Exploring San Francisco and the Majestic Redwood Giants

Today we had a free morning in San Francisco. In the afternoon we would go to Muir Woods, a redwood forest near the city.

Of course, every morning should start with a nice breakfast. So the first thing Bram, Ludo, Tom, Sten, William, Ester and me did after leaving the hostel was looking for something to eat that wasn't too expensive. Unfortunately, this turned out to be quite the struggle. All the healthy food in the supermarkets is rather expensive here and there isn't nice bread everywhere like we're used to at home. Eventually I had to survive the day on three huge croissants and a bottle of water.

After finding our food we went for a walk around the city center, where we passed through China Town. We also went to take a look inside the Apple Store. You may know the electricity sockets in the Huygens building that you can pull out of the table. Well, they had them too in the Apple Store, but you had to stroke the table and the sockets would emerge automatically. How useful!

As I already mentioned, in the afternoon we drove to Muir Woods National Monument to admire the extremely large redwood trees. We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and took a quick stop to take some nice photos.

When we finally got to the forest, we weren't disappointed. The giant redwood trees were very impressive and there were lots of nice walking/hiking trails. So we walked around for a bit and again took some nice photos. It was busy in the forest, but there was a path that was a little steep so there weren't that many people walking there. At some point I really had to take a break because I'm not that athletic when it comes to walking steep slopes, but the rest kept going. That was actually a really nice moment, because despite of the many  people visiting the park it felt like I was completely alone there. I couldn't hear or see anyone for a while and it was a big and nice contrast to the busy life in the city.

After that we gathered to drive to San Fransisco again. On the way back we stopped again to take some nice photos, this time on a hill where we had a tremendous view on the Golden Gate Bridge and the city.

In the evening, we started our next quest for food. Again this wasn't easy and we ended up in Carl's Jr., a fast food restaurant. They served a "breakfast burger" there which contained a hamburger, egg, bacon and another mysterious ingredient which I think were chicken nuggets. I wonder how many people would actually eat that for breakfast..

The part of the day that I haven't yet mentioned is that there was a group of diehards who didn't drive to Muir Woods but got there by bike. I am really glad I didn't join them because it was a long ride with a lot of hills. Mad respect for you guys! We will tell you more about the biking trip later.

Janet