welcome to the united states of America

That was the first thing I heard by leaving the aircraft and entering the airport of San Francisco. Hihi, two weeks ago I was sightseeing in the Middle East (never been there), now I'm sightseeing in the United States (never been there). How cool is that??

The flight went ok, but was extremely busy! We were flying the aircraft type Boeing 747 full pax, and yes, we were completely full pax/passengers.... Karen, my fellow trainee and I, were assigned to our own doors and had our own working area. I was a little surprised as I thought this was still a trainingsflight and I assumed that we would be on top of the crew, as extra, like my previous flight.
But nothing like that. It was great! I had such nice passengers, but one of the thing we were taught is the saying that you receive what you give and I have to admit that I gave my best.

We finally arrived in San Francisco with a delay of about an hour and a half and the day was still young over here (approx 2 pm). So we explored a little. Our hotel is just in the best neighbourhood you could ever imagine (one block away from Union Square), so all the shops and pretty things are around the corner. We walked around a little, went into China Town and ended up eating sushi. At 7 pm I simply couldn't anymore (dutch time 4 am), as I woke up already that morning at 6 am dutch time. For a couple of hours already I was feeling a little out of balance, so before 8 pm I was a sleep. And I slept like a rose.... What a pretty hotelroom and such a good bed! I woke up about 4 am, watched some tv (my favourite show Charmed kept on going!), watched all the little lights outside and took a long and hot bath before going for breakfast.

Today Karen and I went to Alcatraz, the famous prison, situated on a big rocky island 2 km away from the city. Very impressive and something to recommend. You have to go by boat and from there you have the best views. I was making lots and lots of photos from the Golden Gate bridge before we both realized this was not the Golden Gate bridge :-) It just looked like it...
Yesterday, while arriving in town we had seen this bridge already and wondered if they had painted the bridge as it was not red anymore.... What a joke! Of course they would never paint it into another colour as this bridge is world famous because of this red colour. Well, anyway, lets just say that we were already awake for many, many ours and had had a long flight...
After visiting Alcatraz we went to the commercial piers with nice shops and restaurants, but for me mostly interesting because of the sea lions taking sunbaths over there. Of course we took the famous cable car as well and at this moment Karen went for shopping, while I thought to cancel that because of my lack of money.

After 24 hours of San Francisco I can already tell you that I love what I've seen! And hopefully I will return soon as there is so much left that I would like to do, for example taking a bycicle across the Golden Gate bridge or renting a car and exploring the surroundings of this city.
The only exceptions are that first of all I have never seen this much people living on the streets. Every 25 meters there is another person just sleeping on the pavement or begging for money. Second, until now I haven't met that much friendly Americans. In restaurants, shops and the cablecar they were extremely unfriendly, or pretending to be friendly, but not showing it. But perhaps we just had bad luck running into the wrong people. It doens't matter, we are having the time of our lives here and even getting paid for it!
Pictures will follow this Sunday!