Yep, spunked my last 10 dollars into them in the vain hope of a major payout which could lead to a holiday extension. Wheel of fortune and Red White and Blue took my money and laughed in my face! In London, nearly home.
Nope although i am tempted. Thats me been three times and never had a bad experience. Might have to check out how accepting America would be of an engineer and teacher married couple in their early 30s.
Would be easy to become citizen if you can prove you're white Hispanics. ...seriously, the process to citizenship is long and screwed up here. You're better off staying on your side of the pond.
Been back a couple of weeks now, where do I start? First off thanks to Paladin, Confederate Son, Anna plus numerous others for all the advice and ideas along the way. We had a blast, it was a fucking brilliant holiday. I’ll probably update this piecemeal over the course of this week. Start off at the start in the city by the bay! San Francisco – well the first thing that hit me was the cold. I know that northern California isn’t always the warmest, but its hard to get beyond the Californian image of sun kissed beaches and hot weather. It probably didn’t help that Scotland had been basking in temperatures of 25degrees plus for a couple of weeks. Regardless, bought a hoody and got on with it. It wasn’t really any colder than the summers Im used too just not what I was expecting. So got a 2 hour bus tour to let us see the sights and sounds and a quick feel for the city, particularly since we only had 3 nights. Went for dinner up in the Italian area one night – can’t remember what it was called. Good selections of restaurants, lovely evening. The wharf another night and a cheap pizza restaurant in the city centre on the third evening. This pizza joint was cheap and cheerful but was queued out the door and when we got in, you could tell why! Golden Gate Bridge – hardly saw it at all. Always covered in clouds/harr/mist or whatever you want to call it. Still fun to see when the clouds broke, and good to go over it on the way to Nappa. The photos of the golden gate bridge were probably the most overcast day we had. Union Square – the wife loved the shopping all around the city centre area. Also found a really nice wine bar with in addition to the usual array of wines, offered ‘flights’ of wine, cheeses and chocolates. (3 different wines etc to try) So that was right up her street. It also let me build up plenty credit for drinking real beer in San Diego! Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39 - quite overly tourist tacky, but fun for a day and evening. Got my first sample of clam chowder and had it out the bread bowl which was fun. Got to say the clam chowder was really tasty but it wasn’t as good as the one I had in Monterrey. Alcatraz – Superb tour and at $35 really good value for money. The audio tour was well worked, you can have as long on the island as you want, provided you get the last boat home, some great views of the city from the island, and you really do learn a lot. Visitor attractions around the world could learn a great deal from Alcatraz. Glad I booked in advance, when I got there they were advertising that the tours were booked out for another 3 weeks. Nappa wine tour – picked up at the hotel and taken to 4 different wineries. Im a big fan of red wine so was in my element. The wife actually found a few pinot noirs which she liked which is progress on her red wine education and then she was introduced to muscato’s. Really nice lunch somewhere as well. Rode the cable car, great fun made better by the dude who does the tickets and handles the breaks. Had a great laugh with him, these sorts of people are what makes tourism work in cities. Tourism businesses really need to make sure they let their employees keep their personality and not conform to some pre-imagined vision of professionalism. All in, San Francisco is a really cool city. Probably more to see and do than I had time for, but I gave it a good shot. Wouldn’t have any problems spending more time there. Cool city Paladin!
Regarding the temp, San Francisco is a bit of an outlier for Northern California. A "Heat wave" for them is anytime the tempuerature reaches 75. If you went up towards Sacramento, the weather can easily get above 100 in July and August....except for this year, which is the first time I'd been to NorCal in the summer since I left for the Navy and they had a nice lil' cold snap going the whole two weeks I was there. Never in 24 years of growing up there have I ever needed a sweatshirt at night during the summer. ...but yeah. San Fran and the Truckee/Lake Tahoe area are about the only two places in CA that remain pretty cool year round. NorCal doesn't get freezing cold in winter...it averages around 45 to 55. It's SoCal that sees the consistent 80 weather all year, and the moment a few baby sprinkles appear form the sky, everyone's all "THE SKY IZ FALLIN OH NOES " It's pretty funny to watch.
I saw this video and remembered this thread so I thought I'd put this here. It's pupping season for leopard sharks again and check out this video of how many of them there are in La Jolla right now. http://www.today.com/video/today/53677353/#53677353
Aw man, that seems cool. Too bad I'm currently in Louisiana to commission my new ship and we'll be back well after all that. On a related note, I heard it was 85 degrees yesterday, while New Orleans just had the coldest Thanksgiving since forever.
