San Fran Day 6 - Obama, Boat Cruise, and Ghirardelli Square

  

For our last full day in San Francisco, we decided to go on a boat cruise. We had a 2 hour "Bridge 2 Bridge" boat cruise with the Red & White Fleet where we sailed from Pier 43 1/2, under the Golden Gate Bridge, around Alcatraz, past Treasure Island, under the Bay Bridge, and then back to the pier. While in line for the cruise, we saw Obama flying over the bay in Marine One! 

San Fran Day 5 - Bread Animals, Alcatraz, and Meeting a Felon

 After breakfast at the hotel, we went to the Boudin Bakery to pick up our lunch that we planned to eat on Alcatraz Island! The Bakery is known for it's incredible sourdough bread, many that they shape into cool designs, and many a time, animals! There was a six-foot long alligator made entirely out of sourdough!  

San Fran Day 4 - Palace of Fine Arts, Crissy Field, and Ricki's New Car

The Palace of Fine Arts!

This day was one of my favourite days of the entire trip. We started the day off by heading to the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco. It was absolutely breathtaking. The buildings look like they were transported from Greece or Rome. The attention to detail is amazing and the enormous size of the structures makes it that much more overwhelming. We walked around and took some incredible photographs, before sitting by the pond and watching the herons catch fish! 

San Fran Day 3 - Lombard St., Macarons, and The Best French Food Ever!

In front of the famous switchbacks and then the view from the top!

Riding the streetcar!

After our disastrous lunch, we decided to go to Union Square, and our spirits were lifted once we rode our first streetcar! We checked out the square and then decided to head over for Ricki's first H&M experience! We picked up some cute clothes, and then decided to get some much needed food! In H&M we both picked up some more summer appropriate outfits, because even though we had been told that San Francisco was going to be rainy and cold in February, it was in the 70's the whole time! So we were severely overheated in our bulky Canada-proof outfits.

San Fran Day 2 (Part 2) - Chinatown

The Main Entrance into Chinatown

After our awesome lunch we decided to head towards Chinatown. We had a direct bus from our hotel that only took 10 minutes. Bussing there was a cultural experience in itself because in all of 10 minutes we passed through/picked up passengers from the Fishing Wharf, Russian Hill, Little Italy, and then finally Chinatown. Seeing Chinatown was like entering another world. Every sign was in Mandarin or Cantonese, and there were people EVERYWHERE. It was so interesting to see that as well as being a tourist area, it also seemed to be a place the locals actually did their shopping and other errands. There were endless gift shops, laundromats, hair salons, restaurants, grocery shops, markets, and home decor shops.

San Fran Day 2 (Part 1) - Fisherman's Wharf & Pier 39

So it's our first official day in San Francisco! After our incredibly rough night we had our complimentary breakfast from the hotel, and then we went down to the Fisherman's Wharf. We sat by the water, took in the view, and then decided to grab some lunch in the area. We ended up going to The Codmother, where I had the fish, shrimp, and chips! It was amazing. It was all deep-fried in front of us and was incredibly quick service.