My flight was indirect.  I was flying from Dublin to London Heathrow with Aer Fungus and then on to San Francisco with Virgin Atlantic.  My flight from Dublin was at 7:00 am.  I arrived nice and early (5:50am) and damn the queues were long.  I kinda was expecting delays due to the recent attack on the USA but this was rediculous.  Each check in (no security chek yet) was taking a least 5 minutes.  Eventually the called my flight as being ready to close.  Me and a bunch of others had to rush to get checked in at another desk and hope our bags would make the flight.

The on to the security check.... there was no queue there.   All the delays were at the Aer Fungus check in.  All their flight s are usually full and the company is nearly bankrupt.  Having worked their for 4 months I kinda know what they are like.  They sooner they fold up the better.  Someone else can fill that void and do a better job than them *end of rant*.

I got throught the check pretty quick.  My shoulder bag was checked and I barely made it onto my fligh.  I was the last passenger and the plane was late leaving because of me!

I arrived in Heathrow 50 minutes later.  The transfer was quick and I was able to confirm that my bag made it over too.  Whoo!  Now I had to hope tha bag transfer would go OK.  Aer Fungus have lost my bag during transfers in this place so many times that I have lost count.  There I go ranting again.   Sorry.

I got checked a few more times in Heathrow and settled in for my flight over to San Francisco (a ten hour ordeal).  The movies on the flight over were pretty poor.  I ended up wathcing Dr Dolittle 2 (quite poor) and a bad Gangster/Boxing movie starring Michael Caine.  The radio stations were actaully pretty good.  I got up for a walk half way through the flight and had a quick nap.   To be honest, time flew for me *love those bad puns*.

The scenery was beaut.  Below is a photo of the south-east Greenland coast from 37,000 feet.  We flew a nice arc over the north atlantic and down along west Canada (Alberta) and down Washington and Idaho and norht california.   You name the type of scenry and I probably saw it: snow, tundra, grass plains, mountains, open mines, circular farms (!), cliffs, desert, beaches and th Pacific.

Southeast Greenland from 37,000 feet.

We touched down in San Francisco early on the Saturday afternoon.   It was pretty cloudy when we landed but as you can see in the photos belowm it turned into a nice warm sunny afternoon.  I caught a taxi into my Hotel.  I stayed in Foley's Inn at the corner of O'Farrell and Powell.  It's a great location.   It's a five minute walk from the cable car turntable on Market Street and is half way between there and Union Square.  It cost around $100 a night which is pretty cheap for San Fran.  It's an expensive town and has some pretty dangerous spots.

I had a nice surprise as I checked in.  My San Francisco 49ers ticket had been Fed-Ex'ed to the hotel earlier that week by Ticket City.  I was really excited about that!  I'm a huge Niners fan.   I'm actaully listening to their game against the Eagles at this very moment on NFL.com.  KGO do a great job on commentary.  I can almost see the action.

The hotel was OK.  It wasn;t flash but it was clean and had a TV with all the sports channels I could handle.  That was my Sunday morning planned.  I unpacked and decided to go for a stroll.

First thing was to get supplies:  I picked up Binoculars for $80 on O'Farrell St.  I got two baseball caps (SF Giants and 49ers) in Footlocker on Market St.  Then back to O'Farrell where I picked up a Jeff Garcia jersey (49ers Quarterback) and dropped the stuff back in the htoel.  Then, I checked my street map and set off again.  I'll fill in the details later when I remember to bring my stuff down from Dublin so I can scan it.  I headed north on Powell and west on California until I reached the Cathedral.  I headed north again until I reached Coit Tower.   I was just exhausted then.  The heat was bad by then and my body thought it was 1:00 AM.  The hills around Coit Tower are pretty steep too.  Some of the foot paths on the streets are actaully stairs!

I  headed back south and wandered through China Town.   I couldn;t even guess at what some of the stuff being sold on the street was.   After a walk around Union Square I settled down for a pint of American Guinness (Yuk!) at an Irish bar just off of Union Square.  I then got some dinner at McD's.   The American Chicken burger actually has a piece of chicken in it.  Quite unlike the circular pice of reconstituted paper and sawdust pulp that we get in Europe.   I then settled down in bed and tuned into ESPN for all the football news I could handle.

Powell Street from the California cable car line.

The photo came out really badly.  This hill is really steep.   I'd hate to be driving around here with a manual transmission.    Automatic is the only choice here.  This view is from Californis Street.   You can see all the way to Market Street and the Cable Car turntable.  Forget about getting a cabel car from any of the turntables (the terminals) after 8:30AM.   The queues are mental.  In fact, the locals rarely use it during the day because of the huge queues qhich consist mainly of tourists.  Each trip costs $2.   If you are around for a while and you lpan to use publis transport you should go to the tourism office which is about 50 yards to the west of the turntable on Powell and Market.  It's not signed and it's underground.  You can travel advice and maps there.  They are not very friendly and like to rush people in and out (very like McD's).

The finance district and California line from Powell.

If you want to travel on a cable car and don't want to queue then I recommend you come here.  You have the coice of two lines (the Powell St line also splits into two).  You can get on the California line and head East to the finance district and the Emarcadero shopping centre.  I'd give it a miss but you'll find less people on the cars.

Your othere choice in the Powell St line.  You can go either to the Piers (Pier 39, USS Pamponito and Alcatraz) or Ghiradelli Squeare (shooping, art, nice peaceful park, views of Golden Gate).

The Oakland bridge.

Alcatraz from the city.

The western city from the base of Coit Tower.