We've now been in San Francisco for 2 weeks and we're now starting to feel quite settled. Steve is getting into the swing of things at work, whilst I've been sorting things out for our new apartment that we'll be moving into on 24th Sept.

Steve's old work chum from Kuju, Gina, is in San Francisco on holiday until Friday so we met up with her in a nearby brewery restaurant that she's frequented on her many work-trips to San Francisco. It was called the Thirsty Bear and it's near the Moscone Convention Center which is about a 20 minute walk from our hotel.

On our way down there we passed a busker who was sitting inside 3 large cardboard boxes which he'd made into puppets and he was putting on a funny show to a couple of bemused policemen watching him!

Then as we were walking down another street, there was a load of flattened cardboard boxes littered around on the floor and the gusty wind was making them fly around. I was thinking to myself "It would be quite comical if one of them hit someone" and then BAM! one of the boxes hit me right on the forehead! That is Karma at work right there! So I now have a couple of little cuts on my forehead but no serious damage, except to my conscience for thinking such bad things!

But we made it to the Thirsty Bear without anymore cardboard-related incidents and went to the bar to get drinks whilst we waited for Gina. The barman didn't understand Steve's order for a Coke (to him it was Cola) and a lager (they brew their own beer so he gave Steve a menu to choose from, I picked out a Polar Bear Lager for him as it was the most normal sounding beer they had!).

The place was pretty busy but we managed to get a table for dinner shortly after Gina arrived. She told us about all the cool places she'd been to see around San Francisco (with the aid of her trusty map!) and about Treasure Island which is where she's staying with friends. She showed us some cool photos of the view of SF from Treasure Island so we might go over there one day. Other things she's done that are on our to-do list are: go to Golden Gate Park to see the Japanese tea garden, rent bikes and cycle around (but not do the 20+ miles Gina did!) and see a baseball game and not have a clue what's going on!

Steve and Gina had quite a lot of gossip to catch up on as they haven't seen each other for years. The strange thing is, Gina lives in Richmond which is less than 12 miles away from where Steve lives and yet it took to them both being in San Francisco at the same time for a reunion!

Anyway, I have to quickly mention the food! They mainly served tapas here but I'm always a bit wary of ordering it in places that don't seem authentic as I've been disappointed in the past and you have to order loads to fill you up! So I ordered the lamb burger main course as I'd read good reviews about it on yelp.com (I'm proud to say I'm a food geek!) and Steve ordered the same. The burger was cooked rare and it was topped with tomato jam and feta, with pickled red onions and THE BEST french fries! Gina had the steak which came with a couple of potatoes (which wouldn't have satisfied my carb addiction!) but it looked good too. Then we had Chocolate pudding with Dulce De Leche ice cream, which wasn't as good as Dreyers I'm afraid to say (hmm, maybe I could become an ice cream connaisseur?). Gina VERY KINDLY paid for the whole meal - THANK YOU GINA! And thank you for sharing your San Francisco experiences with us and we hope you have fun during your last 2 days!