San Francisco

I could live here.

Getting packed and moved out was traumatic. Finally crawled into bed at 4am, with the alarm set for 6. Very tired, we drove towards Heathrow. We had to disembark our plane after a school leaver on work experience placement had overfilled the tanks, leading to a waterfall of jet fuel gushing through the wing. Quite spectacular, but also quite unnerving when the pilot says that they just need to mop up the mess before we can head off again. Three hours of thumb twiddling (Su Doku in Sarah's case - a big hand to her former lab mates for the foresight) later, we're back on board and safely off.

Bruno and Jen is there to meet and greet, and we head off to the car hire place. Bruno has already realised that our combined packing is unlikely to fit in a 'compact' car, especially with two boulder pads. We upgrade to a 'mid-size', and just about manage to squeeze in. We drive off towards town and get lost a few times. The hostel is squished in between titty-bars and strip joints, but seem friendly and lively. They've lost our booking, but manage to sort it out. We head off for a Chinese - 'first time here? One chicken, one beef one fish one shrimp' the sturdy lady says and heads off before we can object. Very effective, and very nice too.

The next day (Wed) we wander down to Fisherman's Wharf. S.F is a really nice place, very quiet and nice for pedestrians. We take a boat trip with a former commercial fisherman who's now plying the tourist trade. We cruise under the famous bridge, and around Alcatraz. Some clam chowder later and we're wandering back through down town (new SD card and battery for my camera) and arrive back at the hostel for dinner. Jet lag still has the best of us, and we turn in.

Today we're driving to Yosemite.