Hello folks,

We were one member down as we arrived in San Francisco, but Katie was spending her last night in Vegas watching the phantom at the Venetian hotel which was meant to be amazing. The flight over was an experience in itself, my dad's not the best with flying so when the flight attendant started to go through the safety procedures before we took off it went something like this........."life jackets are under the seat, fasten seat belts, exits are somewhere over there and in case of emergency................BLAH BLAH BLAH we've heard it all before........LETS FLY!!!"We all looked at each other in shock before bursting out laughing, is this guy for real??? It didn't make you feel very safe and to make things worse there was a cockroach crawling across the cabin roof and it went behind my dad's chair out of sight, so during the whole flight when he was looking out the window we would tickle him on the leg or back of the ear and he would nearly jump out his skin; without fail!!

Once we landed we found out that Alan was sat next to a Mormon and we know how Alan likes to make friends and spent the majority of the flight correcting the Mormon on his views about the bible; it was a load of poppycock! Haha This Mormon was wearing a tracksuit and a cap so Alan happily told him that in England he would be known as a chav!! Poor fella has just been told all his views are rubbish!! haha

When we arrived the first thing we noticed was that it was bloody freezing. It's amazing how we came from Vegas which was 90+ degrees to a state that's only a 1hr flight away and the temperature can drop 30 degrees to 60 and that's on a good day. We had a nightmare finding our hotel which meant we had a mini tour around the city and we were shocked at how many tramps there were. We finally found our hotel under all the scaffolding haha but inside it was lovely, a place me and Lou could only dream of if it wasn't for our parents! We arrived near midnight so we just went to bed for the night!

Free coffee, tea and hot chocolate in the morning made us get up early, haha most of the time the hot chocolates were brought to us in bed to entice us to get up!We managed to score a great deal on the big red tour bus for the week and spent the first day sightseeing on the open top. We headed for Chinatown and it was mother's day in the USA so our mums got to celebrate it twice this year, we found a nice Chinese restaurant and the meal was going so well until my dad had mistaken a flaming chilli for a 'caramelised onion' and started getting the sweats however he did use the turn table to his advantage and spun it round to collect the glasses of water one after the other...............gulp, gulp , gulp!! It took him a good 20-30 minutes to recover.........just in time for dessert............ice cream and 'fortune' cookies (the hint is in the title) haha

My dad watched over the table at Alan opening his cookie he snapped it in two with bits of cookie flying everywhere............after seeing this failed attempt by Alan he opted for a more sophisticated method..........down in one......... as he's chewing, relishing in his triumphant efficiency of cookie eating he comes to a sudden stop..............a puzzled look on his face. In the mean time we are all exchanging fortune's....................."oooo what does yours say?" .............then we were hit with the question of stupidity......"where did you get them from?" ......"are you kidding me dad there inside the cookie!!!!" haha ...........as he starts spitting out his chewed up soggy fortune in little clumps....most had already been consumed!

By the second day we pretty much knew the bus tour commentary word for word, same old jokes over and over again. Even though the weather was a drastic change from Vegas i can't say we ever got used to it but we weren't going to let it get in our way. The following few days we spent touring the city, there was talk of us going to Yosemite at one point but it would of been a big rush, so we gave it a miss in hope that me and Lou would do it at a later date. We went to the botanical gardens which has become a tradition between me and Lou, we always tend to visit them in every city mainly because there free and it's a good way to fill a day, San Fran's gardens were as good as the rest, just an all round mischievous day we did the good old sticky weed on our parents back haha.

We went to little Italy and spent the night dining out at one of the many Italian restaurants. We went over the iconic golden gate bridge which is impressive however there's another bridge about a mile away which is much bigger much longer and in my eyes more impressive but it doesn't get a mention, so I'm going to mention it, it's called Oakland's Bay Bridge.

One of the days we headed over to Alcatraz prison, you all have heard of that.......the prison that held the infamous Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly. You can see the prison from San Francisco quite easily. In my opinion that's how all prisons should be, the bare essentials. It was an audio tour and you donned the headset and did a self walking tour didn't take long before Lou got her left and rights mixed up and the cassette player was talking about the kitchen while Lou looks around the cells confused............."what kitchen......where???" eh!!! Haha The island also offers great views looking back on the skyline of San Fran. The best bit of the prison was the little windows overlooking the city and it's that near that on New Year's Eve all the prisoners can hear everyone partying back on the main land which was said to be sole destroying, having freedom within arm's reach! It claims to have an escape free record but three inmates did escape in the icy cold waters but were never found or so they say!!

We also visited Lombard street which is the crookedest (if that's even a word....Microsoft spell checker doesn't seem to think so) street in the world, it's been in a lot of movies. Half way through our trip we had to change hotels again backpacker policy!! Haha there was no availability at the same hotel for the rest of the week which was a bit guttering because it had free hot chocolate and coffee along with a free wine reception every night. We looked for ages but could only find one big family 'Focker' size room for the 6 of us haha it was like a penthouse suite with two big plasma T.V's, a living room and two double bedrooms with sharing toilet......uh oh!! We did have our doubts but turned out just swell!!

However get a load of this, every morning the parents used to get up and walk to the first hotel pretend they were still staying there just to get the free coffee haha if that's not backpacker style then i don't know what is!! We've taught them well!! The good thing about San Francisco is the array of different cuisines you can have, if you wanted you could eat food from a different country every night of the week. We sampled some Indian, Chinese, Italian and Lou harped on every night about going to this Thai restaurant, eventually the parents succumbed to the nagging and we went to eat, or so we thought. We sat on separated tables one, because it was a small restaurant and we got seated faster and two, to avoid the 6 person 20% gratuity fee haha, anyhow turns out they cooked with peanut oil so Lou was allergic and we weren't going to take the risk and by the time we went over to the parents table they had already ordered so after all that we just left and got something cheap.

The last couple of days we ate at the cheesecake factory above Union Square which had a heated roof top terrace overlooking Union Square which is the centre of San Francisco. However the two gingers mums weren't too happy with the bar tender and teamed up to use their super ginger courage and demanded the tip back..............the story goes like this we spent some time at the bar before we got a table and they clocked up quite a bar tab and the rule is in the states that you tip $1 per drink............stupid rule if you ask me!!! The bill came to about $75 and we paid $100 so she just kept the change and continued serving and didn't even look their way hoping they would just ignore it. But the new ginger besties were having none of it and got it back so she just slammed it on the table...........................even if that is the rule she should give the change back and it's up to the customer to leavewhat they want! Pishhhhh!

All in all we had a great time in San Francisco, could of been a little bit warmer and less wind but most of our enjoyment was just being with good company and having some great laughs. San Francisco itself was in my opinion overrated and could be seen in 3 days instead of seven, and the main thing about San Fran that everybody fails to mention is that ITS FULL OF TRAMPS!!!!!! EVERYWHERE!!! However not to leave on a bad note we spent the morning in our favourite breakfast bar and ordered up a nice hearty meal before we departed and had to start paying for our own food again haha I couldn't eat a thing, again so I boxed mine up for the road and we said our goodbyes as we rode off in the taxi only to be reunited in six weeks.

Love Adam and Louise xxx