California Part I: San Francisco

This past December JK took the long flight and came to visit me in 'Merica. This was also the perfect opportunity to do the famous California road trip.  We started off in San Francisco - which was definitely a highlight for both of us.  On my return to work I kept getting the question "what was your favorite?" and I honestly do not know the answer.  For us every day had a "wow"-moment and when we looked back over a day and it had at least one "wow"-moment, we would mark that day as "SUCCESSFUL!". Note that nothing about his time in the U.S. was planned in advance.  He simply arrived, I gave him half a day to sleep it off and then we went to the Ace Hotel's lounge and planned out our holiday.  Two days in New York, two days in DC, two days in New York, two days in Boston, Christmas in New York, San Fran, seven days to do California and back to New York.  Mostly accommodation for that night will be booked on that day either in the car or bus on our way there, or at the airport whenever a discount coupon was spotted on an advertisement.

More about Johnny.  He is a great travel companion in every way.  It never took too much reasoning between the two of us to make up our minds on where to go next.  What was even better was that he converted food and drinks by using an exchange rate of R3 to the dollar (instead of R10), which made my life as someone who thinks in terms of dollars so much easier!  Note that there was a good amount of reasoning behind the lower exchange rate.

I was nervous on the plane before we got to San Fran, simply because we received this long list of things to do from our friends  who worked there and we only had a day and a half.  And a day and a half was not nearly going to be enough to do everything, so I didn't know where we were going to cut it short! But then JK, my x-professional cyclist boyfriend, found the perfect solution for us.  After 8 hours and 45km on a tandem with a broken back wheel we saw almost everything that we wanted to see and we still had half a day left.  And San Francisco is not flat people, not flat at all.

But I'm not going to lie when I say that I'm very thankful of the fact that we did not know many people in San Francisco, because the sight of JK peddling hard at the front and me sitting at the back with no hands and a gigantic map open for directions would have definitely been a sight to never forget.  But the fact remains that our mission was so successful that we decided that night to one day buy a racing tandem.  Yes people, San Francisco could have been the start of my cycling career.

So, from most of the pictures below you will see exactly what I saw from behind JK's back.  The world famous cable car up Powell Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, Alcatraz from afar, a little bit of the Golden Gate Park, the Painted Ladies, the Fishermans' Wharf and then Lombard "Crooked" Street.  We actually drove down Lombard Street in true Californian style with our rented Toyota Prius.

I love San Francisco.  It reminds me of Cape Town and that makes me just love it even more.

All in all this was a holiday we'll never forget.  For me the time spend with him and the memories made was incredibly special and needed.  It sure left an empty space in my every day life when he left.   I definitely consider myself as one very lucky girl!