Day 1: Heathrow

We all woke up with excitement and the delicious smell of English breakfast in our nostrils. It was cooked by lovely Sarah Hawes which is Lucy's mum. After a hearty breakfast and some last minute packing, a taxi turned up and took us to Heathrow.

We all went through the usual security checks in which is thankfully made easier by conspicuous absence of my three months old beard that I grew last time I went travelling. I however had a nasty encounter with aftershaves in Duty Free section as I got too carried away by free aftershaves by the time I emerged from the shop; I burned every nostrils within sixty miles radius with my overpowering eye watering collection of assorted aftershaves sprayed on me.

Eventually we all got on the plane and the flight was okay but there were zilch subtitles for the movies apart from some of foreign films but from what I watched, they have a quite long way to go before they can make it in Hollywood.

There was however an amusing incident on the plane when the seatbelt sign came on but there wasn't a turbulence in sight and after a quite long time Stuart decided to ask a lady stewardess about it and she confessed it was a ruse to flush out a couple who were making 'strange' noises in the cubicle!

Eventually we landed in San Francisco and a disaster strike immediately! James left his iPad in the plane and after he informed the check in staff of this event. Cleaners were dispatched to the plane and it wasn't found which meant someone got themselves a free iPad.

However we have to press on so after a taxi ride through San Francisco at night which I learnt that America businesses have a severe lack of an imagination when it comes to naming their brands- Extra Space Storage anyone? We arrived at Travelodge and after a quick meal of KFC- they have 100 options over there! We turned in for the night.