audio tour and walked around the island a bit. The audio
tour was pretty good and gave a lot of background information. I could write a
lot about it but pictures say more, both of us agreed that this was definitely a highlight of our trip.
Wednesday, Golden Gate bridge, like serious tourists
we couldn’t skip out on this guy. Well turns out the Golden Gate bridge was a
lot further from downtown then both of us expected. After trying to find a bus
we decided to cab there. It was sunny
and hot downtown but once we arrived at the bridge we found out that the lonely
planet was speaking the truth about the need for warm clothes. Like the usual
the bridge was covered in fog and it was windy. We crossed the bridge by foot
took a lot of pictures along the way and
tried not to get killed by the bikes. Once we reached the other side it was
sunny again, strange weather…. We walked around the lookout spot, taking more
pics, we were serious tourists. Then we looked for a bus to bring us back, but
there was none, we even asked those hideous hop on hop off busses, those are
seriously expensive. So anyway we walked back, the fog had disappeared now, so
a new view on the bridge. We took the bus to Fisherman’s Warf and figured
we deserved a good lunch after all that walking. After lunch we shopped some
more and called it a day.
Thursday, our last day… Turned out Janneke’s flight
left from a different airport then mine did, we had brunch together before our
ways parted at noon. Weird to say goodbye and fly home to two completely
different spots on the world. But it was so nice to meet up in San Francisco,
see you back in the Netherlands Janneke! I had a great trip with you,
celebrating our 10 year of being friends anniversary ;) ok so we only figured
that out when we were there. I had 2 hours by myself, went looking for sea salt
taffies for one of my friends in Vancouver, the mile and a half stroll to the
store was pretty interesting, it took me by the UN plaza among other things.
Back at union square I bought a pair of jeans, can’t resist those American
prices and they are really good. And hopped on the train to the airport. My
plane was delayed by an hour because of bad weather in Vancouver, oh oh. Yep
Vancouver welcomed me with rain, after sunny California I didn’t had a coat,
luckily I made it home before the thunder storm started.
Janneke thanks for the great trip! And Teddy thanks
for the hospitality of having me stay at your place and showing us some good
restaurants. Also thank your mom for taking us out for dinner on Wednesday, it
was really good.
