San Francisco

Our crazy neighborhood
Our trip in America started in beautiful San Francisco. Our hostel was located in the middle of the center. The advantage of this location was the good accessibility of everything: shops, public transport and the cinema. The disadvantage of this location was our special neighbours. Our hotel was next to a homeless center. There were a lot of homeless people in the street using drugs, acting abnormal (like undressing themselves), screaming and fighting. The first two days we were scared to walk in the neighborhood especially after sunset when we were about to get dinner. However, we still had a great time in San Francisco, people were very kind and always ready to help when we had a question.

Public transport
In San Fransisco the public transport is very good and affordable. We often took the bus, the underground, the tram and a ‘underground-trambus’. That is a metro that starts driving underground but eventually drives up and becomes a tram. But the funny thing is..it looks like a bus! So that’s how we came up with the name ‘underground-trambus’, if you need a name for your company, you know where to find us.

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Trip to the Zoo
January the 10th we went to the San Francisco Zoo. The zoo has more than 250 different kinds of animals! When we went there we definitely felt like kids again! We had some fun connection with a gorilla in the zoo that kept sticking his tongue out to us. When we imitated him, the gorilla seemed to like it and came closer to continue sticking his tongue out. We laughed a lot that day.

Cycling over the Golden Gate bridge
The next day we started off with a good breakfast at Mo'z Cafe, the burrito breakfast is really recommended! Thereafter we decided to rent a bicycle and cycle over the Golden Gate bridge. We drove to the rental place with a pendel bus. After we received our bikes (and our helmets!) we cycled to the bridge over a mountain which took around 20-30 minutes. We were already tired before we started cycling on the bridge! Sara was lucky to wear a helmet as she almost fell off the bike when she was cycling down a hill. Controlling the brakes was a hard task for her.

The Golden Gate bridge is a very famous bridge and has appeared in a few movies. Movies such as ‘The Maltese Falcon (1941)’, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)’, ‘Interview with the Vampire (1994)’ and the Rock (1998)’. In a lot of the movies the bridge is being destroyed! The Golden Gate bridge also has a lot of suicide features, to make sure that people are not able to jump from the bridge. There are safety nets on some parts of the bridge and there are guards cycling on the bridge. And did you know that the Golden Gate bridge sometimes looks red but it’s actually orange! The colour is called International Orange.

China in San Fransisco
When you are in San Francisco you definitely have to visit the biggest Chinatown outside Asia. More than 100,000 people live there. It really felt like we were in China, a lot of chinese shops, restaurants, snack bars, markets and of course people! 

Bye-bye San Francisco
After 4 great days in San Francisco it was time to leave! Ready for Los Angeles (see video)! We took a Greyhound bus, which we really recommend to take. This bus has wifi and socket to charge your phone. Therefore, the 7 hours bus ride was very comfortable.