San Fran Day Three!

Helloooooo!

Er. Ma. Gerd. Sew tired.
This post is probably gonna be so down buzz and depressing.
Or maybe not, I just got a Chai Latte from Starbucks so that's perked me up a bit!

Current situation of la famille:
Dad's playing on his iPhone (thinks he's the man now he's joined the iClub); Kate's also on her iPhone catching up on all her goss; Mum's in the bathroom on the phone; Jack just had some Dorritos and doughnuts and I'm just sittin' here. Typing. And havin' a great time.

We've got the TV on for the first time, we're watching Hop.
Oh yeah, it's Easter today! And even more importantly, it's 4/20! And Hunky Jesus day!

There's so little in the way of Easter celebrations and Easter eggs here, I actually forgot that it was Easter.
Maybe it's just because the good people of San Francisco are more focussed on the true meaning of Easter, and aren't caught up in the commercial side of it all. Yup, that's it.

Sooo, this morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the Daily Grill again. I got peanut butter and banana on toast. Such a wonderful combination. Really makes you appreciate life and all the good in the world.

AND OMG I forgot to mention yesterday that I got a jar of Peanut Butter & Co.'s White Chocolate peanut butter. Man, can't believe I didn't mention that.

Anyway, after le brekkie, the Wilsons headed down to catch the bus with Luca again. He totally remembered us. 
We went through China Town: 

and Little Italy:

 There was a cool looking church with cool looking pointy bits:

And a really tall building:

I really liked the look of this cute little french café:

There are actually so many French people around. You just hear them bubbling away in their beautiful, douce frenchness. And it's so cool (and maybe kinda creepy) 'cause I can understand them when I listen into their conversations.. 

We disembarked the bus at Fisherman's Wharf and it was so hot!

We were all dressed in our warm woolly gears because yesterday had been quite chilly.

So we stripped off several layers and wandered along the piers until we got to Alcatraz Cruises.

Alcatraz in the background of Fisherman's Wharf:

Got a selfie with Elmo! But he was kinda weird and creepy.. Tried to tell me about the Israelis who stop him from collecting money. That's NOT the point, Elmo! 

Flags on Pier 39:

We got onto the boat and set sail for Alcatraz Island, where all your dreams come true.

On the way to the island:

Alcatraz Selfie ft. Kate:

A view of the city from out on the boat:

Next boat selfie, Mum and Dad style:

 That's the Golden Gate Bridge:

We all got given head sets when we climbed up to the cells. The whole thing was an audio tour which was quite cool but I think we all got a bit sick of it towards the end and just went freestyle on a rogue self-tour. #yolo

And now I'll just post lots of photos from inside Alcatraz:

A lovely looking cell, similar to the one Clint Eastwood broke out of:

Checking out the party hall. Bet they had some great times there. Such a festive and lively place.

Selfiiiieeee:

Wilson kids looking guilty:
We naaaughty.

That's me doing my time in the cell:

And Jack with his creepy criminal glare behind bars:

The gals:

Back at Fisherman's Wharf, we went to Hard Rock Cafe for an early dinner.

They had really yummy food and drinks but it wasn't really Mum's cup of tea. The music was too loud for her. 

But they did play Gin Wigmore and Kimbra, which appealed to our kiwi roots.  

Everyone enjoyed the Hard Rock shop though and we bought multiple t-shirts.

Theeeen we wandered along the pier and stopped into lots of shops.

Kate got a cool Levi's jacket.

Hopped on the bus and returned to our hotel for relaxation and reflection of our day.

Made a quick trip down to Walgreen's for some glazed doughnuts and made a Starbucks stop off on the way back.

Getting ready to go to sleep now, trying to make it an early one tonight! It's about 10.30pm now and we're gonna try and have an early start tomorrow as it'll be our last full day in San Francisco!

I'll update you on tomorrow's happenings.. tomorrow!

Byeeee

Madeleine

:)

San Francisco: Day Two

Hellooooo.

I think I have quite a lot to write and lots of pics to share, so prepare your self!

We all woke up at around 9am after a disastrous night full of thunder from mum's mouth.
She snored a bit, but we all got a pretty decent sleep I think.

I got up and worked out my muscles in the hotel's gym thing.
Then we all went down to brekkie at The Daily Grill ( the hotel's restaurant).
Review: 4 stars for ambience, 3 stars for food (5 star granola for me) and 5 stars for tea.

Kate's waffles and Jack's pancakes:

My granola:

Mum and Dad both had english muffins.

After having gained some sustenance from our breakfast foods, we were well prepared for the busy day of spending money that awaited us.

Oh, and mum was in love with the pay phones, she even talked to her "friends" on one of them:

We headed out to Union Square to find a hop-on hop-off bus that suited our needs.
However, this quickly proved itself to be quite the task.
Four people from four different bus companies swarmed around us and started yelling at us how great their bus was.

A sample of them:

The bus was really cool, we got to sit up the top with a primo extremo view.
Our tour guide, Luca was a pretty funny guy, and could speak approx. 63 languages.
I feel he was a very adequate tour man.

A few shots from the tour:

The town hall:
Harvey Milk was shot here, if you're interested.
He was only like, a super major influence in the gay rights movement, but whatever.

