DAY ONE - San Francisco 15 April 2011

United Airlines provided us with a fairly uneventful flight - even as far as not disturbing us with any food or drink!  That's not entirely true, we did get lunch and I supplemented it with very nice Californian red wine. Neal had been on the wagon for WEEKS leading up to the trip so that he could have his first beer in San Francisco.  We arrived to blazing sunshine and a sniffer dog who took an unusual interest in my bag.  Looking for fruit apparently (which makes a change from drugs and much healthier for the dog).   True to form, Neal insisted on taking public transport and not, like any normal human being who has just endured a ten hour flight, be so wimpy as to take a cab or a shuttle bus to the hotel.  It was an experience but we've now got the hang of ticket machines - you put your money in and then deduct until you're at the right fare so that you get change.  If you don't do the deduct thing, the machines keeps all your money.


The hotel is strangely orange but very roomy!  We're on the 8th floor with a great view of the local night club - pictures attached taken at 4am this morning.  We stashed our bags, had a quick shower and headed off into the sunny afternoon (which was about 11pm UK time).  The old fashioned cable cars are a delight but very scary as they career up and down the steep hills and around corners with the 'gripper' shouting at us all to sit down, get out of the way, pay up etc.  After about 20 exhausting minutes of this, we ended up at Fisherman's Wharf which is er 'colourful' (colourful a bit like Blackpool is colourful) and teeming with ageing hippies, people singing and dancing in the street, people who want to sell you tat and a great air of  general mayhem.

On to Pier 39 for a pizza and egg plant parmesan (what a surprise that Californian aubergines don't taste like cardboard but are actually very delicious). A couple of trolley buses later, we've visited the Ferry Building for a look at the toilets and then back to our hotel via Union Square.  Finally, we go to bed at around 9pm (which is really 5am for us). I think we have a bit of jetlag because we were up at 4am taking photos of the nightclub activities outside the bedroom window.  There's always something going on (or is it  going down in America)!  It's now 5am here and we're wide awake and about to get a shower before we find a local diner for breakfast.  See ya all later... have a nice day now!