San Francisco is a very odd place when you first get there! Especially if it's early in the morning following another overnight Greyhound hell-bus. As we walked to our hostel/ bedsit/ halfway house/ prison (more on that later) we were welcomed by San Fran's finest downs and outs (Judi, what is the collective noun for a group of homeless people? Can I just say that it felt like a swarm...). Literally, it felt like every vagrant, tramp and 'bum' in America had been forewarned of our arrival and that we would DEFINITELY have carrier bags full of dollar notes to hand out willy-nilly. Seriously, at one point Tom was running around the street screaming "Trudy, swat it, it's in my hair"...

We made it past the army of the homeless to our hostel, and oh my, what a hostel! We were shown to our room and I honestly think that we were less impressed than when we were presented with the corridor-curtain combo in Lafayette! It was utterly dire. After 10 minutes Tom found a bedbug (actually looks quite cute by the way) and so the owner moved us to another room. In this room we met a new breed of bedbug, this one doesn't wash, sleeps in clothes which are the same clothes worn for a week and stinks like a bin (the kind that even Sir Crazy at the No. 9 bus stop in Austin wouldn't be seen dead kicking). I believe that the Latin name for this creature is 'Useless Dirty Fecker'. Horrible. We had to endure this cretin for 4 days and it drove us almost to tears. Sweaty tears of stink...

Other than the above, San Fran was brilliant fun. We went to Alcatraz Island (Trudy: "Was Alcatraz America's Australia then?"), we saw a lady taking her Bengal cat for a walk, we walked on the World's wiggleiest road (see pictures), we went to see the prices for engagement rings in Tiffany's (just out of curiosity), we fed wild parrots while they were perched on our arms (Trudy was terrified but overcame the fear), we conformed to cultural stereotypes and drank green tea in China Town, and we also bumped into two Welsh girls (Sam and Harriet) in Starbucks whom we'd met in Flagstaff - small world or what! We also saw one of the previously-mentioned homeless people holding lots of leaves and twigs together and wondered what he was doing with them? It became clear very quickly that he was using them to hide and then jumping out and growling at random pedestrians. As you do...

On Tom's 30th birthday (gifts and money orders can be addressed to Tom Sandland, Norwich) we hired bikes (space-aged compared to the bikes we hired in Tucson) and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge along with sisters Sam and Harriet and tried to take some comedy jumping pictures in the redwood forest (be jealous Will you tree-nerd, that's the only reason we were there!). We also got a ferry back to San Fran, although Trudy says thaty this particular piece of information is unnecessary and boring.

In the words of Alan Partridge (yet again): "And on that bombshell...."