 Some sexy sycamore trees:

We got off at the California Academy of Science and explored its wonders.

A dinosaur at the entrance:

Mum and I took a selfie with the pretty macaws but then were told off because there was a "no photography" sign right next them. 

In the rainforest there were millions of butterflies and birds and there were maaassive as fish in the water at the bottom:

An anaconda that was totally attracted to us 'cause we were speaking parseltongue:

Just some rainforest:

Spiders crawled freely among the the people:

Lol, kidding. They were behind glass.

Me next to a spider and not even scared:

Selfies with some big ass fish:

 Mum and I living the American dream in the gift shop:

Didn't get to visit the planetarium, or the earthquake zone, which looked like it may have had an earthquake house.. but I bet it didn't have commentators who thought the floor was like jully and whose frudges walked towards them.

We could've spent ages longer there but it was time for the bus!

Next up was Haight-Ashbury, the hippy zone.

There were heaps of stores like the psychedelic Earth Song shop:

Everywhere we went smelt like weed.
Tomorrow's 4/20 when all the weedlovers flock to San Fran for the ultimate marijuana fest.
There's also the Hunky Jesus competition on.
It should be a great day.

But on Haight-Ashbury, it's always 4.20 because it's always time for weed:

Lunch was at a pizza place on Haight where the slices were bigger than your face.
Very very delicious. Mum said it was the nicest pizza she's ever had.

Mum and Kate enjoying their slices:

Dad and I went to a café for a coffee and it perfectly exemplified the ultimate hipster image.
There were barrels instead of tables because tables are too mainstream.
And everyone had groomed moustaches, MacBooks and wayfarer glasses.
But it was really yummy coffee, Dad and I both agreed.

Outside le hipster café:

A corner store where we got cool t-shirts:

Colourful houses of Haight-Ashbury:

We did a bit more shopping there at Dr Marten's (I bought some boots, Kate bought some shoe laces), American Apparel, and various others and then hopped on the bus again, back to our hotel.

Then we went BACK out to do MORE shopping.

Mum and I firstly went to Walgreens where we ate the most delicious glazed doughnuts and stocked up on a few essentials, Quicksilver, H&M and Victoria's Secret (I got some undies).
Mum and Dad both seem to think that Victoria has multiple secrets because they call it "Victoria's Secrets". I told them they're wrong but they still keep saying it.

A golden man on the street:

Went to Adidas (Kate and Jack got some stuff), Westfield for dinner (it was huge, six floors!), Urban Outfitters (Kate and Jack got stuff, Dad got his much-loved Levi's 511's), MAC Playland (omg, so much selection. I got a nail polish).
We went to more places but I'm overloaded with shops, I simply cannot remember them all.
We're all back at the hotel, everyone's sleeping.
Snoring update: all clear for now. 

That's about it!

Stay tuned for more action-packed adventures of the Wilson family.

Madeleine out.

xoxo

Arriving in San Francisco (Day One)

Helloooooo!

Here’s our Family Selfie #1 from right before we got on the plane to San Francisco:

Right now, we’re all in the hotel in San Francisco, everyone’s in bed and very very tired. Nobody got a very good sleep on the plane, I don’t think. Especially mum who had this annoying as guy in front of her who slammed his feet back so far. So inconsiderate. 

Plus there was so much to watch on the plane!

There was like, everything. All the Oscar movies, classic movies, Frozen, Tom and Jerry movies, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, all sorts. I listened to the Bruno Mars album to help me find my inner peace.

You could also watch where the plane was in the world, so we could see when we were passing Samoa and Hawaii.

Me and Mum being happy on the plane (obvs before stupid annoying man was being annoying):

The food was pretty yummy I thought. Next time you go flying, I recommend being one of those "special dietary requirements" people (e.g. vegetarian) because you get your food like, 20 minutes before everyone else!!

I took photos of some of the food, but the pics didn't make them look that great so I'm gonna leave them off here. 

Mum and I also made friends with Lucien Olivier who was this cool french flight attendant. We were totally speaking french and stuff.

Landed safely, but Dad got detained at the San Francisco Airport Immigration place because he was an illegal immigrant temporarily. He just had to apply for another visa so then we weren't criminals any longer.

Family selfie #2 (just arrived at SFO):

We saw cool little house boat things:

Don't know if you can see them that well..

And here is our concierge, José:

  Our Hotel's entrance:

View from the hotel:

View from Macy's:

We went for a wander along the streets, and found a hot dog stand.
Kate and Jack eating their legit American hotdogs:

Found a 7-Eleven and saw a real life slurpee machine!

Defs gonna try that out.

Kate and I also got Ben & Jerry's ice cream which was deeeelicious.

We had dinner at Super Duper Burger, which was super duper and you get unlimited gerkhins! Or pickles I guess.
Bonus.

I also tried a root beer there. It was weird.


Went to the Levi's store and got some jeans:

Omg there's just every single store here. Like, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, YSL, Vera Wang, Armani Exchange, etc.
And lots of cable cars and taxis and beeping cars!
Très americain.

We went to the super cool Apple store where Dad bought an iPhone, Kate got an iPod Original and a Bookbook case for her phone, and Jack got a keyboard for his iPad.
We're such an iFamily.

Ok, might head off to sleep now. Sooo tired.

xoxo

Madeleine