Day 2 Arrival in San Francisco

  San Francisco, California, United States
Saturday, May 17, 2008

Angel Island N of San Francisco

We arrived on time at 1400 local, the plane came in from the North and we got a great view of the North of the city and it was weird to see clear skies and a big thread of fog rolling in down the centre of the Bay.

We got off the plane and through to Immigration. Even though there were dozens of desks, it still took 40 minutes from landing to get processed. We have to get fingerprinted and photographed as part of the Visa Waiver Scheme. Double and triple check your visa waiver and Customs forms are completed properly (front and back).

The Immigration guys normally get a bad press for being ultra serious and straight laced. Our Guy (name tag of Anderson) was great, we chatted about where we were going on holiday, he said about where he'd been on holiday, he was winding down to the end of his shift. Unfortunately he wound down too much and ended up scanning Catrionas passport but recording my fingerprints. What this means is next time Catriona comes in, her fingerprints won't match her passport! He says it happens sometimes (!) and shouldn't be a problem. I'll be sure to quote him!

SFO Airport

Anyway, through to the baggage carousel to collect our bags, breezed through Customs without being stopped and we were in America. We had pre-booked Lorrie's mini busses, $14 for the two of us to downtown. We only had to wait 20 minutes and shared a minibus with 2 Club 60-90 couples, and a family from Liverpool here for two nights before going on to Hawaii. We dropped the Oldies off first and a hotel in Mission district.

Shades

The driver said "this isn't a good area to be staying in" which didn't fill them with a lot of confidence. The sidewalks were full of bums, there were sex shops nearby - I'm sure they are having a lovely time locked in their rooms :)

Orchard Hotel

We were dropped off next the Orchard Hotel on Bush street 10 metres off Powell Street and the cable cars, we were booked in for 4 nights and got a room on the street side floor 5. It was a nice big room, huge bed, massive tv and dvd player (free movies available from reception) and free wifi.

First stop was to unpack and have a shower. It was at this point Catriona noticed she had forgotten to pack my shirts - they are still sitting on the hanger in the bedroom beside where the suitcases were - doh!

Orchard Hotel

We then went out for a walk to try and keep awake. San Francisco is 8 hour behind the UK so at 6pm it was 2am body time. First thing was, it was cold! From the time we arrived to when we left the hotel, the fog had come into the city and the temperature had dropped. It was strange to see fog roll in over the tops of buildings, and the wind had picked up. Time to start layering clothes and put a jumper on. We took a wander down to Union Square, it was still very busy. We went to Macy's to see if they had any shirts, but we were in the wrong store as they have a separate store for mens clothes. So, we went along to a bar we had found on the Net called Lefty O'Doul's, it was busy with locals having a drink after their shopping. Not knowing what local beers to try we stuck with Stella and had a seat. The wearies were setting in by then, lots of yawning! There was a woman that we though was a barfly talking to people at the bar but it appeared she was a waitress there - I'm sure she could also get a job scaring little children as well as she certainly scared me!

Powell St

We walked round towards Chinatown, along in a circle and tried to get some food in Scala's Bistro but there was a 2 hour wait. I doubted we could stay awake long enough! So we ended up back where we started a few yards away from the Orchard at Roxanne's. We had garlic bread, foccacia pesto and mushroom ravioli washed down with a glass of wine. The service was very quick even if the server was not the happiest person on the planet. We didn't need to try and figure out how much to tip as the tip was included in the bill ($68).

Then we had to give up and go back to the hotel, we had held out till 9.30 pm (5.30 am in UK) and finally crashed out.