Yesterday we were told to be downstairs at breakfast by 8:00 sharp, not a second later. I was woken by my roommate at 7:52 in the morning. We made it out the door fully dressed at 7:55 and down a breakfast at 7:56. All in all not a bad effort. We had a quick breakfast of sausages, rice and tater-tots with some yoghurt and coffee to wash it down before heading up and getting ready for the day. I showered and got dressed up for our journey to the centre of the city.

We took the bus to our first stop of the fortnight, the Golden Gate Visitors Centre. After taking the inaugural photo of the trip we dispersed and explored the inside of the centre and the many murals and models detailing the work done to build the 887,000 Tonne 1.7 mile long testament to human engineering. The bridge boasts a 6 lane highway in both directions and is painted constantly to combat the corrosion caused by the sea air.

After exploring the area, and discovering a mysterious tunnel, we re-entered the bus and made our way to Pier 39, our next stop. After a thorough overview of the scams and thievery that took place at all tourist locations, we were released into the wild in small groups, to explore the pier and to get lunch. We started off with lunch at a bakery near the entrance of the pier named Boudin. I got the clam chowder bread bowl, which was delicious, and my friends got an assortment of burgers and pizzas. The food was fantastic and quick to come out. After lunch we made our way through the pier stopping here and there to explore the stores scattered around. Amid the hullabaloo of scams and ‘handcrafted’ items that are at every fair in the world, we came across a diamond in the rough in the form of a ‘Left Hand Store’.

Despite what the name suggests about the validity of the location, the store was full of useful tools that were designed for use by left-handed people as well as many inspirational t-shirts and caps to maintain morale. They unfortunately had no left-handed hammers because according to the owner, he had “misplaced them by the left handed nails”. Afterwards we reached the end of the pier and took some photos overlooking Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.

We walked back along the edge of the pier and passed the seals, beached upon the wooden platforms. We headed away from Pier 39 for a little bit and towards pier 43. Outside was a WW2 submarine, though that wasn’t the most exciting part. Within the building was the ‘world famous’ arcade that contained some games from over 200 years ago. It started off with some more recent games, but the deeper you delved into the arcade the more ancient and unique the games became. It was fascinating to see the development of games over time and how they have evolved. Afterwards we made our way back past a crab statue with which we took some photos mimicking its position.

We headed back to regroup with everyone else and had a quick debrief. We were commended by Damian on how well we had tackled the task and how well behaved we had been in and amongst the other tourists. We left the pier temporarily and made our way up the winding streets of San Francisco. We headed to a nearby Walgreens and got our lunch for tomorrow from the pre prepared section. I got a sandwich while some others got a bag of croissants. We also grabbed a couple snacks to enjoy in our downtime while here. After all was done we slowly made our way back to an Applebee’s on the foreshore, our dinner for the night. Along the way we stopped by a cable car junction and admired the cars from around the world. We had a little bit of time before dinner so we were released once again at pier 39 to take some last photos of San Francisco shrouded in the glow of sunset.

Afterwards was dinner at Applebee’s, an American classic. They had these pads in the middle of the table that were completely useless other than offering a game pass for $5, containing nothing more than bad ripoffs of games. I tried their sizzling chicken steak with a hot honey glazed and it was delicious. It came with waffle fries and some veggies and was fantastic . There had been a consideration for dessert, but everyone was full enough from dinner and we headed home afterwards. The drive back on the bus was an hour long and jetlag caught up with a couple people in the form of sleep, needless to say there was a lot of shaking people awake at the conclusion of the ride. When back in the hotel we quickly grabbed our books and prepared for the day afterwards. Tomorrow features our first company visit at both Microsoft and Adobe and Damian wanted to make sure we were ready. We went over the company bios before heading to bed at around 9:30. Ollie Jake and I stayed up to play a couple rounds of poker before we too turned in.

Goodnight