We made it!

Hello everyone! Sorry to keep you waiting, but this is really the first chance I've had to update since we got here. Jeremy and Sean are out buying Russian pastries for breakfast, and
Amanda is doing the dishes, so I'm using her laptop to give everyone the lowdown on our travels.

Well, the bus trip to NYC went well, and I am REALLY glad we left as much time as we did to get to the airport. Our bus left at 8:40am (after getting some omelets at Chris's Diner), we arrived in NYC around 12:30, went for a walk and got Indian food for lunch, then took a shuttle to the airport which actually took a really long time! But we made it to the airport and through security by 6pm. We hung around for a while in the airport. Jeremy called JetBlue while we were there, and they are going to reimburse our plane fare from Syracuse! That will pay for the bus trip. Yay.

Our plane was a little late taking off, and a little late arriving, but after a pleasant flight, we got to San Francisco at 1:30am SF time, 4:30am Eastern. We took a cab back to Sean's (our ride fell through), but we made it, and by the time we got settled, we had been traveling for 24 hours!

But it is *wonderful* to see Sean and Amanda, two of our friends from Binghamton. They have a nice little apartment with another girl named Lara which is near Golden Gate Park and Lincoln Park. First thing we did yesterday was walk to Point Lobos and check out the view. Amazing!!

Yesterday was a great first day in the city. Sean was a fantastic tour guide! We took a bus down Geary Blvd to Union Square, where we started walking around. We walked through the Tenderloin, and passed some colorful, shady characters on the way. Then we walked through Chinatown, with its bustling noisy markets and trinket shops, to Little Italy, where we went to the City Lights Bookstore and the original Cafe Trieste, both "beat" hangouts back in the day. We spent a couple of hours sitting at an outdoor cafe, having drinks and pizza, visiting with a friend of Sean's who was working there, before heading down to Fisherman's Wharf. We shared some crab & shrimp cocktail, saw some huge sea lions sunning on the docks, and avoided the tourists as much as possible! We got a little startled by that guy who hides behind a bush and jumps out at tourists... quite funny. Then we walked over to the old Giardhelli factory, now a chocolate and ice cream shop, and got a huge espresso fudge sundae to share. Then, around sunset, we took the Hyde cable car ride up Russian Hill, and got a fantastic view of the bay. The cable car took us back to Union Square, where we took the bus back to the apartment. It got pretty cool after the sun went down, and we were not dressed appropriately for the brisk breezes.

Jeremy and I went for a run through Golden Gate Park this morning, which was beautiful, and we're about to have breakfast. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing today, but we'd like to see the GG Bridge a little more clearly, check out this truffle shop Sean was telling us about, figure out when to do the Alcatraz tour, and see the Haight, the Castro, and the Mission districts. One of these nights we'll probably head down to the beach, where there are fire circles where people tend to congregate in the evenings. We shall see!

Well, I should get going now, and eat some breakfast before we head out. Thanks for the messages! We'll post more soon.