Hi everyone its Mike doing this latest, and probably the greatest blog entry.

We are in San Francisco at the moment and enjoying it very much Bek already says she wants to move here. We flew in on thursday from Hawaii, so no more Aloha, oh well. The flight went ok, bit bumpy, and the fact that the plane stalled just before take off didnt really fill me with confidence about American Airlines but still arived safe which was very relieving, especially for me.

When we arrived we got a 'taxi cab' from the airport with some maniac driver doin' 80 miles an hour, which was 30 miles over the speed limit so it didnt take long to get to the hostel. Its really nice and we had our own room with a fridge,basin and TV so after we got some thai food for dinner just down the road we came back and relaxed, struggled to sleep though with the time difference n had to get up early the next morning, well that was the plan anyway.

Friday when "I" eventually got up, wasnt that late really, only bout 10:30, we went for a walk down one of the main streets to go organise our greyhound bus ticket. We then went to a typical American 'diner' and had a hotdog and fries, which was a big improvement from all those cheeseburgers, well not really i guess but i tried. After another nutritious meal we headed back down the street to the underground train station and got a $1.50 ticket to go to a district called 'the Mission' to see some so called good murals but the were pretty dissapointing and the Mission itself was pretty 'sketchy' as our Canadien mates from Hawaii put it, it was a Mexican and Spanish community with some pretty dodgy looking side streets and people, so we got out of there pretty quick. We only had to walk a couple of blocks and we in the Castro which is the gay area, Banana u would have been proud of us, it was actually quite nice and Bek loved it, not too sure wether it was her first bagel that she loved or the Castro but either way she was happy.

Next we came back to the main 'strip' and caught a traditional San Fran cable car up the steep streets all the way to the top to Fishermans Wharf. It was bloody freezing and the wind was sooo cold and we definately were not prepared for it, had a jumper and shorts on and bek didnt have much more. The cold aside it was a nice place we went to one of the piers which has floating wooden platforms in the water with about 200 sea lions all over them. They were howling and snapping at each other and crawling all over each other which was pretty funny so we took some photos and watched them for a while. we then had some dinner, i had a massive piece of pizza, another healthy meal, and Bek finally got to try Clam chouder which was served in a big sour dough roll which she enjoyed very much. After we ate we headed back to the hostel n relaxed cause we knew we had another big day comin up, but again struggled to sleep, the kareoke music from downstairs at the hostel blaring till 1:30 in the morning didnt help and then the staff congregating RIGHT outside our room was even worse so Bek put on her best mum voice and asked them to leave which seemed to work, i would have moved too!

Today was busy we had a movie tour this morning after our bagel breakfast which took us to some sights where a lot of movies were filmed, Majority were made well before our time so i think you oldies reading would have enjoyed it(parents being the oldies) but still saw some cool sights and got some amazing photos of the golden gate bridge and surrounds, we saw lombard street (the crookedest street in the world) the Full House house which was Beks main inspiration for the tour, we saw the painted ladies which is a row of colourfully painted victorian houses so that was cool, Mrs Doubtfires house and we went through the rich part of town which had some huge houses and on the way back passed through china town and north beach(little italy).

This afternoon we went on our Alcatraz night tour which was awesome and very interesting. We got free headphones for an audio tour which walks you through the jail and has a lot of commentary from ex prisioners and guards which was cool. Learnt a bit about some of the notorious criminals that stayed like Al capone, Machine gun Kelly and some creep called the birdman of alcatraz. Was freezing again waitinf for the ferry back and on the way home even though i had jeans, a singlet, a t-shirt, and 2 jumpers on, and bek had the same, you will notice in the photos how cold we were and you might think we are wimps but the even the locals said it was cold. Just came back to our hostel after dinner which was Japanese, and very tasty and also the first good thing i had eaten in a while, and bek was very exited to eat soft shell crab for the first time. Just back at the hostel now doin some laundry and hoping know one will come into our room because we had to check out of our fancy pants private room and in with the commoners in the dorms.

We off to L.A tomorrow at 9:10 in the morning so better get to bed. Hope everyone is having fun at home without us.

speak soon Mike and Bek.