Week Forty Six Sunday’s Grateful List 

Today I am grateful for Day Six and Seven of our America trip. 

We finally made it to San Francisco . Our day on Friday was supposed to be a 10am flight and a quiet afternoon in San Francisco. Instead we spent 15 hours in the Las Vegas airport. We managed to be on the last plane for the day and made it to our hotel in San Francisco by 1am Saturday morning. I am grateful that we got here safely, that our hotel had not given away our booking and that all our luggage arrived safely too. I am also grateful that I was not tempted by the many many slot machines at the Vegas airport. 


Saturday was an early start with a tour of Alcatraz. It was really interesting learning about the prison and I can highly recommend the audio tour to anyone who goes. It was very informative and very user friendly. ( I always like to do an audio tour especially if I am with the kids because I think it is a really good way of becoming informed about the tourist attraction you are visiting. Sometimes however they are extremely confusing and can take away from what you are seeing – for example the one we did at the Louvre a few years ago). There was only one successful escape from Alcatraz and no one knows if the three who escaped actually lived. 

We had a lovely lunch at a French Bistro called Cafe Claude in the afternoon with Angela, Troy and Eva Hawthorn who we are traveling with in the coming week. We also had a ride in the famous San Francisco cable car and of course finished the afternoon with some shopping. Our day continued into the evening with a beautiful dinner at the Burrit Room and Tavern. 

Sunday has been a great day. We spent the morning doing a driving tour around the town. Our guide’s name was Reid and his company’s name was Small Car, Big Time Tours. We had four hours driving around the city learning about the history, the architecture and the people. It was wonderful. We finished the morning with lunch at Cafe Zoetrope which is owned and often visited by Francis Ford Coppola the famous American film producer who’s movies include all The Godfather movies. After lunch we had a real coffee ( which is very hard to come by in America) in Cafe Trieste. This cafe was the first place to introduce espresso to the people of San Francisco. It was good coffee. We will continue into the evening with dinner at one of the many restaurants here. 

Until tomorrow…..