San Francisco - la gente esta muy loca!

(before we arrived in san francisco we were at the sequoia national park. fuuull of sequoias, some sort of mammut trees. not much to talk about thought)

yayyy yesterday we finally arrived in san francisco! thanks to our slightly confused navigation lisa we kinda landed in the gangsta ghettos of san franny. but wow! all those different people! oh and so many homeless people :/ so it took us an hour to find a hotel in a more civilized place where we would stay to nights. so now we're at the holiday inn. 
this morning we headed for the city center, deciding on a guided bus tour on one of those huge red buses. a very good idea indeed :D we had a hella fun guide called, i dunno, it sounded like sth with daniel and a lot of "s" in it. anyways, since i was the only one who was actually listening to what this "i'm your....handsome guy today;)" said, i'll tell u some (fun) facts about san francisco:

1. san francisco is known for his earthquakes. in 1906 the first of two major earthquakes took place. it caused several fires that lasted for 3,5 days. it finally stopped cause there was nothing else left to burn. 

2. pier 39 is the most popular and most visited place in california. it has more visitors than disneyland! 

3. after the second earthquake in 1989 the somehow had a sealion invasion. the san franciscans did NOT like that, cause the sealions  made noise and stank. however, they tried to get them away by a.) putting lots of loudspeakers between sleeping sealions and on 1, 2, 3, go! playing crazy loud music and b.) trying to scare them away with high pressure water jets. 
the latter one was only a nice massage for the sealions' soft skin though. so neither of it worked, but san francisco had a fun time! and the sealions are still there :D

4. the world's first volunteer firefighter comes from, guess what, san francisco! her name was lillie hitchcock coit and as a little girl, she was saved from a fire, after which she became obsessed with firefighters. she wanted to be one of them to, so she wrote a letter to every station, asking how she could become a firefighter. they all answered, and they all said the same: "we appreciate ur effort, but unfortunately you're a woman." 
i checked wikipedia and it said that she was also smoking cigars and wearing trousers long before it was socially acceptable. awesome! 

5. 40% of the city is built on land fill. now who's scared of earthquakes? cause your house is gonna sink right into the ground. 

6. what's all the fuss about the golden gate bridge? yeah, it's red and all... B BUT the bay bridge is exactly 6 months older, but no one really cares about that. 

7. the city has about 800'000 inhabitants. on weekends, the number doubles because of all the visitors.

8. the marriott hotel opened one day before the 1989 earthquake. yep. everything kapuut (Y) 

9. the starlight club at the union square was recently rated the no. 1 place to propose to someone. 

10. the fantastic building of the hibernia bank is only used for bank robbery scenes in movies. 

11. also there is a district (i forgot its name), which is very "unchild-friendly", but very "dog-friendly". there are more dogs registrated than kids. we counted three pet hospitals and three doggy day care centers. and there's even a waiting list to that doggy day care thing! and when it's your turn, you have to bring your dog so he could meet the other dogs, in case he wouldnt "blend in with their clientel". OMFG haha! 

12. in the same district our guide showed us some houses which are older than a certain age and therefore must be kept in perfect shape. so if you live in one of those houses you have to paint it aaaaaaaall the time. if you dont, you'll get a ticket from a cop. and you'll get one every single day. that'll add up to some pretty high sum if you take your time. 

we also drove over the golden gate bridge (it's really not that special) to a small town called sausalita. it's known to be the  most expensice place to live in the united states. the cheapest house there has 2 rooms and a bathroom (i didnt hear anything about a kitchen) and it costs only (!!) 2.5 million dollars. this is a little low though, because of the depression. so i guess u wanna know the the prize of the most expensive house too, huh? it's 78 million dollars! wow. and it's on sale, so you can still get it! :D 
there is also a song about sausalita and i'm sure you know it too: sitting on the dock of the bay by ottis redding. oh yeah! oh and janice joplin lived there too. 

after our bus tours we saw greg the bush man. he carries around a couple branches with him, hides behind them and suddenly jumps in front of people to scare them. he actually lives from the money people give him because they're so relieved they're still alive after his attack. he's been doing that bush-scare-people-thing for 28 years now. before that he worked as a chef at a nice restaurant for 17 years. what a career :P 
hmmmm... what else? oh yeah, yesterday was the pride parade, so the city is full of gays. right next to the golden gate bridge there are two tunnels with rainbows on it (a gay pride thing, kinda ironic that it's on tunnels.........). 

okay so i'm reeeeaaally tired and i gotta be ready for all the shopping tomorrow. so i'll say goodnight for you, just like our tour guide used to:
"Now daaaarliiiings, don't talk to strangers, that's my job."
haha! i'm off :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0yy-6qHkD0&feature=youtube_gdata_player