Early morning, Thursday August 20.
My travel buddy and coworker Jorrit is already waiting at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport where our flight takes off at 9.40a for London.
Poor Jorrit was kinda nervous we might miss our connecting flight with Virgin to the States. We arrived in London Heathrow a bit later than scheduled, but still made it on time for our first destination in the USA: San Francisco, California.
Our Virgin flight took over 10 loooong hours before we entered the Golden State for the very first time. Actually mine was pretty painful and potentially making me burst out into tears: my suitcase with personal belongings didn’t show up on the belt :(
Fortunately a friendly service employee called the luggage handling department which found and brought my case. Now I definitely longed for cigarettes, especially after a wise-ass border security guy asked if I brought “Wacko Tobacco”.
After my smokes, we took a taxi to our hotel: the Courtyard Fisherman’s Wharf. The quiet cab driver finally loosened up when we asked about football in San Francisco. He thought we’re from Australia, but after we told we’re from Holland, he sucked up by saying Dutch are the best soccer players ;-)
At 3.00p we arrived in our hotel and rested a bit. Jorrit watched Oprah (he tried justifying it’s just to see his survival hero Bear Grylls. Yeah right - LOL) and I went online to ‘publish a work item’ (Jorrit’s turn to diss me now, since what I really wanted is to chat with someone special to me and see if her balut offer still stands :)
Anywaaay, the weather is not too bad here. How’s yours? *wink*
We enjoyed our first meal at Castagnola’s, an awesome seafood restaurant close to the harbor. Very friendly people, great service and delicious food. BTW, make sure you order the clams soup there, best ever!
Around 7pm we got back in our hotel and fell asleep right away from tiring flights. So today, I woke up early and got myself the largest Starbucks coffee. Jorrit’s hungry and we’re about to take away a Subway sandwich and head to the pier. We’ll probably rent bikes to cross the Golden Gate Bridge in a few hours.
So what’s coming up next in San Francisco?
Tomorrow, Saturday Sept. 21, we’re planning to watch the San Francisco 49’ers play American football against the Oakland Raiders. Sunday we wanna take a boat trip with the Alcatraz tour. Monday we’ll check out the hotel room, get souvenirs, pick up our rental car and head to Monterey.
Photos and videos coming up as soon as possible.
BTW: in case MW-friends are reading this post and planning to visit San Francisco some day, make sure to visit the International Spy Shop (right across my hotel). They’re selling the actual Untraceable Cell Phone and serious mafia stuff ;-)