Fisherman’s Wharf
I went fairly early in the morning to Fisherman’s Wharf, not quite realizing the configuration of the area. I would have gotten tickets to Alcatraz first since it seems like it’s pretty popular and you can’t always get a ferry right when you want to. It’s a really nice area though, lots of flowers, great container gardening, and lots of touristy shops to visit. I liked watching the sea lions- their antics were funny to watch. I don’t know what they do all day but make funny noises and sunbathe!

Alcatraz
I am not a big one for paying a lot of money for things on vacation, I prefer to do things on my own and for free since I do try to be conservative with the way I spend money. So I had debated back and forth about this since it was $20 something and I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it enough to justify the money spent. I ended up enjoying it far more than I thought I would. The best part was the audio tour. I usually don’t do the tours because I tend to get bored and have flashbacks of being in lectures but it was a really well done (free!) audio tour. The only sad, sad, sad part was that my camera battery died halfway through and … sob I missed all the beautiful views of San Francisco.

Ghirardelli Square
Luckily, on the way here I found a camera store and despite all this and that about paying for things, bought a camera battery. So I happily was back on my way since I was kind of heartbroken about my camera battery dying. I enjoyed this little area, although I wasn’t really sure it was worth the visit. I like Ghirardelli – and they have these new milk chocolate peanut butter squares that are great but it’s not my favorite chocolate. They had some cute upscale shops here, including a doggie store – so I had a fun time there chatting with the owner. Overall though it wasn’t too exciting.

Cable Cars
I took cable cars mainly the second day when my legs were pretty worked from the not taking the cable car because I didn’t want to pay for it ;) It was a fun ride, and pretty cool to see something that was made so long ago still being used. They have a weird smell to them though. It wasn’t really good for taking pics though, and I really wanted to hang off of it like an idiot toursit – but just swung a little bit here and there. ;) They are pretty lax about collecting fare though, so I managed to ride it pretty inexpensively. :)

Berkley
I didn’t really see too much of Berkley since it was at the end of the day and I was still on east coast time and tired. I did go to Triple Rock Brewery and had a yummy stout there. They also had good french fries there. It reminded me a lot of Harvard Square in Boston. I also had yummy gelato and watched Josh ask everyone he saw if there was a protest we could go see. :P