After the farce getting to San Fran, we finally arrived late at night and checked into the rather interesting Green Turtle hostel. The hostel has obvisouly been decorated once in the last 50 years and is run by an eccentric man with wonderful hair. Cleanliness maybe next to Godliness, but it isn't next to the Green Turtle kitchen, so we decided to spend our time in San Fran eating out.

We had a little longer in San fran, but started how we had finished in LA, by hitting the shops. We haven't won the lotto while we've been way, but spent most of our time pounding the streets in search of bargains and buying very little. After a few days of unsuccesful shopping, we had to broaden our horizens and went to the pub. A friend of a friend (Carolyn) lives in San Fran and took us to a place where you can buy beer and sausages. I loved it and want to open a chain in the UK when we get home! Much talk of weddings, baseball and unemployment was had (great fun I can tell you) and with more local info, we planned the next few days.

Stupidly, our next move was to hire push bikes. I put my foot down and insisted we hire them from the company with thebest name - Blazing Sadles - so we set off in a force 6 gale riding up and down the many hills of Norcal (or Northern California to anyone who speaks English). We managed to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, something I've wanted to do for years and head over the water. The Bridge is huge and really fun to ride across, despite the cross wind and hundreds of other users who got in my way. After successfully navigating the bridge we settled for a snack in a fancy water front bar, where the waiter was as ignorant as any on the whole trip! God bless America.

After we had dropped the bikes off, we had a walk around some of the other things San Fran is famous for. Hills. Lots of them. Walking up most of the hills is a challenege, but there is great reward in doing it, the views are spectacular. From some streets you can see out to Alcatraz, from others you can see over the bay and we had great fun trying to take pictures in funny angles to show how crazy it was. They also have "the most crooked street in San Fran", which surprisingly doesn't have any estate agents on it. It is a joke looking at the street, with twists and turns down a crazy hill, but it is a must see on any trip to San Fran.

After so much physical exertion in one day, we did the only thing we could. Went to the pub. The next day we saw a few more sights, none of which were allthat memorable. All good stuff and worth seeing,but not worth boring you with! Except for Alcatraz...

Nic is obsessed with prisons, or correctional facilities as the yanks call them, and this is probably the most famous of them all. We took the night time tour to see if it was scary (which it wasn't). The trip is fantastic. From arrival at the depature point to landing back at the main land, there is loads of info about "The Rock". They cover the films that were made about the place, inmates, staff, breakouts, food, pre-prison history and life after it shut down. There is an audio tour which talks you through some of the more colourfu moments of the islands history, before the "guards" tell you a few more stories - Al Capone went mad in there, 4 people who broke out have never been found, the land was once occupied by native americans and many more facts I can't remember.

Despite the great history of Alcatraz, my main memory of it is the cold! In LA, the temp topped 100F, similar to Fiji. In San Fran, a mere 6 hours up the road, the temp was lucky to push past 20 and that's midday. Try being on a island as the sunsets. Freeeeeeeeezing! If most of the photos look a little shaky, that's because of the shivering we're both doing. We had every warm t shirt, jumper, vest... anything we could find and it was still cold. I'm just glad I didn't have to spend a winter or 15 there!

San Fran was, and is, a great place. It feels more homely than LA and has an atmosphere about it. As with all the US cities we've visited, we always felt safe, but that probably comes from how expensive the beer is over here! No one can afford to get drunk. It's a shame!

The one blemish on San Fran was the utter shambles at the airport trying to leave. We booked with Air Canada to fly to Calgary, but they share a flight with United Airlines. UA had intorduced a new automated check in system, changed their policy on number of free bags on the flight an evidently not told the customers or staff. Que carnage at the unmanned check in desks while the few staff on duty were hung, drawn and quartered by the punters. We had to argue with the guy to get our bags checked through free of charge (Air Canada has a different policy to UA), only then tobe magically selected for extra security checks...

Step forward the pointless Department of Homeland Security! Apparently random screening means a guyin a turban, a buddhist, us two and anyone else who could perhaps be a terroist! Every person we asked why we had been selected gave a different answer, to the point where we laughed our way through the tests. Eventually we were cleared for take off, and given a bag of pretzels on a 4 hours flight. Next time I'm going Business Class just to get the meal!

Calgary, here we come...