Hey everybody, I'm actually at home now but I thought I'd update my site anyway just to complete the journal. These photos have been taken off the sta website and for some reason they don't have any of san fran, so you got some random building in Alabama and and old picture of New York?!?

Anyway, had a surprisingly good time in San Fran. I was only there for 3 nights, but managed to meet some cool people. I was dangerously short of money, but had some travellers cheques left over and made the most of a cheap bottle of rum I picked up in Fiji. I stayed in a great hostel called the green tortoise which happened to be in the seedy part of town, right next to XXX shops and stripjoints - I know what you're thinking and no I didn't. The first night was spent with some Ozzy lads and we headed to a club, but the music was bad and I only really remember the pizza place where I got a huge slice of pizza even though I didn't have enough money (they must have seen the look of pure desire on my face). I crashed out early cos I'd been travelling from an island in fiji for about 24 hours. The second and third nights were much better and I met a couple of sound kiwi girls and some english people (what are the chances?). We spent our time in the hostel as it had good music, free pool and foosball + I had a bottle of overproff rum to get through. Also Spent time with the hostel staff who were all cool and laid back - one of them, a black dude named ashanti, was hillarious - he wore a gangster hat, a necklace made of huge black beads and smoked a pipe!

Of course, I did the tourist thing too - went to Alcatraz, rode on a tram and visited China Town, Little Italy and Golden Gate Park. Alcatraz was just like in the movies which, obviously, I should have expected, but for some reason I was a little disappointed - maybe it's not scary enough. In San Fran, like in most American cities, everything is huge: the buildings, the roads, the "sidewalks", the bridges - it's just ridiculous. As you probably have guessed the food is too - i got a chilli joe's and a johnny rocket's burger, fries and drink and both times I struggled to finish. At johnny rockets they did that cheesey thing where this old song comes on the jukebox and all the staff had to dance in front of the customers - it was so funny.

Peace,

Andy